THE WEDDING PRESENT

A strictly personal tribute to the world's least complex rock band

by Paco Miguel

SOME HISTORY

The time was around 1988
The place was my school, here in Valencia, Spain.

I was 17 at the time and I was in my last year at School, C.O.U., that is Pre-University Course for those off you non familiar with the old Spanish educational system. Hum.
So, there's this radio show I usually listened to, La Conjura de las Danzas, and there's this new band called The Wedding Present. And there's me, asking a friend called Olavarrieta if he could lend me their record. Yes, THAT was the way I first knew The Wedding Present.
That was the way I became a Wedding Present addict.
Now it's been a long time since then. Many Wedding Present records, in fact, all of them appropriately awaited, received, enjoyed, etc.
There are some Web Pages in the Internet where you can know about their discography. Some of them are really good, clearly unbeatlable (take a look), so... why bother try and do it again. I just wanted to tell everybody how much I like this band, so... here's my personal tribute.  

IT'S MY OBSESSION AND I USE IT IF I WANT TO

Well, I guess I must tell you some of my personal life: I am now a journalist, currently working on radio, in a music-related area. Just imagine how obvious it was at that time, late 80s, I was about 16-17 years old, some friends were running a music fanzine, and I just loved that new band. Ok, so I HAD to write about them.

Our fanzine was called SNAP! Nice name, huh? It was not Rolling Stone Part II, as you can figure out. Ok, so just imagine the kind of WP-obsession I had those days: three out of the 4 issues that were ever released of SNAP! had articles or interviews about the band from Leeds.

Anyway, writing those articles had also an interesting side effect: I got in touch with an English Wedding Present fanzine, called Something Out Of Nothing. We started exchanging articles and other stuff, and I even wrote an article for them about how TWP were doing in Spain. It was one of the first times I ever wrote in English out of my classes, so please forgive the mistakes, etc, etc.

This is the article that appeared in "Something out of nothing" fanzine, issue 2, autumn 1989.

When David Gedge was asked if The Wedding Present had got a big following on the Continent, he answered: "not what you'd call big, really". And it is certainly true, at least here in Spain. For most of the Spanish public, The Wedding Present is just "one of those strange and unknown bands that come from Britain"; they don't appear on the most popular charts TV programs, and their music doesn't sound on "Cadena 40", the most chart-oriented radio station which is, sadly, the one with the highest audience levels.

Almost every British independent band has the same problem in Spain. Sometimes, their records are distributed here by little companies which can't afford a bif commercial launching, and the bands become only a bit more known. Sometimes the records have to be imported, the price is increased, the distribution is worse, and consequently the band seems to be only for minorities.

Sadly, all Wedding Present records with Reception had to be imported. In this case however, it didn't mean that the band was still unknown. Although British indie bands were still only for minorities, The Wedding Present was almost the most popular group among them. Some music programmes dedicated to this kind of music started to play their music, and people begun to consider them as "kings of the independents". On TV programme "FM2" we could see their fantastic video "Nobody's twisting your arm" (they were presented as usual as "The new Smiths"). Songs like "My favourite dress" or "Nobody's twisting your arm" started to be quite famous in certain clubs.

Their fabulous ordinariness didn't seem to attract many people to their Spanish tour last november (I must say that that the concert was hardly promoted) But we who were at one of their gigs really enjoyed their music, and absolutely everybody got astonished by their powerful sound and the extremely easy way they broke the strings of hteir maltreated guitars!

So, The Wedding Present is not a popular band in Spain, if being popular means havin fan clubs throughout the country. They have been one of the best independent bands for all those who like British indie music. And now they're not independent anymore, we are all waiting for another fantastic, well-distributed, cheaper LP, which will make them at least as famous as they deserve. At least.

NOW, PLEASE NOTE ABOUT THIS ARTICLE!
-YES, I am a bit ashamed about how it's written both in style and the use of English. I guess I do a bit better now (not much, I know). Just consider I was younger and UNwiser.
-This article was written right before Bizarro was released, or at least before I first heard any part of it.

  

LETTERS AND RADIO

At about that time, I got in touch with them, Sally in fact. She sent me five issues of their own fanzine, INVASION OF THE WEDDING PRESENT, and also was so kind to answer some questions for my fanzine. Thank you always. (It would be a good idea to publish an on-line edition of those fanzines... If only I had the bandwidth...)

Well, life goes on anyway, and next year I find myself being some kind of DJ on a local radio station, Radio Klara. Which is not a commercial station, for your information, so there was freedom for playing anything, anytime. So there we were, the guys from the SNAP! fanzine, doing that radio show... and me giving The Wedding Present lots and lots of airplay. Ha! OK, so it's not that the whole of this pretty town knows the Wedding Present due to my work those days, but hey I guess somebody was listening... It even came to be a sort of abusing thing, I mean, the listeners should be thinking I should be some kind of Mr. Gedge's relative, or that I had a part in the sales... So, what the... Something you average radio listener must know is that when a DJ chooses his music for the night, he probably isn't thinking much about you. Sad to say.
By the way, right now I'm a DJ at another radio station, 97.7 FM. Maybe the only station over here to regularly play TWP records... everytime I can. ;-)   

AND NOW, LIVE EPISODES!

Part one:
The humble ticket:
"WEDDING PRESENT. Arena Valencia Auditorium. Viernes 18 noviembre - 11'30 noche"
That was back in november 1988...

So this was my first WP live experience. If you read the article before, you know how it was, but I'll always remember that concert: that was MY FIRST rock concert in a propper venue, I mean, I had been to many outdoors, public concert but this was the first one I bought a ticket for. You don't forget such a thing, do you?
Nice act, I didn't know many of the songs then, but I enjoyed it. I got my ears whistling for the whole night, and I was really shocked of how fast they played.

Part two:
This time is wasn't even in Spain. it was in Paris, France. It was april 1994, and me and my classmates where staying there for some days. So, just imagine what it was like, we opened a Time Out guide, and WOW "The Wedding Present, Aparaho, Place d'Italie". One of my favourite bands playing there, by chance...
How can you ever forget something like that, being on first row, pushed once and again against the stage monitors by dozens of French fans who know all the songs just like me...

Part three:
Festival Internacional de Benicàssim, august 1995. Nice, nice, nice. Three days of dust, uncomfortable tents and music, or so they say, but hey, you can't see The Wedding Present in Spain very often (sigh). So, to put it in short, not many people paying attention before the show, the two drummers act and suddenly, a fairly big stream of people going off the bars and to the main stage. It WAS worth it. The best Wedding Present live show I have seen, no doubt. New stuff, wisely blended with old gems. Oh, sure, and a brilliant "Dare". Have I mentioned that "Seamonsters" is, by far, their best album, and "Dare" is my favorite song?. Well, so now you know.

And here comes the tale of what happened that summer evening, too. I mean, many off you Weddoes fans have done that too, I mean, saying "hi" to the man himself, David Gedge I mean, ask for an autograph, have some photos taken... But the fact is, if you have done so, you haven't shown those pictures in the Net. Well, I have, I've got no reason not to, so, here they go, in case any of you is interested. The pictures of the most exciting moment in my life as a Wedding Present fan!

Festival Internacional de Benicàssim, August 6th, 1995.

PHOTO ALBUM

That's all, folks. I don't know where you come from, but in case you came here directly, you must know that this page is part of WEB MUSICA, a nice website about music. Please give it a look!

WEB MUSICA