The Wedding Present

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

Closely linked to the C86 scene, the band has charted a total of eighteen singles in the top 40 of the UK Singles Chart, including a historic run of twelve singles – one for each month – in 1992, which tied Elvis Presley's record for most top 40 hits in a single year.

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, continued the band, renaming it the Wedding Present. 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...

Gedge and Gregory recruited an old schoolmate of Gedge's, Peter Solowka, to play guitar and auditioned a string of drummers, including John Ramsden, and Mike Bedford, with whom they recorded a demo tape, before settling on Shaun Charman. The band played at clubs and bars as they prepared for the recording of their first, self-financed single. "Go Out and Get 'Em, Boy!" was chosen over early favourite "Will You Be Up There?" Charman felt somewhat insecure about his drumming abilities and so the A-side features drumming by hired hand Julian Sowa (Charman does, however, play drums on its B-side). The single was released on the band's own Reception Records label with distribution through Red Rhino.

Two more singles followed that did well on the independent charts helped by veteran BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel who was one of their first champions. He invited them to do a radio session (three songs from the session are included on the 1988 compilation Tommy 1985–1987; the entire session had already been released as an EP in 1986), starting a long collaboration. By the time the band started work on their debut album, a number of independent and major record companies showed interest, but the band declined all offers and decided to keep releasing their material themselves. The album was released in 1987 and titled George Best after the well-known Northern Irish football player. It was produced by the band and Chris Allison.

Upon its release, the album was critically acclaimed and the band were soon classified, with some of their peers, as members of the 'shambling' or C86 scene, a categorisation that they vehemently declined (although they were featured on the original C86 compilation). Musically, the album featured fast-paced rhythm guitar; lyrically, apart from a few excursions into social critique ("All This and More") and politics ("All About Eve"), Gedge's main concerns (which would become his trademark) were love, lust, heartbreak and revenge. Soon after the release of George Best, the early singles and radio sessions were compiled and released as Tommy (1985–1987). When Solowka, who has Ukrainian roots, started fooling around with a Ukrainian folk tune during one of their Peel sessions, the idea arose to devote some of their radio time to recording their versions of Ukrainian folk songs, encouraged by Peel. To this end, two guest musicians were invited, singer/violin player Len Liggins and mandolin player Roman Remeynes, and three Peel sessions were recorded with Gedge temporarily limiting himself to playing rhythm guitar and arranging the songs.

Between the recording of the first and the second 'Ukrainian' session, Charman was fired from the band. His replacement was Simon Smith, who remained the band's drummer until 1997 and for a long time was, next to Gedge, the only other stable factor in the shifting line-ups. The band planned on releasing eight cuts from the Ukrainian sessions on a 10" LP and an initial batch was pressed when Red Rhino went into receivership. Rather than trying to find a new distribution company, the band decided to fold their Reception label altogether and sign with a regular record company: RCA.