It’s argued that the twentieth century was the era of possessions, one in which those conscious enough happily defined themselves by the things they gathered around them.
Fewer items were more symbolic of this obsession than singles, the seven inches of vinyl which were bought and owned in a frenzy of self determining zeal. Snagging them was ritualistic in the extreme, featuring a journey into town, spending hours choosing the object of this week’s affection (you taped the Top 40 every week of course) and then pulling the treasure out of its sleeve like a newborn child on the way home. Then there was the talking about it, the endless rows at school about so-and-so band and this-and-that song, building up to the anticipation a week later of going to do the same thing all over again.
There were moments when music as a physical thing seemed on its way out, abandoned to the hell of pound shops and car boot sales, mementos cruelly sacrificed to the gut-wrenching spectacle of Prince going for 50p (slightly scratched). Those were indeed dark days, but such has been the renaissance of vinyl as a format, not only are we now buying vinyl to replace the CDs we bought to replace the original vinyl, we’re even seeing something last witnessed in the 1990s – new music being released via the format, like it just don’t care.
All product needs distribution of course, and to allow these good things to happen we now have projects like Come Play With Me, a Leeds based singles club – not that kind – created to give a leg up to musical folk who might otherwise have made to do with using digital platforms to circulate their work. The label is the brainchild of Tony Ereira, impresario of city imprint Hatch Records and a man who’s experienced at first hand the region’s diverse and thriving music scene.
Spotting that many less established artists were struggling to put together a physical release mainly due to costs, he came up with the idea of an outlet which would help promote local acts and others from right across the wider city region, which also encompasses places like York, Bradford and Barnsley.
Come Play With Me was launched in September as a Community Interest Company, meaning that any profits made will be reinvested in new projects. Its first release was something of a coup; few names are more synonymous with Leeds from a musical perspective than David Gedge, frontman of The Wedding Present, a band whose three-decades-plus as indie royalty has seen them outlast practically every other group of their generation.
His ‘other’ outfit, Cinerama, have recently emerged from a hiatus to release the album ‘Valentina‘, and it’s from a live version of that which their track ‘Girl From The DDR‘ has been taken to provide Come Play With Me’s first release. We stay in the city in fact for the other A side, Karen Harkin (of Sky Larkin and, latterly, reformed American alt-rock outfit Sleater Kinney) contributing ‘National Anthem Of Nowhere‘.
Gedge was guest of honour along with Guardian journalist Dave Simpson at a special event at Duke Studios to celebrate the beginning of another chapter in the city’s musical history, and Live4ever caught up with the singer after the event – talking about, amongst other things, Gangnam Style, Taylor Swift and Weetabix.
Can you remember the first 7″ single you ever bought?
It was ‘Two Little Boys’ by Rolf Harris which, obviously, has… erm… slightly different connotations these days!
There was something about the ritual of buying music – browsing the racks, taking it out of the bag on the way home, the ecstasy or disappointment of that first play – which made it the most special art form. Do you think its easy accessibility now via digital has helped to commoditise it?
Well I think it was always a commodity! But you have a point…there’s hardly the same romance in downloading a file onto your computer or whatever as there was from buying records from a shop. But there’s two sides to every story, and searching for music is obviously much easier nowadays. I would’ve loved to have been able to watch My Bloody Valentine videos whenever I wanted in the 1980s rather than having to live in hope that The Chart Show or something might show one.
Music as an art form seems to be an assembly of niches now – do you think that a single still has the power to jump cultural boundaries and become definitive (for instance like ‘Imagine’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ or more recently pop songs such as ‘Call Me Maybe’, ‘Gangnam Style’ etc.)
I don’t see why not. Maybe we’re just lacking artists of the calibre of, erm, PSY nowadays…
When you write songs, do you think of them as potential ‘singles anymore? Did you ever?
Usually, but not always. To me the single is the fundamental unit of pop music, so when I’m writing a song I’m typically bearing that in mind. But then it can also depend on the project. For instance, I’m currently working on The Wedding Present’s next release, ‘Going, Going…’ which will be twenty ‘linked’ tracks all with accompanying films. So while a version of one of the songs (‘Two Bridges’) was actually released as a 7” single, these pieces of music were written more as a collection.
Do you think anything has changed culturally which has helped vinyl re-emerge as such a popular format?
I think the resurgence was initially driven by nostalgia, but when my teenage niece wants a record player for Christmas I guess there’s obviously something more going on! Perhaps, regardless of the benefits of digital technology, people yearn for well-crafted physical artifacts after all?
What do you say to the people who regard vinyl’s renaissance as a temporary, almost Luddite phenomenon?
They might have a point! I hope not. But I’m reasonably confident that it’s not just a fashion thing because it has been going for quite a while now.
Knowing what you do about being on an indie label, what would you tell Tony not to do?
Ha ha…I don’t think he needs my help. And, anyway, I’ve made some terrible marketing decisions over the years!
When TWP released a single every month in 1992 did the band find themselves in a permanent state of mania, wondering where the next one would chart, the sort of agonies a ‘pop’ artist would go through, times twelve?
We didn’t really care too much about the chart position to be honest. I mean, I was obviously interested to a certain extent but that was all more of a side effect. The real mania came about because all the songs were written and recorded as we went along and so there was always the concern that perhaps we were releasing sub-standard material just in order to complete the series. I don’t think we ever did release sub-standard material but I, for one, definitely felt the pressure!
Famously you were given a lot of support from established but alternative radio – John Peel especially. Is it much harder now to get broadcasters interested in your work (with reference to Sandi Thom’s outburst the other week)?
Other than Peel (whose program I was kind-of obsessed with) I’ve never particularly attempted to get any broadcasters interested in my work. Actually, maybe that’s been one of my terrible marketing decisions! I mean, I obviously send out records to people whose shows I like and stuff, but if they don’t want to play my music on the radio I feel like that’s totally up to them.
The song you’ve chosen for the single, and most of Cinerama’s work, are something of a departure from what most Wedding Present fans might recognise. Do you ever see the Wedding Present genre jumping? Perhaps a drum n’ bass version of ‘Give My Love To Kevin’?
Anything’s possible, ha ha. But I actually think that The Wedding Present have already jumped around quite a bit over the years. Lots of jangly guitar music aficionados didn’t like ‘Seamonsters’, and then we chased away fans of ‘Seamonsters’ with the lo-fi pop sound of ‘Watusi’. And don’t even get me started on our Ukrainian folk phase! I do feel like at times that I’ve been in about five completely different bands.
How was your experience of the Come Play With Me launch night?
I felt like I was a bit out of my comfort zone, but it’s always good to push yourself. It was gratifying to see so many of the songs still working in a stripped down format like that.
Do you find people are fans mainly of your Cinerama work, The Wedding Present, or that the audience is the same for both?
It’s totally varied. I’ve met Wedding Present fans who never got into Cinerama and vice versa And as I said, some people prefer different eras of both bands anyway. That’d be another marketing disaster of mine I guess. I think to be commercially successful a band has to give people what they want all the time. If you go and buy a second box of Cornflakes you don’t want it to suddenly taste like Weetabix.
Low pressing numbers and a split release is a very punk approach – do you think that labels like Come Play With Me will encourage others to start DIY operations to get their music in the public domain?
I hope so, but it’s a risky business. In essence you’re competing with music for ‘free’ and that takes some courage.
You were at the vanguard of putting Leeds very much on the map in terms of providing places for alternative bands to play in the 1980s. Did you ever feel like you were ‘representing’ the city in the early days?
Not particularly. We were obviously labelled as a Leeds band, but I was the only band member from Leeds. I think at the time Leeds was known as the centre of ‘goth’ culture and we didn’t represent any of that of course.
If you were going to issue a split release of your own, who ideally would you want to share it with?
Taylor Swift.
Now the Cinerama live album has been released, what’s next?
My main focus at the moment is the ‘Going, Going…’ project, which I mentioned before. But 2016 is also the twentieth anniversary of our ‘Saturnalia’ album and so we’re playing a short tour in May to celebrate that too, including a concert at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds actually.
Finally, is the story about you and the rest of the members of TWP living on toast for 18 months prior to the release of ‘George Best’ an urban myth?
You can find the answer to that in my biography! It’s called Tales From The Wedding Present and Issue 9 is out this month.
