The Wedding Present

The Wedding Present are an English indie rock group formed in 1985 in Leeds, England, by members of The Lost Pandas.^[1] The band has been led by vocalist and guitarist David Gedge, the band's only constant member.^[2]

Closely linked to the

The band has its origins in the Lost Pandas, which folded in 1984 when Janet Rigby, the drummer for the band, left following departure of guitarist Michael Duane. David Gedge and The Lost Pandas' bass player, Keith Gregory, decided to continue the band, renaming it The Wedding Present.[1] The name was jointly conceived by Gedge and his girlfriend at the time, as they were both avid fans of The Birthday Party and it was an homage to their favourite band.

I’ve always thought that The Wedding Present was an inappropriate name for a pop band — more like a poem, or a book or something — and therefore quite attractive (to me!). I’ve also always been fascinated by weddings...^[3]

Gedge and Gregory recruited an old schoolmate of Gedge's,

Two more singles followed that did well on the independent charts helped by veteran

The first proper album that The Wedding Present recorded for their new label was released in the same year 1989 and reunited them with producer Chris Allison. Bizarro’s lyrical themes were largely the same as before and the songs featured the same three-chord structures, but its production values had increased due to a larger recording budget. The album was recorded at Jacobs Studios by Steve Lyon and mixed by him and Chris Allison. The album's companion single, "Kennedy", provided the band with their first British Top 40 hit.^[1]

In 1989, the band covered the song "Box Elder" by a then-unknown American indie rock band named Pavement. Gregory had found Pavement's limited pressing debut single during a trip to the United States and The Wedding Present's cover inspired John Peel to promote Pavement on his radio show, a key step in Pavement's breakthrough.^[4]

Seeing that they were growing more popular in the American college radio scene, the band turned towards America for their next project. The band decided to re-record Bizarro track "Brassneck" with the former

Melody Maker likened listening to the record to sandpapering your ears. End of year readers polls, however, showed the opening track and lead single of the album, "Dalliance", amongst the top of the favourites list. Almost directly after recording the album, the band announced that they had sacked Solowka. His replacement was Paul Dorrington of local band, Tse Tse Fly (also formerly of A.C. Temple). Solowka teamed up again with Liggins and Remeynes to form The Ukrainians, and continued to blend post-punk with traditional Ukrainian music.^[1]

The Hit Parade (1992)

The next year saw the band release twelve 7" singles in one year.

The demand in the United Kingdom for The Wedding Present's singles was so high that distributors began poaching from a separate 5,000-copy stash meant for sale in all other markets to sell in the UK. The Wedding Present had the distinction of having all 12 hit singles be solely original material, whereas Elvis reached his record through archival re-issues. The Hit Parade effectively served as the band's third album under the RCA contract, and the band played Top of the Pops four times in the same year.^[5]

Seamonsters, Hit Parade 1 and Hit Parade 2 were released in the United States in 1991 and 1992 by New York-based pseudo-indie label First Warning Records. Shortly after the 1992 singles scheme had ended, the band announced they were leaving RCA.^[1]

The Island era (1994-1995)

The band spent most of 1993 taking time off, occasionally playing gigs. A stopgap compilation of three more archive radio sessions,

-like workouts ("Click Click", "Catwoman").

No further albums were recorded for Island, and the best part of 1995 was spent the same way as 1993: touring, writing new material, no recording. Paul Dorrington decided to quit the band; no replacement was made as Belk doubled on bass and guitar. In the autumn of 1995, The Wedding Present released "Sucker", a self-financed single that was sold at their gigs only (it has since been included on compilation albums). Shortly after, the band signed with independent label Cooking Vinyl.

The Cooking Vinyl era (1995-1997/99)

The band, still a three-piece, recorded their newly written material and issued the

car-themed six-track mini-album, Mini.^[1] Belk played both guitar and bass on the songs. Shortly after releasing the album, Jayne Lockey, who had already sung backing vocals on Mini, was announced as the band's new bass player. Belk decided to quit the band and was replaced by Simon Cleave

. Both Lockey and Cleave were former members of Tse Tse Fly, along with Paul Dorrington and Mark Goodham.

The band still had material from their sabbatical year and went into the studio again to record Saturnalia.^[1] This proved to be the last new material by The Wedding Present for a long time. After playing a number of gigs to support the album, the last one in Liverpool on 18 January 1997, the band took a long sabbatical.

Contractual obligations and Cinerama (1997-2004)

Main article: Cinerama (band)

To fulfill contractual obligations, two more compilations were released by Cooking Vinyl: another Peel sessions volume,

Singles 1989-1991 (1999), a 2CD package which added rarities and live tracks. Gedge recorded an album, Va Va Voom, in 1998 under the Cinerama

band name with his girlfriend, Sally Murrell, and some session musicians. The project became a full-time band.

Following Gedge's split from Murrell in 2003, and with the increasing inclusion of Wedding Present songs in Cinerama's live sets (in previous years Gedge had good-naturedly refused calls from the audience to play Wedding Present songs, frequently replying "that's another band" or "you're at the wrong gig"), Gedge effectively renamed Cinerama in 2004, keeping the line up, reflecting the change in sound over the years to the more familiar territory of The Wedding Present.

Reformation (2004-2019)

News came in early September 2004 that Cinerama would be rebranded as The Wedding Present. The line-up was to be the same as the last line-up of Cinerama, which included Simon Cleave. The first new single, "

Ringway to SeaTac

" was released on 24 October 2005.

All singles, their B-sides and acoustic versions from this period were compiled on the 2006 compilation

Search for Paradise: Singles 2004-5

. The release came with a bonus DVD compiling the videos for "Don't Touch That Dial" (a Cinerama single re-recorded for Take Fountain), "Interstate 5", "I'm From Further North Than You", "Ringway to SeaTac" and others.

The Wedding Present toured Europe and North America in the Spring of 2005 (with John Maiden on drums) and again in Europe towards the end of 2005 (this time, with Simon Pearson on drums). During Christmas 2006, guitarist Simon Cleave left the group and was replaced by the group's sound engineer Chris McConville - who played on the 2006 tours of North America (with Charlie Layton on drums) and Europe (with Graeme Ramsay on drums).

Until 2009 the line-up remained stable with Gedge, De Castro, McConville, and Ramsay co-writing. They recorded 17 songs with Steve Albini in January 2008, some of which have been played live at gigs in recent years. Titles include "I've Lost the Monkey", "Soup", "Drink You Eat You", "Model, Actress, Whatever...", "The Thing I Like Most About Him Is His Girlfriend", "Twenty Jackies", "Swingers", "Peek-a-boo", "Hulk Loves Betty", "Boo Boo", "Palisades", "Santa Ana Winds", "Pinch Pull Twist Release", "The Trouble With Men", "Don't Take Me Home Until I'm Drunk" and "Spider-Man in Hollywood".

The album El Rey was released on 20 May 2008 in North America and 26 May 2008 in Europe, accompanied by the digital download-only single "The Thing I Like Best About Him Is His Girlfriend". A compilation of singles and remixes How The West Was Won was released towards the end of 2008 and accompanied by a single "Holly Jolly Hollywood". The Wedding Present also covered The Cure's "High" for American Laundromat Records tribute Just Like Heaven - a tribute to The Cure.

Some months before a short tour of the UK and Japan in March 2009, Chris McConville left the band and was replaced by former guitarist Simon Cleave, who left the band again later that year. Graeme Ramsay subsequently moved from drums to guitar and Charles Layton once again became their drummer.

In 2009 two The Wedding Present songs, "I'm From Further North Than You", and "Ringway to SeaTac" appeared in the award-winning

In August 2010 it was announced that De Castro would not be touring with The Wedding Present for the Autumn 21st anniversary tour of Bizarro, and that her last gig would be at 28 August 2010 at Gedge's mini festival "At the Edge of the Sea" in Brighton. This marked the end of a 12-year association with Gedge, stretching back to when Cinerama was formed. She was replaced by Pepe le Moko.[7]

A new Wedding Present album,

During 2012, The Wedding Present toured a set which usually featured the whole of Seamonsters, performed live and in album order. The rest of the set was a mixture of songs from Valentina and the back catalogue. In April of the year, The Wedding Present toured Australia for the first time, playing concerts in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne.

On 25 October 2012, the 4 Songs Extended Player was released on download only. These four new songs ("Journey Into Space", "Pain Perdu", "1000 Fahrenheit" & "Can You Keep a Secret") recorded during the Valentina sessions could be downloaded following the purchase of 'Valentina: The Story of a Wedding Present, a book documenting the making of the long player itself. Valentina itself was re-released in May 2015 after being re-interpreted and re-recorded by David Gedge's other band Cinerama.

In early 2013 the band started a world tour including taking in the US, Australia and for the first time New Zealand. The Wedding Present played 'George Best' and 'The Hit Parade' in their entirety on this tour celebrating the 25th and 21st 'birthday' of these albums respectively.

The band released their ninth album, Going, Going... on 2 September 2016.^[11][12]

2017 saw the 30th anniversary of the release of George Best, an anniversary tour and a feature-length documentary about the record titled The Wedding Present: Something Left Behind.^[13]

In mid-2019, the band issued a completely re-recorded version of 1988 compilation Tommy, plus their first picture disc - a 10" single featuring two new songs.

In late 2019, the band toured playing Bizarro in its entirety. During this tour the band were joined on guitar by Jon Stewart of Sleeper and Chris Hardwick from My Life Story on drums.

Acoustic versions and 24 Songs (2020-present)

In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the band recorded various acoustic versions of the bands' tracks, with each musician recording their part of the song from home. The songs were released on the band's social media accounts. Twelve tracks including a duet of a previously unrecorded Sleeper song called We Should Be Together, recorded as a duet with Louise Wener, were released in February 2021 as Locked Down and Stripped Back.^[14]

In December 2020 the band, and various ex-members and collaborators released an album of James Bond theme cover versions called Not From Where I’m Standing, for the mental health charity Campaign Against Living Miserably.^[15]

In April 2021, the band re-released a 30th anniversary version of Seamonsters including the b-sides to the singles released to promote the original 1991 album and tracks from a

In October 2021, the band announced that in 2022 they would release a 7" single per month, featuring 2 new songs, for the duration of 2022, repeating their one single per month approach of 1992.[17] This 24 Songs project will see songs written by David Gedge and Sleeper guitarist Jon Stewart, collaborating to write tracks for the first time in the band's history.^[18]

In May 2022 the band announced they would release Locked Down and Stripped Back Volume Two, the second album of acoustic home recordings of Wedding Present and Cinerama classics, recorded by band and former band members.

Personnel

Current

• David Gedge: vocals, guitar (1985–1997, 2004—present)
• Jon Stewart: guitar (2019—present)
• Paul Blackburn: bass (2023—present)
• Vincenzo Lammi: drums (2023—present)

• Rachael Wood: guitar (frequent touring stand-in for Jon Stewart, 2023—present) [1]

As per The Wedding Present line-up history from their official website. [2]

Past

• Keith Gregory: bass (1985–1993)
• Peter Solowka: guitar (1985–1991)
• Shaun Charman: drums, vocals (1985–1988)
• Simon Smith: drums (1988–1997)
• Paul Dorrington: guitar (1991–1995)
• Darren Belk: bass, vocals (1993–1995), guitar (1995–1996)
• Jayne Lockey: bass, vocals (1995–1997)
• Simon Cleave: guitar (1996–1997, 2004–2006, 2009)
• Kari Paavola: drums (2004–2005)
• Simon Pearson: drums (2005)
• Graeme Ramsay: drums (2006–2009), guitar (2009–2012)
• Christopher McConville: guitar (2006–2009)
• Pepé le Moko: bass, vocals (2010–2012)
• Patrick Alexander: guitar (2012–2013)
• Jennifer Schwartz: bass (2013)
• Geoffrey Maddock: guitar (2013)
• Katharine Wallinger: bass (2013-2016)
• Samuel Beer-Pearce: guitar (2013-2016)
• Marcus Kain: guitar (2016–2017)
• Terry de Castro: bass, vocals (2004–2010, 2018)
• Danielle Wadey: bass (2016–2017), guitar (2018-2019)
• Charles Layton: drums (2005, 2009–2019)
• Chris Hardwick: drums (2019–2021)
• Melanie Howard: bass, vocals (2018–2023) [3]
• Nicholas Wellauer: drums (2021–2023) [4]

Timeline

Discography

• George Best (1987)
• Bizarro (1989)
• Seamonsters (1991)
• Watusi (1994)
• Saturnalia (1996)
• Take Fountain (2005)
• El Rey (2008)
• Valentina (2012)
• Going, Going... (2016)

References