The Wedding Present is a simple enough proposition—if amphetamines could make a noise, they’re making it. If you could snort a sound, it would be theirs. Their songs mark the triumph of the rhythm guitar played fast, very fast indeed. Musical crank cranked up, super propulsive and less jangly than jaunty, their songs are all sound and fury, and the proof that the siren call of the Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On” did not go unheard. It just got faster.
The Wedding Present was founded in Leeds, England in 1985 by guitarist and vocalist David Gedge, following the dissolution of his former band, The Lost Pandas. Gedge, the Wedding Present’s only permanent member, has operated in adherence to a credo that involves three-chord structures and rhythmic grooves played as fast and as loud as possible. The band’s name is an homage to The Birthday Party, and its influences have been cited as The Buzzcocks, the Velvet Underground, and The Fall (although I’ll be damned if I hear The Fall in their music). Lumped in (although Gedge wasn’t happy about it) with the shambolic C86 subgenre—which joined jangling guitars to power pop—The Wedding Present’s first LP (1987’s George Best) won critical acclaim.
In February 1989 The Wedding Present came upon an ingenious way of ruining their own career. Українські Виступи в Івана Піла is one of the most offbeat compilation LPs ever released by a major band. Composed of two John Peel sessions, and sung in Ukrainian, it failed miserably, which is to say that instead of sidetracking the band forever it inexplicably rose to #22 on the UK album charts. Fortunately, unless you’re a Ukrainian folk song fanatic, The Wedding Present returned to form with their sophomore LP, October 1989’s Bizarro. Featuring Gedge, Peter Solowka on guitar, Keith Gregory on bass, and Simon Smith on drums, the original LP featured 10 songs, all but 3 or so of them hard-edged rhythm guitar workouts. (The subsequent US CD release included 4 additional tracks, including a not-so-different version of “Brassneck” produced by Steve Albini and a cover of Pavement’s “Box Elder.”)
Bizarro is the Rosetta Stone of lovers of pneumatic rhythm guitar jams. It’s simple; if you like the sound of a rhythm guitar being played fast, and I’m talking about really really fast, Bizarro is the LP for you. Lyrically, Gedge focused on romantic themes such as love, lust, hatred, and jealousy, but in general his lyrics are mostly workmanlike, and merely the icing on the cake of his heroic and unstinting dedication to breaking the sonic speed limit, especially on such furious workouts as “Kennedy,” “Granadaland,” and the 9-plus minute magnum opus “Take Me.”
The LP opens with the great “Brassneck,” which doesn’t waste time in giving you a notion of what The Wedding Present does best. The song races along like a thoroughbred while Gedge sings, “Brassneck/Brassneck/I’ve just decided I don’t trust you any more/I’ve just decided I don’t trust you any more.” This is not some light jangly pop tune; Gedge and Solowka aren’t playing to the fey crowd, but to folks in search of a tougher, harder sound. Follow-up “Crushed” roars along at a similar speed, with rhythm guitars in overdrive and rhythm section in tight lockstep. Amelia Fletcher provides some backing vocals, and the song slows and speeds up again, and it’s great albeit not as great as the tres melodic follow-up “No,” which is much slower but still gallops and features Gedge in vituperative mode. The song’s as lovely a putdown as you’re ever likely to hear, and perfect for sending via YouTube to that so-and-so you love and hate in the same breath.
“Thanks” is a fast-paced number, during which Gedge rants and raves to the accompaniment of some guitars that don’t really transition to hyper-speed until about the three-quarter mark, and it’s probably my least favorite track on the LP. Lucky for us, it’s followed by the V2-fast “Kennedy,” in which Gedge sings incongruously, “Lost your love of life/Too much apple pie/Oh have you lost your love of life/Too much apple pie,” at which point the bass comes in, throbbing like the heart of some gigantic beast, only to be followed by the guitars, which play faster and faster until you think it can’t really be, that no one can play so fast and furiously without seriously fucking up the space-time continuum. Meanwhile, “What Have I Said Now?” is a pummeling mid-tempo tune in which Gedge moans and groans and sings, “I’m not being unfair/Okay I am but who cares?”, which are words to live by if I’ve ever heard any. The guitars are muted, and there’s a cool repetitive guitar interlude in the song’s middle, and it’s all very VU as opposed to V2, although the tempo quickens near the song’s end.
“Granadaland” is a real tsunami of a song; it just sorta leaps out at you, and from there on about all you can do is hold on or get out of its way. The guitars do a lot of chuffing and chugging when they’re not just driving too fast for conditions, which happens around the song’s midpoint. At which point the song builds and builds, cymbals crashing like mad while Gedge plays subtle variations on the sound of a sonic boom. Then everything comes crashing to a halt before beginning again, and Gedge tosses in some delirious feedback the likes of which I’ve never heard. As for “Bewitched,” it starts with some feedback, then opens slowly, the rhythm section providing a big bottom for Gedge’s atmospheric guitar work. Then the damn song explodes like a hand grenade, reaching for a delirious noise before subsiding back into its plow horse-like pacing. Ah, but here comes another explosion, and it really is bewitching. But all great things must come to an end, and the song falls back into itself, with Gedge playing a surprisingly quiet guitar before the tune detonates yet again for one final go-round.
“Take Me” is a majestic and monumental track, and the LP’s apotheosis. It starts at full thrust and never lets up, and may well be the finest example of rhythm guitar mayhem ever recorded. “Take me/I’m yours” sings Gedge before letting out a small scream, after which the song proceeds to take you on a ride on that bus in Speed, sans Sandra Bullock. And on and on it goes, the guitars rising and falling, temporarily dipping their toes into some primal rock’n’roll before then zooming off again like the Roadrunner being pursued by Wile E. Coyote. This is the song that haunted Lou Reed’s dreams, and the sound he could never attain, and I can only think of a few guitar workouts I like as much: Reed’s “I Heard Her Call My Name,” the Pooh Sticks’ “I’m in You,” and the guitar coda to “Layla.” Finally, album closer “Be Honest” is a horse of a different color; smoother and more traditional, it moves at a stately tempo and emphasizes the rhythm section, and if we’re “really going to be honest” (Gedge’s words, not mine) I’m not thrilled by it. But it only lasts 2:37, and it’s by no means a loser; it’s just that almost any song after “Take Me” is bound to be a letdown.
Gedge took a left turn in 1997 by forming a new and less rhythm-driven band, Cinerama. But by 2004 he’d resurrected The Wedding Present, and has been at it ever since. His agenda may be simple, but that doesn’t make it any less astonishing; Bizarro is less a record than a force of nature, and The Wedding Present has established a benchmark for frenzied rhythm guitar forays that I can’t imagine ever being topped. Take “Take Me.” It will take you to places you never imagined existed, blow your mind, and pick your pocket all at the same time, and it will be here and gone—9 minutes plus notwithstanding—before you know it. That’s speed, and as everybody knows speed kills, but with Bizarro you’re guaranteed to die with a smile on your face.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
