Category: Wedding Present

As mentioned last week, 1995 had closed with a Peel Session, during which four new songs were played.  It didn’t take all that long for the studio versions of the new songs to be available, thanks to the release of Mini, on Cooking Vinyl Records, on 22 January 1996.

The thing is, back in 1996, Mini was regarded as a mini-LP (so to speak), released on 10″ vinyl and CD.  In terms of the UK charts, it was listed in the album rundown, for one week only, at #92.   But it’s a release which appears on the official website as an EP, and as such I’m including it in this series.

All six songs have lyrics that are, for the most part, car-themed.  Not only that, but every single copy of the EP, whether on the limited edition pressing of 2000 on vinyl or the more widely available CD, came with a promotional card which offered the opportunity to win an actual Mini.  It wasn’t a brand-new car, but one that had been built in 1968 and had quite a few miles on the clock.  The draw for the car took place in Leeds on 12 April, some three months after the release of the EP….and I’ll get back to that after offering up the songs:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Drive
mp3: The Wedding Present – Love Machine
mp3: The Wedding Present – Go, Man, Go
mp3: The Wedding Present – Mercury
mp3: The Wedding Present – Convertible
mp3: The Wedding Present – Sports Car (mini)

Here’s the thing.

This is the period in time when I body swerved The Wedding Present.  I hadn’t been enamoured by Sucker and I thought the idea of flogging off a Mini to purchasers of the new EP was a sign of desperation.  As such, I avoided buying this, and indeed the next few releases that came out on Cooking Vinyl, only discovering them a few years later.  Turns out that I missed out on something of a lost classic, as there’s a great deal to enjoy on Mini, with the six tunes seeming to cover just about every aspect of the music the band had been making since first bursting into view. 

The six songs are credited to David Gedge/Darren Belk/Simon Smith, all of whom played on the release while along with new bass player, Jayne Lockey, who also added some backing vocals.   It wasn’t the final time Darren Belk would be credited on a TWP release, but it proved to be the last recordings, as he left prior to the band going into the studio in the summer to start work on what their next singles and what would become their fifth studio album.

The actual Mini?   As mentioned above, the draw took place on Friday 12 April, which was the final night of a five-evenings festival held under the BBC Radio 1 Sound City banner.   Each night had seen various bands take to the stage of either the Town and Country Club or Leeds Metropolitan University, and The Wedding Present headlined the latter on that final night.  Various Radio 1 DJs had been the compères at all the gigs, as well as broadcasting their own regular radio shows from the BBC studio in Leeds.  John Peel was joined by David Gedge after the live gig, and he was asked to make the prize draw:-

mp3: David Gedge/John Peel – Mini Prize Draw (Sound City 1996)

David Gedge, a short time after returning from the gigs in France, drove the car to the home of the winner and handed over the keys.

JC

Last week, I mentioned that the relative failure of Watusi, along with the re-recorded version of It’s A Gas, meant that the Island Records era was really over before it had begun.

In some ways, it was a strange situation as 1994 had been the year the band’s records had sold so poorly, and yet they were very prominent on the bill of the Reading Festival, albeit not playing the biggest of the stages:-

1995 proved to be a transitional year.  Live shows, to begin with, were few and far between.  An 8-date tour of France in March before 4 shows in the UK (Leicester, Huddersfield, St Helens and York) in mid-June.  There were then 5 festival appearances in July.  The strange thing for fans was that these shows saw The Wedding Present perform as a three-piece band, as guitarist Paul Dorrington had quit at the start of the year.

A ‘proper’ tour was scheduled for November/December – 15 dates in England plus one in Newport, Wales – prior to which Jayne Lockley became the first woman to join the band. Jayne played bass, which meant Darren Belk switched to guitar. 

The tour coincided with the release of the first new 45 of the year.  It turned out to be a self-released single, only available in the UK at the shows during the November tour or by mail order, although two small record labels – Merge and Siesta – took on the task of giving it a physical release in America and Spain respectively.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Sucker

Not being available in any shops, it was never going to chart, thus bringing to an end the run of 20 successive 45s that had gone at least Top 75.  

Sucker isn’t the most memorable of singles, and at just over 100 seconds in length, there isn’t all that much to it.  For all that it was only available at the live shows or by mail order, it’s not all that difficult to find on the second-hand market at a relatively low cost, which I think gives a fair indication of what most fans think of it. 

The b-side was a cover:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Waiting On The Guns

The original dates from 1994, and was written and recorded by Butterglory, a little-known indie band from Kansas, who were also on Merge Records.  It’s a bit more substantial than Sucker, and while it does have a certain charm in places, it isn’t the most memorable or unusual of covers.

I think it’s fair to say that The Wedding Present were in danger of becoming a bit of an irrelevance in terms of the big picture….much of the band’s core fanbase had moved on, albeit there was still much love on offer from John Peel for whom they recorded an eleventh session in December 1995, offering a tantalising glimpse of new material scheduled for release on a new label in the new year. Worth mentioning that December 1995 was when John Peel was the subject of the long-running TV show This Is Your life, and David Gedge was one of the surprise guests invited to come on and say a few words.

JC

Before we get to the 28th single, please have a listen to this:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – It’s A Gas

That’s the album version that you’ll find on Watusi. And given what I said last week about how Steve Fisk had been asked by the band to come up with a new, 60s influenced sound, it’s fair to say he got there with this one.

The thing is, there had been a critical and commercial backlash to Watusi and fans weren’t happy either.  The album had entered the charts the week after its release at #47 and then sunk without a trace.  For the very first time, since bursting onto the scene back in 1985, it seemed as if The Wedding Present had misfired.

In an attempt to rectify things, they went into a studio and asked Ian Broudie if he could work his magic on a track from the album, for potential release as a follow-up single.

mp3: The Wedding Present – It’s A Gas (single version)

It probably placated a few folk, but the damage was done.  Released on 12″ purple coloured vinyl, 7″ black vinyl, cassette and CD, It’s A Gas limped in at #71, and worse than that, failed completely to give the parent album any sort of boost.    The Island Records era was, in effect, over before it had really begun.

The 7″ had one other previously unreleased TWP song on it:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Bubbles

Recorded in Seattle but left off the album.  It’s a gentle number, totally stripped back in a near unplugged way.  There have been worse songs shoved on b-sides, but plenty that have been better.  There’s a backing vocal credited to Claire Elise Fisk, who I presume is the daughter of the producer. 

The 12″ and CD single had two more tracks, both recorded in Seattle.

mp3: The Wedding Present – It’s A Gas (acoustic version)
mp3: The Wedding Present – Jumper Clown

The former does exactly as it says on the tin.  It’s evidence that It’s A Gas is actually a damn fine pop tune….the difficulty that everyone had was finding the best way to record it.

The latter is a cover of a song that had been released by The Creepers in 1983.  It was one that had begun life as an unreleased instrumental by The Fall in the late 70s, and then resurrected by Marc Riley when he quit the band, with the lyrics very much geared towards taking the piss out of Mark E Smith‘s often dishevelled appearance (it was all in the days before Brix Smith appeared on the scene and smartened him up).  I think it was recorded with the intention of being a future b-side, with the sound being a hybrid of traditional TWP and the surf sound that was beginning to take hold in the Seattle studio.  It’s good fun, and the group certainly sound as if they enjoyed making it.

JC

It’s not that 1993 was a quiet year for The Wedding Present.  The gig history over at the official website shows:-

February:  2 UK shows in Carlisle and London, followed by 18 dates in France
March: 4 shows in Japan and one in Hong Kong
April: shows in Leeds and Sheffield
July: part of the bill at the Phoenix Festival in Stratford-Upon- Avon
September – 3 shows in France
October: 3 shows in the UK (Portsmouth, Windsor and Southampton) and 1 in France
November: 4 shows (Newcastle, Galashiels, Glasgow and Belfast)
December: 5 dates in Ireland, followed by a gig in Leeds.

I make that 45 gigs. It was a year in which Keith Gregory took his leave of the band. It wasn’t the first time he’d wanted to quit, but David Gedge‘s powers of persuasion finally failed to work. He was replaced by Darren Belk.  The Wedding Present now had just one original member left as part of its ranks.

Oh, and they were let go by RCA, which was no real surprise given that they never did play the game the way a major label would have expected.

The only release came courtesy of another hook up with Strange Fruit.  This time around the BBC vaults were raided for a CD/LP release called John Peel Sessions 1987-1990, issued in November 1993, just in time for the Christmas market.

1994 opened up with tours of France and the USA, but all the while new songs were being written and worked on for what would be the next album.  Undaunted by the RCA experience, the group signed to Island Records having arranged a budget that would enable the new material to be recorded in Seattle, with Steve Fisk, who was best known for his work on records released on Sub Pop and K, two of the hippest indie labels at the time.

The producer was given a specific brief by the group – ‘make us do something different and sound like a Sixties band’.  The first thing that anyone heard was a new single released at the beginning of September 1994, on 12″ vinyl, cassette and 2 x CDs.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

It was different.  And it was a bit of a jolt to the system.   Fans really weren’t quite sure what to make of it.  It was fast, and it had rhythm, as well as that unmistakable Gedge singing voice.  But isn’t that an organ to the fore?   What the heck……????

As it turned out, Yeah to the power of five set things up for the following week’s release of Watusi, the first fully-fledged studio album in more than three years.  It’s one which divided fans on release and still does 30 years on.  It has many lovers and many detractors.  I’m one of those who sits on the fence.

The lead-off single is fine in its own way, but such was the shock of the new sound, that I’ve never fully taken to it.  I wasn’t alone, as it only reached #51 in the charts, which must have been a bit of a sore one to take for a band who just a couple of years ago were regulars in the Top 20, albeit via a clever piece of marketing.

The 12″ and CD1 had three additional songs, two of which were originals, with the other being the now, much anticipated cover.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Le Bikini
mp3: The Wedding Present – Flame On
mp3: The Wedding Present – Him Or Me (What’s It Gonna Be)

Anyone scratching their head at the single probably had their jaws hit the floor when the 100 seconds of the instrumental Le Bikini came to an end.  It was surf-rock.  It was not anything TWP had attempted before.

Flame On was on ground that was a bit more secure, albeit the fast guitars were twisted around in a way that were a tad different.

One thing to note….after years when most songs were credited to ‘Gedge’, these three new tracks were attributed to ‘Belk/Dorrington/Gedge/Smith.’ The signs of a new democracy within the band? Or maybe it was really the case that everyone, working with a new producer in a new city, was contributing on an equal basis.

The cover?  It was of a 1967 hit single by Paul Revere & The Raiders.  I say hit single, but that would have been in their native America.  They might have been part of the music scene on that side of the Atlantic for the best part of 20 years across the 50s, 60s and 70s, but they rarely had their records played on UK radio stations, far less have any chart success.  The cover is OK as these things go, but again, it was hard to digest.

CD2 had three more songs.   They were lifted from a John Peel session that had been recorded on 22 March and broadcast on 16 April 1994.  None of these rang any alarm bells as they couldn’t be anything other than Wedding Present songs and there was no reason to think a drastic change of sound was on its way.  All three tracks would later be included on Watusi, but in two of the cases, in drastically different form to the session versions:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Gazebo (Peel Session)
mp3: The Wedding Present – So Long Baby (Peel Session)
mp3: The Wedding Present – Spangle (Peel Session)

There would be one further single lifted from Watusi, but given so much of the backstory has been told today, the posting on that should be a bit shorter.  Indeed, I might do a cut’n’paste from a few years back.

JC

I’m sure I read somewhere once upon a time that while David Gedge had no regrets about doing 12 singles in a year, he admitted to being relieved after the final recording session as the task had been more demanding from a songwriting perspective than he had anticipated.

The single released in November 1992 kind of reflects that.  It had only been a few months since Flying Saucer, a science-fiction inspired song, had been part of the series, but here was one on a similar theme.

mp3: The Wedding Present – The Queen Of Outer Space

I quite like this one.  It’s very reminiscent of some of my favourite bits on Seamonsters with the quiet-loud-quiet changes and there’s something of a shouty chorus too, a necessity to be heard above the loud guitars.  I’m not claiming it’s close to the top of any list of favourite 45s, but it’s one that I hear and think that it’s much better than I ever recall (if that makes any sense!!)  Here’s the promo, directed by Marco Posia.  By now, the limits of having small budgets are beginning to show, as it’s a variation on a theme of the band ‘performing’ in an unusual setting.

The previous sci-fi single had a sci-fi related cover. So did this one.

mp3: The Wedding Present -UFO

The theme tune from a UK science fiction series that was broadcast in 1970.  I don’t have too many clear memories of the show, and I certainly couldn’t recall the theme tune.  I’m guessing the show was aimed more at adults than kids, despite it coming from the same Gerry and Sylvia Anderson/ITC Entertainment stable as the puppet-led shows such as Joe 90, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlett, all of whose theme tunes I can still hum.

The Queen of Outer Space peaked at #23. It was a time of year when the number of new singles released each week gradually increased with eyes on the festive market sales.   Surely The Weddoes wouldn’t fall at the final hurdle?

mp3: The Wedding Present – No Christmas

Of course they didn’t, albeit this one, which was pressed on red vinyl, (all the others had been black vinyl), only hit #25 which was the second-lowest placing after Blue Eyes back in January.  It just shows the vagaries of the charts. Every single sold 10,000 copies, but their entry points varied between #10 and #26.

No Christmas must be up there among the bleakest festive songs ever composed. It opens in a very lo-fi and distorted fashion, and then about 30 seconds in, there’s a lyric, but it’s really low down in the mix, so it’s almost impossible to realise that David is singing:-

I wonder if you’re going to ask me why I lied
I wonder if you’re going to show you’re angry with me
I wonder if I could explain this if I tried
I wonder if I’m going to know when you forgive me

He sounds absolutely petrified.  Then there’s a single drum note and the song gets loud. That’s when the fear is replaced by desperation and an anguish which comes through in how the lines are sung.

When you forgive me, you forgive me, you forgive me
Will you stay with me, you stay with me, you stay with me?

And all those awful things you said at first
Don’t shout, I understand, you’re pretending to punish me
Well I’m listening, so do your worst
I don’t doubt that you’re mad but it can’t be ending

It can’t be ending, it can’t be ending, can’t be ending
You’re still pretending, still pretending, still pretending

Then it seems to come to be fading to an end about two and a half minutes in.  Indeed, the song apparently stops altogether, and then, like the scariest bits in a horror film, something jumps out of the shadows wailing helplessly:-

Don’t say we’ve reached the end; you can’t be right
For goodness sake, you must know I care about you
Please stay my best friend one more night
I couldn’t face another day alone without you

Alone without you, alone without you, alone without you
I care about you, I care about you, I care about you

Alone without you, alone without you, alone without you
I care about you, I care about you, I care about you

And then, after what seems like an eternity, it stops and the listener can draw breath.  There’s very few Wedding Present songs quite like this….it was a helluva way to bring the epic series to an end.  I really hope this was one of those where David used his imagination rather than leaning on real-life. 

Here’s the very claustrophobic but effective promo, directed by Philip Harder and Simon Blake.

The cover version couldn’t have been more of a contrast. 

mp3: The Wedding Present – Step Into Christmas

One of Elton John‘s jauntiest numbers.  Specifically (and cynically?) written in 1973 with the intention of being a perennial.  It might only have made #24 when released, but more than 50 years later, it has notched up well over a million sales and probably just as many again streams, with it hitting the Top 20 every year since 2017…..last year it reached #2!

The Weddoes attack it with great gusto…highlighting its pop credentials all the way through.  One of the things I most enjoy about it is that the final minute or so is given over to an acoustic guitar, which is deployed in a very similar way to the Albini version of Brassneck.

1992 was a year in which The Wedding Present became better known than ever before, thanks in part to the four Top of The Pops appearances and their single getting played once a month on chart rundown shows, but it’s difficult to judge whether it increased the fanbase. The fact that they no new material would emerge until 1994 makes it even harder to judge.

JC

We’ve reached September and October 1992.  

By now, it is clear that The Wedding Present are indeed going to equal the record of Elvis Presley with the achievement of 12 Top 30 singles in a calendar year.  David Gedge had said/sang as much with his ‘Nothing Can Stop Us Now’ line thrown in during the performance of Flying Saucer on Top of The Pops back in July.  And unless they’ve already been lucky enough to have picked up a new 7″ every month, the fans could relax in the knowledge that a second compilation was inevitable and not lose any sleep about trying to get the songs…..I don’t have much to ever say that’s positive about the digital/streaming era, but at least things never really sell out completely. It was quite different in 1992.

Single #9 was another slow but noisy one.   A few months previously, there had been a song about threesomes….this time round it was all about a willingness to be dominated.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Loveslave

This is another that I can take or leave, depending on the mood I’m in.  There’s enough passion and noise to make it a good listen.  My problem is that I can’t take the song too seriously after seeing the promo video, directed by Nick Small, a few months later when I bought a VHS copy of Dick York’s Wardrobe.

Paul Doddington, in an interview given to an author a few years back, said:-

‘The videos were very limited in budget, and a bit hit and miss really.  There’s a fine line between lo-fi arty and just rubbish – there were a few that some of us felt were the wrong side of that line…..’

Indeed.

I remember telling Rachel that the next b-side was to be a David Bowie cover, which got her quite excited.  Twenty guesses later, and she gave up trying to work out what it would be:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family

The original closes off the 1974 album, Diamond Dogs.  It’s only a couple of minutes long, and it’s one of those bits of music that really needs to be listened to in context around the rest of the album to be best understood.   The lyric is a six-times repeated chant:-

Brother
Ooh-ooh
Shake it up, shake it up
Move it up, move it up

and ends with the word ‘brother’ repeated in a “stuck-needle effect”.   It really is one of the strangest choices for any band or singer to cover, whilst trying to keep a straight face. At least we were spared the ‘stuck needle’ effect.

Loveslave reached #17, which, coincidentally, was the same chart position achieved by the very next single.

October 1993.   This was the third and last of the 45s I got at the time.  It just happened to be in a shop on the Monday lunchtime…. I hadn’t gone looking for it, but the rush and chaos of the early months was no longer seemingly a thing.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Sticky

A loud and boisterous number akin to so many of the best tunes up till now.  The fast guitars harked back to the earliest material, but the abrasive sound was more in keeping with the later songs.  It’s hard not to dislike Sticky, but it’s one of the few from 1992 that, in my mind, hasn’t aged as well as some of the others.  Mind you, it’s still a great track in the live setting. But the least said about the video the better…this one was directed by David Slade.

The b-side?   Well, it is very different….and has long been one of my favourites.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Go Wild In The Country

The pop element of the original is replaced by a sound that wouldn’t have been out of place on a bIG*fLAME record. It is angular to the point of almost poking your eye out, and it races along at a million miles an hour, only avoiding breathlessness thanks to the brief pauses prior to each new verse or chorus.  David Gedge sounds as if he’s having great fun yelping his way through the song….it’s impossible not to smile.

One more week to round off 1992.  I hope you’ll tune in at the usual time on the usual day.

JC

Mention was made previously that the 1992 run of singles were recorded in batches of three, as can be evidenced by Chris Nagle being in the producer’s chair for #1-3 and Iain Broudie doing a similar job on #4-6.

But here’s where it becomes a bit of a head-scratcher.   The next three singles, including the b-sides, should have been handled by the veteran American-born producer, Jimmy Miller whose name had recently become fashionable again from working with Primal Scream.   I have no idea what went wrong, Miller was the producer for the next two singles, after which the duties were taken over by another American, Brian Paulson, who ended up doing the final four 45s

And to complicate things further, one of the two A-sides produced by Miller wasn’t included in later releases of Hit Parade 2 which brought together all the 12 tracks on the singles issued between July and December 92, with a different version, produced by Paulson replacing it.

All of the above only became known in the weeks and months afterwards.  On the surface things seemed to be going really well, with single #7, released on Monday 6 July, proving to be a good, if not brilliant, one:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Flying Saucer

Despite only entering the charts at #22, which was quite a few places below any of the most recent five singles, an invite came up for a fourth Top of The Pops appearance in 1992:-

It has to be said that this was the most surreal and funniest of the appearances.  It was also strange that the performance was restricted, being some two minutes shorter than the length of the actual single…..and the final two minutes in which there is a guitar outro that’s not too far from the Bizarro days is the best thing about the 45.

There was nothing to be gained from the group being on the Top of The Pops….anyone who tuned in and thought they liked it so much that they should rush out and buy the single the next day would be wasting their time, given it had already been deleted!  No invites were extended for any of the remaining five singles.

If you’re perhaps pondering where the idea was hatched for the outfits on Top of The Pops, then check out the promo video, directed by Jenny Aleksandrowicz:-

The b-side has its own outer space theme, which is probably why it was selected.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Rocket

The original dates from 1974 and was recorded by Mud, a sort of glam-rock/strange pop combo who were stupidly popular in the UK that year, with #1 hits in Tiger Feet and Lonely This Christmas and a #2 hit in Dyna- Mite (all of which drilled their way into my 10/11 year-old memory bank, never to vacate their place) and a #6 hit in Rocket, which I cannot for the life of me recall.  Anyways, this version is not The Weddoes finest moment (and that’s me being kind and polite).

Fast-forward four weeks to Monday 3 August.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Boing!

This is another of the singles that I never quite took to…..and yet it was one of the three that I picked up during the calendar year.  It starts out promisingly enough as a potential classic Weddoes break-up slow song, but then it seems to go all over the place with a really dreadful chorus. 

Here’s the video, as included on the compilation Dick York’s Wardrobe, a VHS collection that was released in early 1993 (with the voice-over being from none other than Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman).

There’s another video kicking around on t’internet.  It’s for a version of Boing! that’s about two minutes longer….and where the original take on things was quite moody with its black and white and serious looking group performance, this one has a more literal interpretation:-

This is the one which appears on The Weddoes official channel.    I have no idea what’s going on!!!

The b-side to Boing! was audacious. 

mp3: The Wedding Present – Theme From Shaft

The original dates for 1971, written, recorded and sung by Isaac Hayes. 

The wah-wah pedals had never been so heavily utilised before, or indeed since.  And just have a listen to the backing vocals.  A total one-off.

Today, I think it works……..but I reserve the right to change my mind if I’m feeling a bit more grumpy about life.

JC

The next two in the series are Ian Broudie productions and are well removed, sonically, from the Seamonsters era.   It turned out that #5, released on Monday 4 May, was one that I did get my hands on as I wasn’t at work that day and found myself up bright and early and into one of the HMV stores in Glasgow to get my hands on one of the 10,000 copies in shops across the UK.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Come Play With Me

It’s something of a song of two halves.   The first part, of about two-and-a-half minutes duration, is fairly acoustic in nature, with a few loud electric guitar flourishes, with a mid-paced tempo. The final two minutes are much faster and slightly louder as David Gedge pleads that his old relationship is over, and he’s now ready, nay make that desperate, for a roll in the hay.      It’s all rather brilliant, if slightly unorthodox.  When played live nowadays, there’s always a huge sense of anticipation as the song nears the tempo change.

This one reached #10 – an indication that not too many new singles were released in the first week of May 1992, but at long last The Weddoes could boast of having a big hit, if such things are defined by chart placings.  It proved to be their only Top 10.

No Top of The Pops appearance this month.   But here’s the promo. Directed by Jeremy Hibbard, it’s one of the best of the 12 from across the year:-

The cover?

mp3: The Wedding Present – Pleasant Valley Sunday

Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, this had been a Top 3 hit for The Monkees back in 1967, and was well known by everyone of a certain age in the UK thanks to endless, but welcome repeats, on BBC, of The Monkees TV series throughout the 70s and into the 80s.  It’s another fairly faithful take on the original, right down to the extended outro with reverb and echo.  I love it.

8 June 1992 was the date of the release of the sixth single.   Of equal importance, it was the same date when Hit Parade 1 was issued.   Looking back on it, the idea of just 10,000 vinyl singles per month, with all the expense involved, was never going to wash with RCA, so there must have been a plan from the outset to issue compilation CDs.   Hit Parade 1 brought together all 12 tracks that had been issued between January and June 1982, including the newest of them:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – California

The fact that more than 30 years later, this is still often used to open live shows, demonstrates just how much David Gedge thinks of it and, of course, it is one much beloved by fans of all ages and from all eras of discovering the group.  It is one of the most sing-along of all their tunes, and its acoustic(ish) nature again exposes the myth that all the songs sound the same.

It went in at #16.  It led to another Top of The Pops appearance, one in which David poked some fun at a certain t-shirt that was all the rage among the indie crowd that summer.

This month’s promo was directed by Tim Riley.

For the sixth of the covers, The Weddoes turned to one of their peers from the C86 era. 

Close Lobsters were quite often referred to as the Scottish equivalent of The Wedding Present.  They had formed in 1985, been part of the NME C86 compilation, had signed to an indie label and enjoyed a degree of cult status.  But where Gedge & co had made the shift to a major label, Close Lobsters called it a day in 1989 after two albums and seven singles of very decent quality.  They have since reformed – it was in 2012 to perform at a couple of overseas pop festivals as well as a gig in Glasgow – since when there has been some new material in the shape of EPs and an album.  They are on the bill to perform at the Edge of The Sea Festival this coming August. 

mp3: The Wedding Present – Let’s Make Some Plans

The cover has helped make this the most popular and well-loved of all Close Lobsters songs.  It was originally released as a single in 1987, and got to #17 in the Indie Charts.  The TWP version is a bit harder-edged and louder than the original which, by any sort of measurement, is an indie-pop classic.

Worth mentioning that Hit Parade 1, which was also issued on vinyl, reached #22 in the album charts in June 1992. 

JC

I didn’t even try to pick up singles #3 and #4 on the first Mondays in March and April 1992.  But as mentioned a couple of weeks back, I’ve got them here at Villain Towers, thanks to the eventual growth in buying second-hand vinyl online a few decades later.  And neither were all that expensive.

I might have thought Go-Go Dancer was a rare misfire, but the run of 45s over the next few months turned out to be a glorious one.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Three

It was ingenious to have the song title match the third 45 in the series match, although I remember saying at the time that the next one better not be about a stray golf shot….

Three has long been one of the most popular songs among the fanbase.   In anyone else’s hands, this could have come out just sleazy and sick-inducing as some sort of anthem for swingers.  Instead, there’s a dark humour about the desperation of the protagonist wanting to get something just a bit kinky and different to spice up their sex life.  And as he had done so on countless previous occasions, David Gedge needed to explain that not all of his songs were written out of personal experiences and circumstances, and indeed, most came from his vivid imagination.

The cover version this time was quite inspired

mp3: The Wedding Present – Think That It Might

It’s a great take on what is really quite an obscure album track by Altered Images that was on the 1982 album Pinky Blue.  It wasn’t the first time they had covered one of their songs with Happy Birthday being part of a Peel Session back in 1988 but in this instance they have taken something and made it sound as if it was a TWP original.

Three went in at #14, and it secured another Top of The Pops appearance, one which many years later was part of a repeat show on BBC Four in high definition:-

And here’s the promo, directed by Andy Wilson.

The following month saw the release of this as the 45:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Silver Shorts

With an intro that harked back to the beloved earlier material, Silver Shorts was a bit different from the sort of sounds of the past 18 months or so. More pop than rock, with David trying a bit of a falsetto vocal.  There was a change of producer on this one, with it being handled by Ian Broudie, which is perhaps one of the main reasons why this one, and indeed the other two singles he would be involved in, were more radio-friendly than normal.

It really is rather wonderful and well-deserving of its #14 placing, which matched that of Three, but, sadly, didn’t see them invited onto Top of The Pops. Here’s the promo:-

This one was directed by Judith Carter.

The b-side this month was a brave choice.  I’ll ‘fess up and say that it’s not one that I’ve much time for, but then again I was never a fan of the original, nor did I ever get into the TV programme for which it was the instrumental theme tune:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Falling

Julee Cruise had enjoyed a #7 hit with the original in late 1990.  A couple of later singles skirted the Top 60, but that was the extent of her success.   The Weddoes version is nearly six minutes in length, and fair play for doing something unexpected, but it’s not for me.

JC

Monday 3 February 1992.   The quest to pick up a copy of the new Wedding Present single wasn’t as intense as the previous month.  I think we gave up after visiting the three shops closest to our office.

In due course, when the first of the compilation CDs were released in June 1992, I wasn’t all that bothered that I had missed out on this one as I felt at the time, and still do, that it was a rare misfire in terms of singles

mp3: The Wedding Present – Go-Go Dancer

There’s really not much of a tune and the lyric, while concerning itself with the dreams of a lovelorn individual, is a bit on the convoluted side.   

The b-side was a Neil Young song, originally released in 1975 on the album Zuma, which he had recorded alongside Crazy Horse:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Don’t Cry No Tears

I only knew the song thanks to it having been covered by Teenage Fanclub as a b-side to Everything Flows, that had come out the previous year.   I thought the Weddoes version was better but in saying that, I would eventually discover that neither of them come up to the original when I became a very very very very very late convert to some of Neil Young’s material.

Go-Go Dancer entered the charts at #20, which was, at the time, the highest placing for any TWP 45.  There was no invite to Top of The Pops this time, but here’s the budget promo:-

This one was directed by Phil Taylor.

JC

Just before 1991 came to a close, The Wedding Present released details of an audacious plan that would, if successful, put them on a plateau with Elvis Presley.

The King had, since the late 50s, held the record of the most Top 30 hits in a calendar year.  TWP were determined to match this, and would do so by releasing a brand-new single, on the first Monday of each month.   Only 10,000 copies of each single would be pressed up, all on 7″ vinyl only (which must have had the RCA execs pulling their hair out in despair given that CD singles were becoming increasingly popular and profitable).  Each single, which would consist of a TWP original on the A-side and a cover on the B-side, would be deleted the following day, and the calculation was that the 10,000 copies selling out in the blink of an eye would be enough to ensure Top 30 status for one week only.

It was a great plan, but there were serious flaws as soon became evident on Monday 6 January as loads of fans were left unable to get their hands on a copy of the single with shops all only getting a small number.   I was working that day, in Edinburgh, and myself and Jaques the Kipper spent an extended lunch break going round everywhere we knew, chain stores and smaller shops alike, only to be constantly told that the stock had sold out.   The same thing happened the following month, which led me to abandon plans to get out to the shops each Monday.  Before the year was out, I did have three of the 12 singles – I had a couple of Mondays where I wasn’t working and could get to a shop in Glasgow for it opening, while towards the end the demand had eased a little bit, partly because CD compilations of the singles and the b-sides meant there were other ways to get your hands on the songs.

(Spoiler alert.   I’ve since procured copies of all the singles that I didn’t have at the time, and the original vinyl will be getting used to supply the music over the coming weeks).

The group also announced that each single would be accompanied by a video, all to be made at a really low cost of £3000 per promo, with the group asking young, independent filmmakers to submit ideas and storyboards. 

David Gedge has since said that, in an ideal world, he would have been able to use  a different producer for each single, but the expense and practicalities of doing so were prohibitive, and so they were recorded over four different sessions…..

I’m intending to also, for reasons of time, bundle up some of the 1992 singles, but with this being such a long and rambling intro/backstory, I’ll limit myself today to the first in the series.

One of the things that really pissed me off about not getting this back in January 1992 were that the TWP original was a very fine song, taking up where Seamonsters had left off, albeit there was a new producer involved.  Chris Nagle was a legend to those of us who loved Factory Records, having worked alongside Martin Hannett on many of the seminal records.  He was part of the fabric at the famous Strawberry Studios in Stockport, and although no fans knew it at the time, he would be at the helm for the first three of the singles.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Blue Eyes

The other thing was not being able to listen to the b-side, a cover of one of my favourite records of all time.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Cattle and Cane

It’s a very decent take on things, which is high praise given how that I feel the original version by the Go-Betweens is so very special.  The Weddoes stick to the basics and don’t try and do anything flashy with it.  The one big difference being that the lyric is very much what had been sung by Grant McLennan back in 1982, and there was no attempt  to reproduce Robert Forster‘s spoken contribution.

Blue Eyes reached #26.   This would prove to be the worst chart placing across the next 12 months, so I’m assuming 10,000 sales in the first week in January had stiff competition with folk going out and spending Christmas money/gifts on singles that had been in the charts over the previous weeks.  It was the highest new entry in the charts that week.

It got them an appearance on Top of The Pops in which David sang ‘live’ over a backing track, but didn’t take his guitar playing all that seriously.

One peculiar thing to mention.  

Blue Eyes was still in the charts the following week, at #56.  This is perhaps an indication that the distribution hadn’t gone exactly accordingly to plan, and some shops were late in receiving their copies. But all 10,000 copies were sold….

Remember the bit earlier about the cheaply made promos?

This one was directed by Mark Turner.

Quick word re the quality of this one.  It was the hardest of the singles to track down online and the copy I’ve ended up with is less than pristine.  All the other singles (with one exception, which is a bit crackly in places) are in better condition and will sound much better.

JC

I’d long believed that the executives at RCA were quite satisfied that Seamonsters reached #13 in the album charts the week after it was released on 27 May 1991. Turns out I was wrong, as will be evidenced at the end of this week’s musings.

 Nobody knew it at the time, but it would prove to be the second and final studio album that the group would record for the label, and indeed no studio album by The Wedding Present would ever again get into the Top 20 – compilation albums would do well in 1992, but that’s for upcoming parts of this series.

Two months after the album hit the shops, an edited version of one of its songs was released as a second single, or more accurately, the lead track of a new EP:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Lovenest

It’s about a minute shorter, omitting the ‘beached whale’ guitar sounds that take up the opening 20 seconds of the album version, with the other 40 seconds being chopped off the lengthy outro, which on the album, segues majestically into the re-recorded version of Corduroy, a song that had been part of the 3 Songs EP.

There were no real obvious radio friendly songs on Seamonsters, and compared to previous singles, it was something of a low-key effort, issued on 12″ and CD only, with the same three new tracks made available on both releases:-

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Mothers
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Dan Dare
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Fleshworld

All three songs were engineered by Steve Albini, so I’m guessing it meant all the tracks recorded in Minnesota back in April were now in the public domain.

The first of them is a cover of song by the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience.  I have always been under the asumption that they was some sort of weird and underground 60s act, but it turns out they were an 80s/90s indie band from New Zealand, with Mothers being a track on a version of their 1989 album, The Size Of Food.    I’d love to tell you more, but I’d only be guessing.  One thing for sure, is that it does sound like a TWP original, with the anguished shouts of ‘you were going out with HIM!!!!!’

Here’s the original version:-

mp3: Jean-Paul Sartre Experience – Mothers

Dan Dare is a rare thing…..or was at that point in time….an instrumental.   It’s short and to the point, coming in at not much more than a minute-and-a-half.

Boring fact alert.  Dan Dare is the only song recorded in Minnesota that had more than a one-word title.  All ten songs on the album, plus the b-sides that were Niagara, Mothers and Fleshworld.  Talking of which…

……it’s another of the many excellent songs relegated to b-sides over the years.  This is one that I think must have come close to being included on Seamonsters, but then again, don’t ask me which of the tracks it would have taken the place of.

One final point to wrap up today. 

The sessions for Seamonsters weren’t all sweetness and light, and not long after the band returned to the UK, the decision was taken to sack Peter Solowka.  His place on the subsequent live dates was taken up by Paul Dorrington, which meant just two of the original members were now part of the group.  It was a sore one for ‘Grapper’ as can be seen from an answers he gave in an on-line interview in 2005:-

Q: Describe your time with The Wedding Present in five words:

A: “Thoroughly enjoyable life-changing journey”

Q: Tell us exactly why you left The Wedding Present?

A : ” I was kicked out! Officially this was for not being a good enough guitar player and not contributing enough to the song-writing (David still feels he needs to recite this story 14 years after the event). I’m not going to entertain this idea further by listing things that I’ve done. All I’ll say is that I know who I am and what I’ve been responsible for, and I can’t agree with this idea. 

“Reasons for actions such as this are complex but I am sure that it had a lot to do with the following. We had just recorded ‘Seamonsters’ – our (in RCA’s opinion) ‘very difficult’ third album. RCA needed something that would increase sales beyond our fanbase and although we were really happy with the album, it was clear to us that there was no ‘mega hit’ there. We knew we’d have to face their disapproval. Also, the Ukrainian music was still generating interest, at times deflecting interviewers from the current records we were trying to promote. As I was the Ukrainian link, they thought this problem would go away when I did. I feel I was made a bit of a scapegoat for the band’s failings.

“David, Simon and Keith did not consult me about any of my wishes or plans, even though we’d been on the same team for five years. I was especially disappointed with David as we’d been friends since school. After twenty years, I expected a lot more from him.”

———

Peter would continue to write, record and play music with The Ukrainians as a fully-fledged band, and would later become a science teacher in schools.    In due course, the wounds did heal to some extent, with The Ukrainians playing at the second staging of the annual Edge Of The Sea festival back in 2010 and the eleventh staging in 2019.

And with that, we are about to hit 1992 in which TWP again took the record label by surprise.

JC

A slight deviation from the norm today.

Dalliance was the 13th single.  It was released in at the beginning of May 1991.  It reached #29.   It had been one of the songs recorded in April 1991 at the Pachyderm Recording Studio, which is located in the small town of Cannon Falls in rural Minnesota.

The first version of the song, however, had been aired in October 1990, during a session for John Peel, an occasion I’ve written about before:-

“I remember hearing something that night and just thinking how loud it was – loud as in just a total wall of noise. It was not the sort of sound I normally associated with the band.

It took until the release of the Peel Session box set in 2007 before I could relive those moments from all those years ago. Of the near 100 bits of music spread across the six discs, this was the first I played..I felt like a kid on Xmas Day getting the present they’ve been dreaming about for what seems like forever:-

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Dalliance (Peel Session)

Give it a listen. The noise that so startled me back in 1990 comes in at the 2 minute 21 seconds mark. It is just after the Boy David has poured his heart out – again – and said “after all you’ve done, that I’m so…I still want to kiss you.””

Dalliance is quite extraordinary.   A woman is walking away from an affair, deciding that her life is going to best spent with someone who, it is fair to presume, is her husband of many years.  Her lover is, understandably, distraught about it.  He recalls incidents from their time together, and in particular how she used to always bin his gifts and presents, because she was scared what her husband would say or do, and he does now finally realise that the two relationships were built on tissues of lies and at least one of them was doomed from the outset. 

Then, the kicker comes.  

You told him what he wants to hear and so you got another chance
But I was yours for seven years
Is that what you call a dalliance?

Seven years??   For fuck’s sake, that’s a helluva time for things to have been going on.   I can say that with some personal knowledge….the affair between myself and Rachel – we were both married at the time – was so intense that it all came to a head after four months, and we knew decisions had to be made one way or another.  Both marriages were soon over, and we’ve been together since February 1990.   There is no way either of us could have tried to keep things secret for seven years………..

I’m digressing.   But the fact this song was released in its recorded form just slightly more than a year later has always made me shiver.

The Peel version proved to be shorter than that which was released as a single

mp3: The Wedding Present – Dalliance

I’m not sure if the band, having listened to the results of the Peel Session, decided a change of pace was required. The studio version is even more intense….the wall of noise maybe doesn’t quite have the same shocking impact, but it then, thanks to the skills of Steve Albini, it then builds and builds and builds in a way that doesn’t happen on the Peel version and brings a whole new concept to how the group was now sounding.  Jingle-jangle in an indie-pop style no more……

I’ve recently read a contemporary review of Dalliance, as part of what was written for a review of the album Seamonsters.  I think it was from the pen of the late Dave Jennings, who wrote for the NME and Melody Maker:-

“Dalliance, the first item here, sets the unsettling tone, building slowly from a choked whisper to a desperate plea, before that astonishing avalanche of gritty noise sweeps away everything in its path.”

Seamonsters has long been my favourite TWP album.   Dalliance proved to be just one of ten pieces of perfection spread across the two sides of vinyl.

It was issued on 7″, 10″, 12″ and cassette.   Until pulling this series together, I only had the 12″, but I went onto Discogs for the 10″ so that, this time around, I can offer up the exclusive live track that was only available via that particular release:-

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Niagara
mp3 : The Wedding Present – She’s My Best Friend
mp3 : The Wedding Present – What Have I Said Now? (live)

Niagara was from the Seamonsters sessions, and it does feel like a good call not to have it on the album.  It’s not that it’s a poor song, but I find it hard to see where it would have fitted on without disrupting the perfect flow.

She’s My Best Friend is a cover of a Velvet Underground song, on which was the TWP contribution to the ten-song tribute album Heaven And Hell Volume One.  The other contributors were Chapterhouse, The Telscopes, Nirvana, Buffalo Tom, James, Screaming Trees, The Motorcycle Boy, Terry Bickers & Bradliegh Smith, and Ride.   It’s a very understated and gentle take on a very understated and gentle song.

The original version of the live track can be found on Bizarro.   It’s one that I’ve long liked, and so was very happy to go and find a second-hand copy of the 10″ single.

One more single was later lifted from Seamonsters. I’ll feature that next week.

JC

1990 was a year that The Wedding Present spent mostly on the road.   There was a substantial tour of North America from 10-29 June, with shows in Hoboken, Philadelphia, Washington DC, New York City, Boston, Providence, Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego.

There was a three-day gap between the Chicago and San Francisco shows, during which time the band went into the Chicago Recording Studio to meet up again with Steve Albini, the fruits of which were issued on a new single, which came out on 17 September. 

The 3 Songs EP was issued on 7″, 12″ and cassette, along with a limited edition 10″ which actually had four tracks on it and was given the very tongue-in-cheek title of All The Songs Sound The Same.

As I’ve only the 12″ in the collection, you will just have to make do with the 3 Songs from which the EP takes its name (which means you miss out on a live rendition of Take Me!, a track that had been originally issued on Bizarro).

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Corduroy
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Crawl
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)

Two originals and a cover of a #1 single for Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel back in 1975.   The two new TWP songs are outstanding efforts. There are many fans who have Crawl high up on their lists of all-time favourites, while I’ve always had a real love for Corduroy (both this, the original version, and the one which was re-recorded for the next album).

The cover song on this occasion also went down well with one particular Radio 1 DJ whose airing of it so regularly on his drive time show led many to think that it was the lead track.

The EP did chart, reaching #25 which was one place lower than previous single Brassneck.

The band were totally enamoured with the way Albini was working with them, and plans were made to work with him on the next album, which was scheduled for recording and release in 1991. 

*apologies for the initial error with the files, and thanks to those of you who brought it to my attention.  Sorted now!!

JC

A month after Kennedy had grabbed the indie-world by its lapels and given it the most almighty of shakes, the debut album via RCA was released. 

Bizarro didn’t disappoint, other than perhaps it peaked at #22 in the charts, the exact same position as the  Ukrainski Vistuip v Johna Peela mini-album.  The end of the year came, and The Wedding Present and Bizarro were both high up in all the readers polls in the UK music papers.

David Gedge has since said that Brassneck, one of what he thought would be the key tracks on the album, hadn’t quite turned out as he’d hoped, certainly when compared to its power and intensity in the live setting.   He had, for some time, wanted to work with American engineer Steve Albini, and so he floated the idea of recording an EP, with its lead track being a re-recording of Brassneck.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Brassneck

The new version was different in many ways.  It was still recognisably TWP, but Albini had trimmed about 35 seconds from the song, and given it more of a harder-edge rock sound.   And somehow, he seems to find a way in which the lyric’s full mixture of resentment, anger and regret come through.  It did help that one word from the original was changed near the end of the song.

No, I sent you that letter to ask you if the end was worth the means
Was there really no in-between?
And I still don’t feel better
I just wondered if it could be like before and I think you just made me sure
But then that’s typically you
And I might have been a bit rude but I wrote it in a bad mood
I’m not being funny with you
But it’s hard to be engaging when the things you love keep changing

Brassneck
Brassneck.
I just decided I don’t trust you anymore
I just decided I don’t trust you anymore

The first time you came over, do you remember saying then you’d stay for good?
No I didn’t think you would
Well we couldn’t have been closer
But it was different then, and that’s all in the past,
There…I’ve said it now at last!
You grew up quicker than me
I kept so many old things; I never quite stopped hoping
I think I know what this means
It means I’ve got to grow up
It means you want to throw up

Brassneck
Brassneck.
I just decided I don’t trust you anymore
I just decided I don’t love you anymore

Oh, I know you weren’t listening, were you?
Oh, just go, whenever you’d prefer to
I said it means a lot, when you use an old phrase
But then so what?
We can’t have it both ways
I know you’re not bothered are you?
Even so, I’m not going to argue
He won’t object; keep writing to me
Just don’t forget you ever knew me

Released in early February 1990, this reached #24 in the charts and led to an appearance on Top Of The Pops….in which the group played along enthusiastically with the miming that was required, while the singer looked totally bored and uninterested.  I don’t think it went down well with the folk at RCA, but once again it was the group’s way of showing that they were calling the shots.

As with Kennedy, this was issued on 7″, 12″, cassette and CD, with three other songs to pick up and enjoy.

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Gone
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Don’t Talk, Just Kiss
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Box Elder

Three absolute belters.   Sounded great then and sound just as good now, almost 34 years later. In keeping up with what was now becoming a tradition, one of the songs on the 12″ was a cover.  Box Elder was by an American band called Pavement who next to no-one had heard of.  Indeed, the label for Brassneck had to give hints, with it saying

‘Box Elder’ : Written by Pavement from Stockton, CA.

It’s now known that Pavement had not long played their first live show (December 1989) and Box Elder had been one of the songs on their debut EP Slay Tracks.  But with just 1,000 copies of the EP having been pressed, they were almost totally unknown.  It seems that the song had initially been picked up by Keith Gregory, TWP’s bassist, with everyone else agreeing it would make for a great cover.

Before long, John Peel got interested, and having aired the TWP version, he actively sought a copy of the original and began giving it regular spins on his show.  It was from there that Pavement took off in the UK and then further afield.

JC

The next 45 from The Wedding Present has proved to be the most popular of them all among the fan base.   But before we get to there, there’s a few more bits of the backstory needing to be told.

With the series focussing on the singles, I omitted to mention last week that a further album had come out on Reception Records in July 1988.  Tommy was a 12-track compilation of the early singles, b-sides and material from radio sessions.    It’s easy to forget that much of the early material was only ever pressed in relatively small numbers, so this was a good way of ensuring the ever-increasing number of fans wouldn’t feel left out.  Tommy reached #42 in the album charts, some five places higher than George Best had achieved.

Something from even further back also needs to be mentioned.

The band’s second John Peel session, recorded in October 1986, included a short instrumental called Hopak. This was a traditional song from Ukraine, the country of birth of the father of the band’s guitarist Pete Solowka, and often played as part of pre-gig tune-ups while touring.

From this, an idea emerged that they should return for further Peel sessions, in which the sets would consist solely of their versions of Ukrainian folk songs.  These duly took place in June 1987 and March 1988, with both sessions being so popular with listeners that they were each repeated on four occasions within short periods of time.  These sessions were augmented by two guest musicians – Len Liggins (violin/vocals) and Roman Remeynes (mandolin), with David Gedge more than willing to step back and concentrate on playing rhythm guitar.

The plan was then to release both sessions in mid-1988 on an EP via Reception Records, which you will recall was the label owned and run by the band.  However, the distribution company Red Rhino, on whom Reception and many other small labels relied, unexpectedly went bust.  Having weighed up all the options, including shifting to a new distribution set-up, The Wedding Present chose instead to close down their label and take up the offer that had been put to them by RCA Records, one of the world’s biggest major labels.

Cue the cries of ‘sell-out’ from the indie purists and music critics.  The band said publicly, and on more than one occasion, that they would be the ones dictating things to the label, with them having the final say on what would be released.

And, as if to prove this was the case, the first release via RCA Records, in April 1989, was a mini-album, on 10″ vinyl, called Ukrainski Vistuip v Johna Peela, consisting of the eight songs recorded over the two Peel Sessions.   This entered the charts at #22, proving just how more effective the major labels were with marketing, sales and distribution into the shops.

All of which takes us up to May 1988.   Another Peel Session is recorded, but this time it consists of four new and original TWP songs.   The excitement around the first releases under the RCA banner was really growing, with the previous sell-out shouts being largely forgotten.

It was late September when this hit the shops:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Kennedy

I’ve said before, but this is the point in time when I finally ‘discovered’ the band, after hearing this played on the radio during the Top 40 rundown.  I was hooked…….

Last year, a new book about TWP songs was published, in which fans contributed their stories as to why one was a particular favourite.  There’s hundreds of different tales on offer, but the song which was most nominated and featured was Kennedy.

And rightly so. It’s the song that made me a convert to the church of David Gedge, and I’ve been a faithful member ever since. I’m a regular attendee at the places of worship (ie gigs), and I’ll also contribute as and when required to the coffers (ie records, t-shirts, videos, CDs, etc).   It’s just such a tremendous tune, and the chorus (as such) is bonkersly brilliant…..too much apple pie indeed. 

Released on 7″, 12″, cassette and CD, there were three other songs to pick up and enjoy.

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Unfaithful
mp3 : The Wedding Present – One Day All This Will All Be Yours
mp3 : The Wedding Present – It’s Not Unusual *

Yes….the Tom Jones song!   The cover versions were becoming increasingly inspired.

Oh, and a special shout-out for Unfaithful.   A song that really deserved to be given a much higher profile than a b-side.   It could have, and arguably should have, been a single – one that would have demonstrated a slower and more melodic side to the band than they were known for at this point in time.

Apologies for the length of this post, but hopefully you’ll understand why it turned out that way.

Brevity will be the buzzword from now on in.

JC

Before 1988 came to an end, The Wedding Present once again hooked up with Strange Fruit, the commercial arm, musically, of the BBC, to release another 12″ single.

This time, it was from the Janice Long Show for a session recorded back on 20 April 1986 and broadcast on 15 May 1986.  Three of the songs were TWP originals, with the other being a cover from a band much associated with Leeds.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft (Evening Show Session)
mp3: The Wedding Present – Shatner (Evening Show Session)
mp3: The Wedding Present – My Favourite Dress (Evening Show Session)
mp3: The Wedding Present – I Found That Essence Rare (Evening Show Session)

The last of these was written and recorded by Gang Of Four and included on their 1979 debut album, Entertainment!   As covers go, I’ll suggest it’s just on the right side of OK, with the original angular guitar sound getting replaced by something just a bit faster, which means it’s all done and dusted in around 40 seconds less time.  

mp3: Gang Of Four – I Found That Essence Rare

This was the sixteenth in what was known as the Nighttracks series, but was the first to be given both a vinyl and CD release.  It didn’t chart, but then again it was really only aimed at hardcore fans and everyone seemed satisfied given that the versions of the TWP songs differed a bit from the studio versions, but I still can’t get used to there being no whistling on Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft.

What nobody knew at the time was that 1989 would take the band to a place of horror for many of their diehard and hardcore fans as they accepted an offer that was put to them by a major record label….

JC

A good indication of the standing the band had, even at such an early stage, can be seen from them being asked to contribute a track to Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father, an album produced by the NME to raise money for a children’s charity.   The album itself saw contemporary singers and bands record new versions of the songs on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club, which had been released back in 1967 by The Beatles.  It’s worth mentioning in passing that the album spawned one double-A sided single, one side of which featured the immensely popular Wet Wet Wet, thus ensuring it reached #1.   The other side of the single featured Billy Bragg‘s contribution to the album, which means the history books will always show that the Bard of Barking achieved something that very few of his contemporaries ever managed.

A couple of months later, in September 1988, The Wedding Present released their next single, one which came with something of a twist.   The standard 7″ offered up two brand new songs:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now?
mp3: The Wedding Present – Not From Where I’m Standing

The A-side is one of the finest indie-pop songs of the era.   It really benefits from the backing vocal provided by Amelia Fletcher whose voice had previously added so much to quite a number of the band’s songs but goes to an entirely different level on this particular release.

The B-side is another fast and frantic number that doesn’t vary from the tried and tested formula. 

There was a second 7″ single:-

mp3: Cadeau De Mariage -Pourquoi Es-Tu Devenue Si Raisonnable?
mp3: Cadeau De Mariage – Give My Love To Kevin (acoustic version)

Yup, David Gedge offers up the French translation of the new single.   If I’ve one criticism of it, then it’s down to the vocal delivery sounding a bit forced to fit in with the tune, and Amelia’s contribution seems lost.    It wouldn’t be the last time David would sing one of his songs in a foreign language, and I think it’s fair to say he got better with each effort.

The b-side more than makes up for any deficiencies.   Give My Love To Kevin was one of the outstanding tracks on the debut album, George Best, but here we are, almost 12 months on, being treated to a beautifully stripped-back take on things, complete with an accordion.   It was one way of demonstrating to the critics that TWP were far from one-dimensional.

The 12″ release of Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now?  dropped the French version and instead offered up the track the band had contributed to the Sgt. Pepper album.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Getting Better

David later explained why they got involved and why they did this particular take on the song.

“It’s a good idea and it’s a good cause.  It was a rush decision to do it, we were phoned up and the next day we rehearsed it and the day after we recorded it. I don’t like the original LP, to tell the truth, it’s not the greatest Beatles LP but that is one of the best songs. It’s a pop song. I’d have been in two minds about doing one of those strange psychedelic ones. We did it in our style, sped it up, turned up the guitars and rattled it out.”

Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now? almost gave the band their first real taste of charts success, singles wise. It reached #42, an agonising two places away from a name check in the weekly rundown on Top of The Pops. 

JC

Debut album George Best, released in October 1987, had been a hit.   The end of year polls in most of the UK music papers had The Wedding Present listed high in one category or another, whether it was best new band, best indie band, best band or best album. 

But for one person, the year ended on a sour note as drummer Shaun Charman was asked to leave the band.  It has since been admitted by all concerned that it could have been handled better, and Shaun himself says that while he didn’t deal with it well at the time, he has come to accept it was for the better.

The situation was only made public in late-January 1988 along with the news that another UK tour with an as-yet unnamed drummer (who would turn out to be Simon Smith) was taking place the following month as a way of promoting a new single.  The three remaining members of the band were given the accolade of a front cover by the NME around the time the new single came out:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm

I’ve always felt this marked a bit of a turning point in the way the songs were recorded and presented, with David Gedge‘s vocals much more prominent in the mix than previously.  A sign perhaps that he was finally getting much more secure about his abilities as a wordsmith?

This one came out on 7″, 12″ and CD, marking the first time a single had been released on that format.  As usual, the 7″ had one b-side, but the other formats had additional songs.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Nothing Comes Easy
mp3: The Wedding Present – Don’t Laugh
mp3: The Wedding Present – I’m Not Always So Stupid

Nothing Comes Easy was an unusual number in that it was a bit slower-paced than just about anything the band had released prior to this point in time, and with a running length of almost four-and-half minutes, it was one of their longest songs.   The other two songs were everything that fans had come to expect, with the mix of fast and frantic guitars accompanying lovelorn lyrics. 

I never thought I could live here on my own
But then I guess everybody’s got to live somewhere
Four tins of paint made this our home
Oh, I got less on the walls than I got in my hair

When we moved in here the dog was still a pup
Oh do you remember the time he chewed those curtains that we found?
I laughed the day you put them up
The day you left, I tore them down

(from Don’t Laugh)

It’s fascinating to look back and see how prolific the band were in those early days.  This was already the seventh single and there had been one album – and by my reckoning it meant 28 different songs were already out there, of which just two were covers.  I could easily come up with two ICAs on this early material alone.

JC

April and May 1987 saw The Wedding Present out on tour across the UK, mostly at student union venues, while the following month they were a late replacement, well down the bill, at Glastonbury after Red Lorry Yellow Lorry had to pull out unexpectedly.  Otherwise, the time was spent, writing, rehearsing and eventually recording the songs for the debut album.

A few weeks in advance of the album, a new single was released as a taster:-

mp3: The Wedding Present – Anyone Can Make A Mistake

 Maybe it was around this time that someone cracked the line ‘all the songs sound the same’, to which the smart reply has to be ‘maybe….but it’s a helluva song isn’t it?’  Anyone Can Make A Mistake didn’t deviate too far from the tried and tested, but perhaps the one minor criticism on offer is that it wasn’t quite as brilliant as My Favourite Dress (but then again, what possibly could be?)

This one came out on 7″ and 12″, as well as on cassette, which was a limited edition with a free Reception Records badge.  The 7″ had one b-side, but the other formats had two additional songs

mp3: The Wedding Present – All About Eve
mp3: The Wedding Present – Getting Nowhere Fast

The interesting thing about the latter is the fact it’s a cover version, something that the band would increasingly become famed for in the succeeding years. This one is of a song originally released back in 1980 by Girls At Our Best, a short-lived but much-loved post-punk band from Leeds.   The decision by TWP to cover the song re-ignited interest in Girls At Our Best (they had broken up in 1982), one that has been maintained through to recent times with Optic Nerve, the Preston-based label which specialises in re-releases from the golden eras of indie-pop, giving said treatment to Pleasure, the band’s sole album from 1981. 

JC