sound of the suburbs

This really wasn't planned, above all as there was a song from today's band posted last Thursday, but there again I often get the feeling that this blog leads a life of it's own! Those of you that actually read what I write will have realised by now that I'm no spring chicken and that I have two sons and a job and a house........... Obviously all these take up time as does this blogging business. What I have realised the older I get is that we don't see our friends as often as we maybe should, 1500km the English Channel and some 25 years have made sure of that my chums from school are just a distant memory. When I arrived in France, at the end of the eighties, I was lucky enough to fall upon a bunch of like minded music loving, alcohol consuming party hell raisers such as myself. This period could almost be compared with Lennon's lost week-end as we spent so much time indulging ourselves and punishing our livers while we tasted Montpelliers night life. As they say all thing come to an end, we are now all either married, living with someone and maybe got kids as well and above all we are all now past the big 40, for my part I have moved and now live in a neighbouring town. Basically what all this means is that it is rare that we meet up above all collectively, and last Friday was one of those rare occasions, and as always we were left wondering the next day while nursing a throbbing head just why don't we get together more often? By Sunday my head was almost functioning correctly and so I set about looking for today's Peel Session, when I stumbled upon 'You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends' while searching and my thoughts kept returning to that song, so what the hell! Despite the fact that only days before I had posted something else from the Wedding Present, the song imposed itself, so exceptionally today's post is dedicated to my friends.

I have always had a soft spot for the band loving the gruff vocals, the frantic guitar strumming, the soaring bass lines and those wonderfully long song titles, I know that I was not alone as the band were Peel favorites, and David Gedge stayed a Friend until the end. They recorded nine sessions between February 1986 and March 1992, and were obviously in synch. with the balding one's listeners as the Wedding Present had 41 songs enter the famous festive fifty over the years. As already mentioned the band had a way with cover versions and laid down their own version of Orange Juice's 'Felicity' both songs are taken from their first session and can be found on the 'Tommy' album which collects together their first four singles and early Peel Sessions.