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
The Trouble With Men
The Wedding Present Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
That I'd fallen for you already, by the time you'd kissed the man stood at my side
And, yes, I'm used to being someone whose chances are quite slim
But I still imagined seeing you leave the room with me instead of him
Don't say: "Hello"
You're far too gorgeous for me and I know that if you talk to me then I'll raise my hopes up again
Instead of loving my wife and getting on with my life
So there I go again
I guess that's just the trouble with men
Which brings me to you
Don't say: "Hello"
You're far too gorgeous for me and I know that if I talk to you then I'll raise my hopes up again
And I will spend all weekend wondering if you could be my girlfriend
Instead of loving my wife and getting on with my life
The Wedding Present’s song “The Trouble With Men” is a song about the complexities of desire and fidelity. The lyrics describe a chance encounter with a beautiful stranger who captures the attention of the singer. They meet at a social gathering, and despite the fact that the stranger was seemingly interested in the singer, they end up kissing someone else who was standing next to him. This highlights the idea that even when we think we’ve found somebody who piques our interest, there’s always a chance we’ll miss our shot.
The singer then goes on to say that he’s used to being overlooked and dismissed, yet he still can’t help but envision a future with the stranger. He knows that if he were to speak to her, it would only raise his hopes and lead to unnecessary longing. The struggle between loving his wife and being intrigued by this new person is the main theme of the song. The singer acknowledges that he’s aware of the consequences of his actions and desires, yet he can’t shake the allure of the stranger. The song’s lyrics are introspective, honest, and relatable. They are sure to resonate with anyone who has experienced conflicting feelings of infatuation and loyalty.
Line by Line Meaning
You walked right up to me with such a knowing smile
You approached me confidently and with a smile that suggested you knew something about me
That I'd fallen for you already, by the time you'd kissed the man stood at my side
I was attracted to you even before you kissed the man standing next to me
And, yes, I'm used to being someone whose chances are quite slim
I often feel like I don't have a good chance with people I'm attracted to
But I still imagined seeing you leave the room with me instead of him
Even though I knew you kissed the other man, I still had hope that you might choose to be with me instead
Don't say: "Hello"
Please don't even acknowledge me with a greeting
You're far too gorgeous for me and I know that if you talk to me then I'll raise my hopes up again
You are so beautiful that talking to you could give me false hope
And I will spend all weekend wondering if you could be my girlfriend
I'll spend the whole weekend daydreaming about being in a relationship with you
Instead of loving my wife and getting on with my life
Instead of focusing on and appreciating my current spouse and life situation
So there I go again
I'm falling into my typical pattern of romantic fantasizing
I guess that's just the trouble with men
This is a common problem among men in relationships
Which brings me to you
And this problem is currently affecting my interactions with you
Contributed by Colton I. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Rebecca Perkins
This is the only video of this. Thank you so so so much!!!