Over the course of a quarter of a century, Wedding Present and Cinerama auteur David Gedge has consistently documented the intricacies of interpersonal communication, mostly of the romantic kind. While currently writing new tunes in his tradition of celebrating romantic bliss and bemoaning lost love, Gedge is also revisiting some old flames. His label, Scopitones, last week released Live 1988, a double album of concert recordings from—you guessed it—1988, the second in a series of LPs collecting live cassettes that were sold at gigs and through their fanzine in the late ’80s. The band is also playing Bizarro, arguably the best Wedding Present effort, in its entirety during a tour that kicked off April 1 in San Diego. Gedge will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him and our 2005 career overview of the Wedding Present.
Gedge: The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual event broadcast all over Europe in which countries compete to see who can come up with the best song. The thing is, it’s not really about songs, it’s not really a contest and it’s not even really about Europe, because Israel is allowed in it. But that’s partly why I’ve always found it so entertaining. We make a big pizza and drink a bottle of red wine and sit around the TV for the two or so hours marvelling at cheesy song performances and then being baffled by an hour of voting, much of which is politically motivated. There is a representative from each country who reads out the points that that nation has awarded. It’s all very exciting, especially when the transmission breaks down or the presenter tries to pad his or her part. Unfortunately, Terry Wogan, the Irish television presenter who has hosted the British transmission of the contest since the ’70s, has recently stepped down. And I do miss his dry wit.
Video after the jump.
