The Wedding Present – El Rey
There are going to be tantrums when certain people read this review, but I might as well come out and say it: it is time for David Gedge to get the fuck over it and move on with his life. ‘Oh shit, I was confused, I faffed about with some girl at a party because I could, and now my real bird has fucked off and broken my heart’. Again. Of fucking course she has, David, you copped off with some silly bitch in a club again, what the fuck did you expect?
I do not know David Gedge personally – of course I don’t – and I make no claim to know whether or not these songs are really sincere. They sound for all the world like he is simply changing the names from some of his earlier lyrics and slapping a guitar riff over the top, but maybe this really is representative of where he is in his life at the moment. Unfortunately, if it is, it means he is still going through the same tired old rigmarole he was going through twenty years ago and for fuck’s sake you think he’d have learned from his mistakes by now.
It’s a bit like that mate you have who is forever going out with completely the wrong sort of person and then scaring them off with a bizarre combination of self-protective disinterest and idiosyncratic weirdness: there is only so long you can maintain sympathy before, no matter how heartfelt the pain, you are overwhelmed by the urge to shout “Really, no shit, again? Well fuck me what an enormous fucking surprise. BOOOOOO-ring!” at them.
I have a mate like that. He is a really nice bloke, and there’s not a bad bone in his body, but the boy’s like a fucking goldfish. He meets a girl, gets really excited, tells you about it in breathless tones, sees her for a number of weeks, she tries to get a bit closer, he gets stand-offish, someone slightly prettier (or just different,or perhaps more tellingly, less real) comes along and suddenly the cycle starts again. I got to the point where I just ran out of endurance for hearing about any of it at all.
“I met this amazing girl – amaaaaazing!”
“No shit. Well before you tell me about it, here’s your schedule: giddy intoxication for ten to twenty days, nagging doubts for five to ten, your doubts will make her clingy for another seven to fourteen days, two thirds of the way through that someone else will ping your radar, and you’ll have split up with the other one within a month to two months, maximum, and we’ll be back here having this SELF SAME FUCKING CONVERSATION ABOUT THE OTHER GIRL BEFORE SIX WEEKS ARE UP!”
And I fucking love the Wedding Present as well.
The Wedding Present – Don’t Take Me Home Until I’m Drunk
The Wedding Present – Spide-Man on Hollywood
Spot on. I think blokes like Gedge exist to make this 40-year old who’s been married for just shy of 16 years and has three kids feel loads better about myself! Still, there’s not many songs can be written about MY kind of boring domesticity whilst Gedge’s voyeur/porno consuming/lecherous 50 year old life is a rich seam for yet more songs about loneliness and bitterness.
Does anyone else feel that after he wrote Health and Efficiency David Gedge felt that it was the perfect song for him. A mix of wedding present and cinerama that he was totally happy with. Then spent the rest of his career (or the next three albums) trying to recreate that exact same damn song with diminishing success? No? Well that’s how I feel. Poppy bit, emotional bit, thrashy guitar bit. Check check check. Go and join Bono in the “Doing Crap Versions of My Earlier Good Stuff” room. Give my love to The Barenaked Ladies when you see them.
So, to clarify:
if I was going to see the Wedding Present live next month, and, knowing very little about them, wanted to check out some stuff – this probably wouldn’t be the best album to start with?
And if not, any recommendations for albums I should be listening to?
Seamonsters, Watusi, Hit Parade Vol. 2 (I think it’s Vol. 2 – the black one, anyway) or Saturnalia if you ask me, Barticus. But others may disagree. Don’t buy anything by Cinerama or the Weddoes that’s been released since about 2001 though because it’s really patchy. Not all rubbish of course, but perhaps needs a little more careful selection.
Those four albums above are all brilliant though and once you’ve bought and enjoyed those, go straight onto Mini, Bizarro, George Best and Va Va Voom. And the Cinerama b-sides collection This is Cinerama.
How much of your money have I just spent?
i just don’t get it. i really don’t.
Quite a bit.
But no matter.
You can’t take it with you, and all that.
Unless you’re just going down the shops.
In which case you probably should take it with you.
I like this album, but as our host says, how much of this has Gedge done before.
the trouble with men is my fave song this year so far though…
Go out and get em, boys
did I ever tell you know the woman who most of the songs circa George Best/Tommy were written about?
there is an “I” missdig in that above comment. s’true, though. I do.
I remember you mentioning this actually. You like this album much then, DC? I’m actually a little surprised I’ve not received more flak for this, but there you go.
what did you expect – a sudden change in direction?
obviously i couldn’t wait for this album and after initial disappointment have found that his grown on me.
BOO BOO for me being the stand out track
fuck, no. i don’t have an opinion on the new album. i’ve not heard it all. i’ve heard as many tracks as Fisk has played me. not had the chance to listen to too much in the shape of albums recently – mainly clutches of tracks hithe’ & thithe’.