Category: Wedding Present

…..not than any was really needed.

The Wedding Present had signed to RCA in 1989, a move that led to some fans from the earliest days accuse them of selling out and leaving behind their indie roots. The first album for the new label was Bizarro and the first single lifted from it was Kennedy, the track that I have long admitted was the one that introduced me to the band thanks to it being heard in an Edinburgh record shop.

In February 1990, a full four months after Kennedy had dropped out of the charts after a three-week stay, a second single was taken from the parent album. Only it wasn’t……

The new single, Brassneck, was the opening track on Bizarro, but the version which came out as a single was quite different. David Gedge, in an on-line interview with a fan, has explained the rationale:-

I personally didn’t think that the album version captured the intensity the song had when we played it live. I don’t think the Bizarro version is bad, or anything… but around that time we’d become interested in the idea of working with the American engineer, Steve Albini, and so there was a feeling that perhaps we could re-record it with him as a way of seeing how an Albini / Wedding Present relationship might work. I think the Albini version of Brassneck added more colour and depth… and sounds more succinct than the Bizarro version.

The other noticeable thing is a change in the lyric right at the end of the song. It’s only one word, but it is significant in terms of the sentiment of the song. The chorus throughout the album version has ‘I just decided I don’t trust you anymore’ and this is sung four times. On the single, it is only sung three times with the final time now being ‘I just decided I don’t love you anymore.’ David Gedge believed that the alteration added poignancy, and who are we to argue?

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Brassneck (single version)

The 12″ came with three new tracks, two of which were original compositions while the other was a cover of a little-known American band called Pavement. But then again, you already knew that if you read yesterday’s posting:-

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

All four songs remain firm favourites with fans more than quarter-of-a-century on.

Brassneck reached #24 in the singles chart and, outside of the run of singles released in a limited edition each month throughout 1992, remains the highest chart position of any 45 by the band.

JC

A GUEST CONTRIBUTION FROM STRANGEWAYS

JC writes….

On the day that so many people will meet up for the first ever time it does somehow seem appropriate to feature a guest contribution from one of the number.

Strangeways, like so many of the blogging fraternity, is someone who prefers to hide his light under a bushel. It takes all sorts of arm-twisting and gentle persuasion to get some words and thoughts out of him and I’m really pleased he has given me something so unusual and perhaps provocative just in time for this special and historic day; a post and concept that might well be worth talking about over the weekend….I think just about everyone coming along is a TWP/Gedge fanatic.

Strangways muses…..

Going, Going... is The Wedding Present‘s new – well, latest (Sep 2016) – LP. And weighing in at twenty tracks, it’s a monster.

For Weddoes nuts, the record delivers some absolutely scorching songs. To these ears, phantoms from both the Seamonsters and Saturnalia albums inhabit a fair chunk of the album and there are some massive, thrilling barrages of ‘go fuck yourself’ guitar throughout.

On that musical side, for the most part, it’s hard to imagine a bigger, noisier landscape than when the ‘loud’ component of the trusted ‘quiet/loud/quiet’ blueprint kicks in (check out Wales, with its remote, staccato first half and, in a happy case of influences returning home, its epic, emotional, sock-knocking British Sea Power-ish second). But that the entire thing opens with four curveballs – a quartet of instrumentals/spoken word tracks (special mention to the elegant and otherworldly Marblehead) – indicates that for at least a time we’re in entirely new territory.

I know of some Weddoes sympathisers – think by-election-only Green Party voters – who have been a bit scared off by the number of tracks and, perhaps, also by rumours of those left-turns that open the record. So if you’ve not heard the LP, here are four tracks to give you a taste.

Bells

Elevated by some really terrific female vocals – a welcome thread running through Going, Going… – Bells is a standout. Creeping guitar makes way for one of David Gedge‘s cruellest choruses – and am I finally losing it or is there something of The Cure‘s Lovesong going on in the music?

Rachel

In another world – perhaps even in the recent past on this planet – Rachel, with its classic, killer chorus, would be the Weddoes’ Losing My Religion or Smells Like Teen Spirit. You know the song, the kind of track that makes it, somehow, beyond the borders of the bedroom and the indie disco. The one that mugs you when you’re buying corn flakes. The one that you fell, hopelessly, in love with.

But that was two months and 15,000 involuntary listens ago.

And now you can’t stand it. Anonymously, you send it foul messages in the post. And it’s compelled you to set up a hate group.

Well, with the demise of the single as ‘an actual thing’, at least that won’t happen this time.

Emporia

It took a while for Emporia to grab me. But when it did, it didn’t let go. Don’t let the really lovely, David Lynchy opening fool you. This is a song of two halves in the tradition of say Bewitched or Perfect Blue (and like Perfect Blue, I wish the generously long tail-end was even longer).

Santa Monica

The perfect closer. A lengthy fade-in recalls Seamonsters’ Blonde, whilst, underlining the sense of something ending, a pensive fade-out is reminiscent of Mystery Date from predecessor LP Valentina and also 50s, the track that slowly, reluctantly snuffed out the 2006 Saturnalia album.

Santa Monica is tinted, also, by shades of Cinerama‘s Don’t Touch That Dial and the Weddoes’ Octopussy (a fellow LP-swansong). It matches the scale of Dalliance, whilst the trickling, bending guitar work reminds me of one of the band’s most charismatic numbers: Catwoman. Listen out, also, for a line-check from A Million Miles. It’s a poignant thirty-year echo connecting this latest album with the (touring-this-year) debut, George Best.

Going, Going’s… ominous title coupled with its last line may suggest that the game is up. On this evidence, that would be a shame. It’s one thing for a band that’s all out of ideas to call it quits. Quite another when it fires out an LP that can stand alongside the best of a formidable back catalogue.

Imagining Emporia…

Just to overdo things further, I thought it’d be interesting to grab half of the LP tracks and attempt to staple together a traditional ten-track album.

This is kind of an obnoxious thing to do – especially if you’re aware of the idea at the heart of Going Going… – that each track is linked, and that together, they contribute to a bigger story. It’s a bit like chopping up celluloid and gluing the strips into an under-the-counter Viewer’s Cut. Replacing the lovely sleeve (a shot from the thoughtful series of short films the band commissioned)? More blasphemy. And renaming it? Well, that’s just asking for trouble. Therefore, for those piqued enough to muck around with their LP or Spotify, here it is: Emporia – an imaginary version of a real album.

SIDE 1

Two Bridges
Little Silver
Rachel
Broken Bow
Bells

SIDE 2

Birdsnest
Bear
Emporia
Wales
Santa Monica

Bonus track: Marblehead because the third season of Twin Peaks is approaching, and this sounds like it could be on the soundtrack.

STRANGEWAYS

In 1992, The Wedding Present had set a then record for the number of chart appearances in a calendar year by releasing a new single on the first Monday of each month. As soon as December 1992 was out of the way the band announced that they were parting ways with RCA Records and taking much of 1993 off.

In early 1994 it was revealed that the new label would be Island Records but that original bass player Keith Gregory had left the line-up meaning that David Gedge was now the sole member left from the original line-up. They decamped to the USA to record the new material for the new label with the first release being this 4-track single in September 1994:-

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

I think it was a major disappointment that the single stalled at #51; indeed the follow-up It’s A Gas fared even worse while the parent album Watusi barely broke the Top 50. These turned out to be the only recordings for Island Records who dropped the band in early 1995.

Looking back, the world wasn’t quite prepared for the sounds made on Watusi. As wiki reports, the songs ranged from warm lo-fi pop (“Gazebo”, “Big Rat”) to semi-psychedelic, Velvets-like workouts (“Click Click”, “Catwoman”). There were also the two fantastic pop singles released as 45s which really deserved better.

Worth mentioning that while the TWP song Flame On is different from that of Captain America featured here three days ago, Him Or Me (What’s It Going To Be)? is a cover of a 1966 hit single (#5 on the US Billboard chart) by Paul Revere & The Raiders.

Have a listen to the original and compare.  TWP make their version so different it sounds like one of their own.

mp3 : Paul Revere & The Raiders – Him or Me (What’s It Gonna Be)?

Enjoy.

 

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON THURSDAY 5 JUNE 2008

(and again on 30 October 2013)

I came late to The Wedding Present.

I didn’t listen to their early stuff simply because everyone in the press was touting them as the natural successors to the recently disbanded The Smiths, and I just didn’t want to know. I was able to do so, simply because the band got next to no radio play other than late at night, and this was a period of great change in my life when I was never listening to the likes of John Peel.

So, for the best part of four years, my knowledge of the band was restricted to what I read and not what I heard. I do remember being amused that a band from Leeds would release an LP named after the greatest footballer ever to wear the shirt of Manchester United, given the animosity between their fans and those of Leeds United. Still didn’t make me buy it though..

Sometime in 1989, on one Sunday evening, the radio was on as the latest singles chart was being rundown. That was when I first heard a song by The Wedding Present. It was called Kennedy, and it was (as I’ve since discovered from research) a new entry at #33. It was loud, it was frantic, it was joyous and it was something that I immediately fell in love with.

And with that, I became 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).

There can’t be all that many indie-bands still going strong 20+ years after their initial formation. OK, so I know that TWP took a short break and turned into Cinerama, and also that for a substantial part of their career they were on major labels such as RCA and Island Records. But you can’t really categorise them as anything other than indie…

There have been 37 singles and 9 original LPs, as well as 15 compilation/live LPs over the years. That must be something in the region of 300 songs – and very few of these, even the most obscure of b-sides, have ever been total duffers.(that was the figure back in 2008….there’s been much to admire over the past 8 years since and the ststement is still valid)

They’re also a band with a love for cover versions, with around 50 or so being widely available now thanks to the relatively recent release of all the Peel Sessions in a boxset. And every one of those covers, whether it’s a pop, soul, blues, rock, country or disco classic sounds instinctively like a Wedding Present original.

But I still don’t think they’ve ever bettered the song that first made my ears prick up and listen. Even now, almost 20 years on it remains a live favourite, although David now always follows it up with a slow-tempo number so that the old folk jumping around down the front get their breath back and avoid the risk of a permanent injury. None of us are as young or fit as we once were, and pogo-ing up and down is, at best, achievable for a maximum of 5 minutes at one stretch.

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

* Yes, the Tom Jones song…..

All taken from the original 12” release, but also available on the remixed and remastered edition of the 1989 LP Bizzaro.

Incidentally, if this series didn’t have the restriction of one song by one act, there would have been at least another 4 TWP singles right in there…

…..than David Gedge when it comes to penning stuff about relationships.

Whether its been with The Wedding Present or Cinerama or The Wedding Present once again, David has written and recorded umpteen (that’s a word I like to use when I don’t know the precise number) songs of quality and distinction about meeting someone, falling for someone, being with someone, wanting someone who is unattainable, and most of all…..how you feel about someone after the love has gone.

He’s written songs from all sorts of perspectives – as someone who is angry, hurt, sad, bemused and even relieved that a relationship has run its course.

But mostly its songs by someone with a broken heart.

Now I daren’t think that all of the songs are autobiographical – if they are, his heart must be in billions of pieces by now. The most amazing thing is that the accompanying tunes never fall into the category of maudlin or dirge-like.

I’ve a mate who once said, “You know, The Wedding Present have only one tune…..but it’s a fucking cracking one at that”

My mate of course had her tongue firmly in her cheek, for there is no argument that David Gedge has proven himself as one of the UK’s best ever word AND tunesmiths.

Here’s one of my favourite examples:-

I heard another voice this morning on the ‘phone
But just the other day I thought you said you slept alone

And yes I knew that laughter, okay, now I see
You wouldn’t even know him if it hadn’t been for me

Sometimes in the fading light
I can’t help thinking back to, well, the way we were

Then I start feeling guilty lying next to her
I know, and it can’t be right

Pretending that it’s you.
You still won’t go away
Pretending that it’s you.
You still won’t go away

If you write again perhaps you shouldn’t send it here
It’s just that I don’t really want your letters to appear

Oh no, I just think she might
Forget I ever said that I’m just being scared

I told her all about you and I don’t think she even cared
I know but it’s not alright

Pretending that it’s you.
You still won’t go away
Pretending that it’s you.
You still won’t go away

And does the thought of leaving him brings you to tears?
I bet you never felt the same about me all those years

Well you know, just what it’s like

Pretending that it’s you.
You still won’t go away
Pretending that it’s you.
You still won’t go away

And then there’s the unnerving and unsettling music that never quite finds a steady rhythm or beat thanks to its constant change in volume and tempo.

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Lovenest

And while I’m here, I may as well let you have a listen to the other three songs which are on the 12” version of this single:-

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

As with just about every single the band released around that period in time, there was an unusual choice of song for a cover version. In this case it was Mothers which was originally by Jean Paul Sartre Experience, a rather obscure (to most folk) new wave band from New Zealand.

Enjoy.

I’ve tried my best to provide loads of info and background to the bands who have thus far featured in this series.  But there’s really little point in doing so today as you’ll all know so much about them.

This is track 8 on disc two of CD86:-

mp3 : The Wedding Present – This Boy Can Wait

It was one side of a fantastic 7″ single, released on Reception Records in July 1986. This was the other track:-

mp3 : The Wedding Present – You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends

I’m so happy that they are still going strong today, albeit the band personnel has changed so many times over the years.  David Gedge is, without question,  a national treasure.

Enjoy.

 

The discography of The Wedding Present consists of 34 singles, 2 extended plays, 8 studio albums, 5 live albums and 13 compilation albums many of which have songs otherwise unavailable or have different arrangements or alternative versions from the original recording. Trying to narrow all that down to an imaginary 33 and 1/3 LP, five tracks on either side, with the perfect running order, was a total nightmare. But here’s my stab:-

Side A

1. Dalliance (1991 single and track from the LP Seamonsters)

This song featured on the blog just over six weeks ago. A stunning and unexpected wall of sound that took the band to a whole new level in terms of fanbase and out of the realms of mere indie-pop. David Gedge doesn’t write 3 minute pop or rock songs; instead we often get mini soap-operas set to magical tunes. This is a real tear-jerker. Listen to it drunk and think about someone who once broke your heart. I dare you not to think of them and then say you weren’t fighting back the tears, whether of anger or sadness.

2. Brassneck (single version, 1990)

The production of Steve Albini on Seamonsters really helped the band break out of the indie-shell and a hint of what he would do can be found on the remix of the opening track from the Bizarro LP. Thirty seconds are trimmed from the original while the arrangement is tightened and beefed up. I love how the electric guitar gives way to the acoustic strumming about two-thirds of the way through before the ‘beached whale wailing’ beckons David back to microphone.

3. My Favourite Dress (live) (recorded at Sound City Leeds in 1996)

First recorded back in 1987, this evergreen single is probably the band’s most played live song. It never fails to get a huge roar when the opening notes are struck and it takes all the males in the audience back to a time when they were slimmer, fitter, healthier and had much more hair on the top of their heads and none up their noses or in their ears. At which point we all kid on we are 30 years younger than we really are and four minutes later collapse in a heap wondering why we can’t dance as energetically as we once did.

“A stranger’s hand on my favorite dress” – one of thousands of killer lines  he’s written over the decades.

4. Always The Quiet One (from the 2005 LP Take Fountain)

Between 1998 and 2004, all of the material written and recorded by David Gedge came out under the moniker of Cinerama – and extremely high quality songs they were too. The first time anyone ever heard this track was as part of the last ever Cinerama Peel Session. Within a year, the Weddoes were back with their first LP in nine years with this being one of many highlights.  A lighter, poppier side to the band with a tale that is Morrissey/Smiths-esque in genre and quality.

5. Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm (1988 single)

There’s some wording on the back of the sleeve of this single.

‘Additional vocals by Amelia’

This little touch gave the band a different dynamic as they brought in the indie goddess who was Amelia Fletcher from Tallulah Gosh to add backing vocals to some new songs after the release of the debut LP. It was a short-lived partnership of no more than a few months and it didn’t make it beyond minor contributions to the sophomore classic that was Bizarro. But it planted a seed for male/female vocals that came to the fore in the Cinerama era and thereafter in the 21st Century Weddoes. This is a cracking 45 which took the band into the Top 50 of the singles chart for the first time

Side B

1. Kennedy (1989 single and track on the LP Bizzaro)

This is an immense piece of music that still sounds incredibly fresh more than a quarter of a century on. There is nothing more that needs to be said.

2. Perfect Blue (from the 2005 LP Take Fountain)

Ever since the band reformed, just about every time they perform Kennedy in a live setting it is followed up with one of the slower songs from the repertoire to enable the audience to recapture its collective breath after the bouncing around. And so with this imaginary LP.

A song of two halfs. The first two and three-quarter minutes is a straight-forward but beautiful love song with a dreamy backing vocal from Terry de Castro that is a throwback to the Amelia Fletcher material. The final two and a bit minutes is pure Cinerama…..strings, horns and guitars collide magnificently in a coda that Tindersticks would have been proud of. A hidden gem of a track.

3. Lovenest (1991 single)

A shortened version of another of the outstanding songs on Seamonsters. This aural assault on the ears ends in a blast of controlled feedback for about 40 seconds…..live it always sounds magnificent.

4. Flying Saucer (Peel Session)

An often overlooked classic from the singles period. Cracking tune and for once it’s not a mini soap opera – instead it celebrates the joy of falling head over heels. The tune, with its extended guitar riff to the end of the song, in many ways is reminiscent of Kennedy which is no bad thing in my book.

Some thought it a folly for the band to put out a limited edition vinyl 45 once a month throughout 1992 with the single being officially deleted the day after its release. The plan however, worked a treat with every one of them going into the charts for one week only with the highest placed being #10 and the lowest #26 – the singles actually sold in the exact same quantities, the placing they got depended on how the sales of other singles that particular week had gone.

The singles and the cover versions that made up the b-sides were later compiled onto two separate CD albums entitled Hit Parade 1 and Hit Parade 2. The initial copies of the second of these came with a bonus disc containing exclusive BBC Radio versions of the twelve singles – some had gone out on BBC Radio Leeds, some on the Mark Goodier Show on Radio 1, some on the World Service (I’m not kidding!!!) and some made up one of the many sessions the band recorded for the John Peel show.

5. It’s What You Want That Matters (from the 1987 LP George Best)

A song that had first been aired two years previously on the Peel show when it was known as What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted?

I’ve admitted before that I was late to The Wedding Present. I hadn’t given them much attention in the early days simply as the music papers were saying this was the band to fill the Smith-sized void in your life and I just didn’t think at the time that anyone could do such a thing. George Best had been out for the best part of three years when I first got a hold of a copy. This was the initial stand out track for me. And I still love it all this time later.

 

So there you have my take on ten tracks for a compilation LP. It’s taken me nearly four weeks to deliberate over and determine. I’m sure some of you will take me to task…..and quite rightly!!!!

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Dalliance
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Brassneck (single version)
mp3 : The Wedding Present – My Favourite Dress (live)
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Always The Quiet One
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Kennedy
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Perfect Blue
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Lovenest (edit)
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Flying Saucer (Peel Session)
mp3 : The Wedding Present – It’s What You Want That Matters

BONUS DISC!!!!!!

The Wedding Present are famous for putting out cover versions as b-sides or for recording them during radio sessions. Here’s a bonus disc to go with the imaginary album

Side A

1. The Wedding Present – Happy Birthday
2. The Wedding Present – Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)
3. The Wedding Present – Back For Good
4. The Wedding Present – Let’s Make Some Plans
5. The Wedding Present – Pleasant Valley Sunday

Side B

1. The Wedding Present – Theme from Shaft
2. The Wedding Present – Our Lips Are Sealed
3. The Wedding Present – Cattle and Cane
4. The Wedding Present – Felicity
5. The Wedding Present – Box Elder

The originals came from Altered Images, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, Take That, The Close Lobsters, The Monkees, Isaac Hayes, The Go-Gos, The Go-Betweens, Orange Juice and Pavement.

Oh and the comment about Felicity being a William Shatner number is not a reference to a track on George Best……it’s a play on words as the song, despite originally being an Edwyn Collins vocal, was in fact composed by James Kirk……….

Click on the song title above for the mp3s

ENJOY!!!!!!

The Wedding Present recorded an awful lot of sessions for the John Peel Show, and indeed for many other BBC radio programmes.

It was often the case that they took the opportunity to unveil new songs which wouldn’t be released for weeks or even months. On the 28th October 1990 they played four songs which would be part of the Seamonsters LP that came out in May 1991, more than six months later.

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.”

Wow.

Dalliance is one of the greatest ever songs about the feeling of total and utter despair from being strung along and let down at the very last moment. It’s a song I always imagined could be turned into a real tear-jerker by the original Tindersticks line-up if they had taken hold of the song and given it an arrangement with strings and keyboards.

The Peel version is shorter than that which was released on the LP – partly because it was played faster. I’m not sure if the band, having listened to the results of the Peel Session decided a change of pace was required. It makes the Seamonsters version even more intense….the wall of noise maybe doesn’t quite have the same impact, but it then seems to build and build and build in a way that doesn’t happen on the Peel version.

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Dalliance

Oh and let’s not forget the live version in concert for French radio.  It lets you hear just good this band were and continue to be on stage:-

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Dalliance (Black Sessions)

Simply thrilling honeys.

The title of today’s posting is a deliberate mistake but it does reflect what most folk think is the title of a #1 song from February 1975.

It is one of those timeless classics that has been re-released on a number of occasions, usually to coincide with its use in a TV commercial or a film soundtrack, and on each occasion it has made its way into the UK singles chart.  It is a staple of nights with the karaoke machine and it is estimated there have been over 120 cover versions recorded.

It sounds like a happy, jolly sort of song and yet Steve Harley has said he is often bemused by the widespread love there is for it given his lyric was an attack on members of Cockney Rebel – the band had more or less disintegrated the previous year with the various members being disgruntled as being seen by fans and critics alike as mere backing musicians for the charismatic frontman.

Indeed, the fact that the song has such bitter and misunderstood lyrics has led the composer to say that of all the cover versions he has ever heard only one has captured its true meaning and understood the venom in the lyrics:-

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

This particular song might have had 120 covers and that can’t be far off the number of wonderful and often weird cover versions of songs recorded over the years by The Wedding Present, a band who have never shied away from the genre. Some have worked a lot better than others and more often than not, if the track was one you weren’t familiar with, you’d reckon it was something David Gedge himself might have written. Their take on Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) is an absolute belter of a cover and it’s no surprise that the composer is a big fan.

It was released in in 1991 as part of a piece of work known as the 3 Songs EP, which was the first time the band had worked with Steve Albini, a partnership that would extend into the LP Seamonsters which is reckoned by many (including myself) as their ever piece of work. Certainly, it has been the highest charting LP of their entire career, reaching #13 in the UK album charts.

Here’s the other 2 songs from the EP:-

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Crawl
mp3 : The Wedding Present – Corduroy

Corduroy would be re-recorded for Seamonsters:-

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Corduroy (LP version)

Even after all these years I can’t make my mind up which one I prefer mind you…..but the noise after about 35 seconds of the single is one of my favourite bits of music ever…..turn it up and play very loud for best effect.

Enjoy.

I came late to The Wedding Present.

I didn’t listen to their early stuff simply because everyone in the press was touting them as the natural successors to the recently disbanded The Smiths, and I just didn’t want to know. I was able to do so, simply because the band got next to no radio play other than late at night, and this was a period of great change in my life when I was never listening to the likes of John Peel.

So, for the best part of four years, my knowledge of the band was restricted to what I read and not what I heard. I do remember being amused that a band from Leeds would release an LP named after the greatest footballer ever to wear the shirt of Manchester United, given the animosity between their fans and those of Leeds United. Still didn’t make me buy it though..

Sometime in 1989, on one Sunday evening, the radio was on as the latest singles chart was being rundown. That was when I first heard a song by The Wedding Present. It was called Kennedy, and it was (as I’ve since discovered from research) a new entry at #33. It was loud, it was frantic, it was joyous and it was something that I immediately fell in love with.

And with that, I became 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).

There can’t be all that many indie-bands still going strong 20+ years after their initial formation. OK, so I know that TWP took a short break and turned into Cinerama, and also that for a substantial part of their career they were on major labels such as RCA and Island Records. But you can’t really categorise them as anything other than indie…

There have been 37 singles and 9 original LPs, as well as 15 compilation/live LPs over the years (info correct as at June 2008!!!).

That must be something in the region of 300 songs – and very few of these, even the most obscure of b-sides, have ever been total duffers. They’re also a band with a love for cover versions, with around 50 or so being widely available now thanks to the relatively recent release of all the Peel Sessions in a boxset. And every one of those covers, whether it’s a pop, soul, blues, rock, country or disco classic sounds instinctively like a Wedding Present original.

But I still don’t think they’ve ever bettered the song that first made my ears prick up and listen. Even now, almost 20 years on it remains a live favourite, although David now always follows it up with a slow-tempo number so that the old folk jumping around down the front get their breath back and avoid the risk of a permanent injury. None of us are as young or fit as we once were, and pogo-ing up and down is, at best, achievable for a maximum of 5 minutes at one stretch.

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

* Yes, the Tom Jones song…..

Incidentally, if this series didn’t have the restriction of one song by one act, there would have been at least another 4 TWP singles right in there…