The Wedding Present were formed in 1985 in Leeds, England by David Lewis Gedge, Peter Solowka, Sean Charman and Keith Gregory. A four (sometimes five) piece “Indie Rock” band, they share a Guinness World Record with the King, Elvis Presley, in having 12 hit singles in one year (1992) in the UK charts. Only singer/guitarist David remains from the original line up, and in twelve years there have been around ten other members. They have recorded 10 albums:

The “Weddoes” are actually the only remaining real Indie band from the 80’s, having formed their own record label Reception to release their first few singles and albums, left both Island and RCA to go back to their Indie roots with Cooking Vinyl. Of the twelve singles released in 1992, the May release Come Play With Me reached number 10, their highest chart position to date. This was at a time when Indie/Alternative music was still essentially an underground phenomenon and the charts were full of choreographed ex-catalogue model dancers and acid house dance music (mmm… funny how things come full circle). The b-sides of the singles were all covers ranging from Falling, the theme from Twin Peaks, to Step Into Christmas by Elton John!

In 1995-6 they played a number of gigs with two drummers for the song Sucker (only available as a 7inch single - cool!), hence the sometime-fifth member. The Ukrainsk... album was a collection of Ukrainian folk music played à la Weddoes-original guitarist Peter Solowka being of Eastern European descent. One of their best ever songs, Crawl, was only available as a b-side to the single Dalliance from the Seamonsters album.

If you want to get into their music, Seamonsters and Watusi are good starting points, but to be honest they have never recorded a bad song!