The Lost Pandas fell apart in 1984 when guitarist Michael Duane (later of dustDevils) was sacked, and Panda's drummer Jaz Rigby followed in protest. Gedge and the Pandas' bass player, Keith Gregory, decided to continue the band, renaming it The Wedding Present.
Gedge wanted to use the name "The Wedding Present" in honour of one of his favourite bands,The Birthday Party.
Gedge and Gregory recruited an old schoolmate of Gedge's, Peter Solowka, to play guitar and auditioned a string of drummers, including Mike Bedford, with whom they recorded a demo tape, before settling on Shaun Charman. The country's clubs and bars were toured as the band prepared for the recording of their first, self-financed single.
After some consideration, "Go Out and Get 'Em, Boy!" was chosen over early favourite "Will You Be Up There?". The A-side features drumming by hired hand Julian Sowa with Charman on its B-side. The single was released on the band's own Reception Records label with distribution through Red Rhino. Although Reception was only intended to be a vehicle for the release of their own material, it also released a number of singles by This Poison! and Cud.
Two more singles followed that did well on the independent charts and the band was spotted by veteran BBC radio DJ John Peel, who immediately started championing them and invited them to do a radio session, 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. Disagreement on production values with the record's producer, Chris Allison, led to the product being remixed by the band and their engineer, Steve Lyon. The larger part of these conflicts seemed to lie with the personal and musical incompatibility of Allison and Charman.
Upon its release, the album was critically acclaimed and the band were soon lumped in with some of their peers as the 'shambling' or C86 scene, a categorization that they vehemently declined (although they were featured on the original C86 compilation). Musically, the album featured fast-paced rhythm guitar attacks; lyrically, apart from a few tentative 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).
With the departure of Charman very early on in 1988, Simon Smith took up the drum stool and follow up album, 1989's Bizarro was again popular with the music weeklies.
When Solowka, who has Ukrainian roots, started fooling around with a Ukrainian folk tune during one of their many Peel sessions, the idea arose to devote some of their radio time to recording their versions of Ukrainian and Russian folk song, 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.
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. Solowka, Liggins, and Remeynes later split from the band to concentrate on the Ukrainian material as the band The Ukrainians.
Seamonsters is the third studio album by English rock band The Wedding Present. It was recorded in ten days in 1991 by American producer Steve Albini at Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. Albini had previously recorded two EPs with the group, Brassneck and 3 Songs and, like those records, Seamonsters has a rougher, harsher overall sound than the group's earlier two albums.
Solowka was replaced by Paul Dorrington and the band in 1992 released a single every month, and each of these songs charted before being released as compilations of both the A and B-sides. Each of these 12 singles hit the UK Top 40 and the band tied Elvis Presley's record of most Top 40 singles in the span of a year.
Following a quiet 1993 in which Gregory left and was replaced by Darren Belk, they followed up their record-breaking 1992 year with a new LP in 1994 called "Watusi". Following this, Dorrington left, Belk moved to guitar and they temporarily became a 3-piece before Jayne Lockey arrived. A mini LP, helpfully called "Mini" drove up early '96 shortly before "Saturnalia" zoomed in Summer '96 (along with the addition of new guitarist Simon Cleave after Belk's depature).
Following a gig in January 1997, Gedge decided to rest the Wedding Present name and started performing as Cinerama however while recording a new Cinerama album in 2004 he decided to resurrect the name the Wedding Present.
The first Wedding Present single in 7 years was released in November 2004 followed by an album in February 2005. This line-up was Gedge, Cleave, bassist Terry de Castro and drummer Kari Paavola. Paavola declined to tour and subsequently left replaced by Simon Pearson and then Graeme Ramsey. Simon Cleave left early 2006 but rejoined in 2009. His 3 year void was filled by guitarist Christopher McConville.
In more musical chairs, guitarist Cleave departed again later in 2009 due to ill health. The vacant guitar position was actually snabbed by the drummer, Ramsay, who was replaced on the drum stool by Charlie Layton (who had previously served for a very short time in 2006). Following this in Summer 2010, long-serving bassist, Terry de Castro, also vacated to be replaced by Pepe le Moko. A year later, in late 2011, after the recording of the band's 8th studio album, Valentina, Ramsay departed to be replaced by (ex-The Young Playthings and The Pipettes), Patrick Alexander.
The band emerged in February 2013 with yet another new line-up after the sacking of le Moko and Alexander - bassist Jen Schwartz (from Me of a Kind) and guitarist Geoff Maddock (from Goldenhorse).
For more information please visit www.scopitones.co.uk
Palisades
The Wedding Present Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
We didn't even kiss
Now you're suddenly telling me that you're leaving me
Do I get a say in this?
I thought women were supposed to tell you how they're feeling
But you're really the most unrevealing
I don't know where I'm at
Oh, you have got to give me more than just "Hey, sorry, there's the door"
I think you owe me that
You might think you're sparing me but, no, I really don't care
I just need to know why
You don't love me any more
You don't love me any more
I trust you when you say there's no one else but, in a way, that would at least make sense
It is impossible to try to talk about all this when I don't know what I'm up against
You might think you're sparing me but, no, I really don't care
I just need to know why
You don't love me any more
You don't love me any more
You don't love me any more
You don't love me any more
The lyrics to The Wedding Present's song Palisades depict a difficult and heartbreaking conversation between two people on the brink of the end of their relationship. The singer realizes that something is wrong with their partner as they haven't spoken a word all night and they never even kissed. The partner then drops the bombshell that they are leaving, leaving the singer feeling confused and hurt. The singer asks why, how long have they felt this way, and if they can have a say in the matter. The partner doesn't offer much of an explanation, leaving the singer feeling even more lost and hurt.
One interpretation of the lyrics is that they explore the difficulty of communication in relationships. The singer believes that women are supposed to be more communicative about their feelings, yet the partner is "the most unrevealing." The partner doesn't offer any explanation for leaving except for a quick apology, leaving the singer feeling unsatisfied and hurt. The singer even questions if there is someone else, but the partner denies it, making it all the more confusing.
Overall, the lyrics to Palisades capture the pain and confusion that often accompanies a breakup. Although the partner tries to spare the singer's feelings, it ultimately leaves the singer with more questions than answers, making it all the more difficult to move on.
Line by Line Meaning
I knew something wasn't quite right; you haven't said a word all night
I could sense that something was off because of your silence throughout the night
We didn't even kiss
We didn't share physical intimacy at all
Now you're suddenly telling me that you're leaving me
Out of nowhere, you are telling me that you want to end our relationship and move on
Do I get a say in this?
I feel like my opinion or feelings don't matter, but I still want to know if I have any say in the matter
I thought women were supposed to tell you how they're feeling
I believed that women were more expressive about their emotions and would tell me if something was wrong
But you're really the most unrevealing
But you are not opening up to me at all, and it's hard to understand what you are thinking or feeling
So have you felt like this for long and will you tell me what went wrong?
I want to know if this has been going on for a while and if you can explain what caused your sudden change of heart
I don't know where I'm at
I am confused and lost, not knowing what to do or how to react
Oh, you have got to give me more than just 'Hey, sorry, there's the door'
I need a more detailed explanation or closure than a simple apology and the decision to leave
I think you owe me that
I believe that, after being in a relationship, you owe me some sort of explanation or justification for ending it
You might think you're sparing me but, no, I really don't care
You may believe that you are doing me a favor by sparing me the details, but I actually do care and want to know what happened
I just need to know why
I may not be able to change the outcome, but I still want to understand the reason behind the decision to leave
You don't love me any more
The reason for the breakup seems to be an absence or loss of love for me
I trust you when you say there's no one else but, in a way, that would at least make sense
I believe you when you say that there is nobody else involved, but that explanation would at least provide some sort of sense or reasoning behind the breakup
It is impossible to try to talk about all this when I don't know what I'm up against
It's difficult to have a conversation when I am unsure about what led to the decision to end the relationship
You don't love me any more
The absence or loss of love seems to be the main reason behind the breakup
You don't love me any more
The absence or loss of love seems to be the main reason behind the breakup
You don't love me any more
The absence or loss of love seems to be the main reason behind the breakup
You don't love me any more
The absence or loss of love seems to be the main reason behind the breakup
Contributed by Gavin W. Suggest a correction in the comments below.