The Wedding Present - The Early Years
1 Comments Published by Tom on Saturday, February 25, 2006 at 13:49.
When the Leeds based band The Lost Pandas disintegrated in 1984 the remaining members Dave Gedge and Keith Gregory formed The Wedding Present. The two quickly recruited an old school friend of Gedge's Pete Solowka on guitar and after audtioning a number of drummers settled on Shaun Charman. The band formed their own label called Reception Records and although initially it was for their own releases they did put out records for This Poison! and Cud.The debut single Go Out and Get Em, Boy! was released in 1985 and was followed by Once More which did pretty well in the indie charts. It was around this time that the late John Peel took an interest in the band and invited them to record a session which was later released as a 12" EP on Strange Fruit in 1986. The band at this time contributed This Boy Can Wait to the NME C86 tape which rounded up the so called UK "shambling" indie scene of the time.
1987 saw the release of two singles and the acclaimed debut album George Best which was named after the ex Manchester United, Fulham and Northern Ireland football player. 1988 saw the release of Tommy which rounded up their early releases and the Peel session. It also saw the band reaching the top 50 in UK national charts for the first time with Nobody's Twisting Your Arm and Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now?
The band also started recording Ukrainian folk music due to Solowka's roots in that country recording two sessions for John Peel. It was during these sessions that Charman was fired from the band (he later joined The Popguns) and was replaced by Simon Smith.When the bands distributor Rhino Records went into receivership the band folded their label and signed to RCA in late 1988 which is another story!
I saw the band a number of times in this period and they were excellent live as they always were and now as this includes their comeback tour last year (well Cinerama using The Wedding Present name!).
The Wedding Present - (The Moment Before) Everythings Spoiled Again
The Wedding Present - At the Edge Of The Sea
Links:
Westnet Wedding Present Site
The Moments Gone
Something & Nothing
The Wedding Present (Fan Site)
The Ukrainians
Buy The Wedding Present:
Download from e-music:
You can download the Wedding Present, including George Best and Tommy, for free from e-music if you are not an existing subscriber and sign up to their free 50 mp3 download trial!
Charman, of course, once had a fabulous row with a fanzine editor-promoter who put the words "former Wedding Present drummer" on a poster promoting the Popguns - he was very, very sore about the way that all ended...