November 5–12, 1998

music

He Oughta Be In Pictures

David Gedge's Cinerama focuses on the silver screen.

Sitting in the cramped dressing room of the Trocadero, Philip Robinson, a keyboardist for Cinerama, deadpans, "Are you sure you don't want to talk to the organ grinder instead of his monkeys?"

Robinson is referring to David Lewis Gedge, the undisputed leader of this six-piece band. But Gedge is downstairs backstage, organizing Cinerama's merchandise.

Gedge, the only remaining original member of Leeds power-pop quartet The Wedding Present, started this side project in order to exercise a little artistic freedom. It's a concept that might seem a bit odd—you'd think that after 11 years with The Wedding Present he'd be the one calling the shots.

"The Wedding Present, although I'm probably the leader of it, has always been more of like a group thing," explains a typically modest Gedge. The unshaven and slightly disheveled 37-year-old has just finished sorting T-shirts. In a few hours, his new band will take the stage for just the second time ever, opening for what would have been Scottish orchestral folk-pop troupe Belle and Sebastian's first Philadelphia performance. (Belle and Sebastian would later cancel at the last minute due to a band member's illness.)

Though Gedge still enjoys working with The Wedding Present, some of his ideas were vetoed by the rest of the members. So, during a hiatus from the band, Gedge started writing songs, incorporating his pet sounds—expanded instrumentation and vocal arrangements cribbed from his favorite '60s and '70s pop radio tunes. It started as a pleasant diversion, but has snowballed into a debut LP, Va Va Voom, now out on spinART records.

"This is total freedom. You don't have to compromise. As the sole writer, I'm the boss," he admits somewhat sheepishly.

The name Cinerama is lifted from a long-since-forgotten surround-screen film process, a primitive 1950s precursor to IMAX. It also pays lip service to Gedge's love of the silver screen.

"I've always been interested in film and film music, especially Spaghetti Westerns… Ennio Morricone and John Barry," he explains as bits of strings from Belle and Sebastian's sound check waft through the walls. "Ironically, it's quite trendy again now."

Along with Cinerama's lush, less guitar-based sound, the other departure from Gedge's Wedding Present work is attention to vocal arrangement. And that's where Cinerama's only other permanent member, keyboardist/vocalist Sally Murrell, Gedge's long-time squeeze, comes in.

"I think she's got good taste in music, and that probably means she's got the same taste as me…" laughs Gedge. "With The Wedding Present, I think vocals are kind of tacked on. With this, I wrote the songs around the idea. Because she was there all the time to help write them it was obvious that she should sing them."

Gedge also enlisted the services of Marty Wilson-Piper, guitarist for The Church and school friend of Va Va Voom's co-producer Dare Mason.

"I'm not a brilliant guitarist, I've got no shame," Gedge concedes. "I said to Dare, 'Do you know a really good guitarist?' Because I could spend a week getting it right, but if someone who's really good could just play it, I'd be quite happy with that."

What Gedge has never needed help with, however, is his bailiwick brutally honest lyrics about the most exquisitely screwed-up love affairs.

The album opener, "Maniac," starts off: "And when I made that stupid oath, about how I was going to/ pay for someone to kill you both…"

"I think it's true to say that [the songs] can't all be true, because I'd have such a weird life [if they were]," he laughs.

Most are drawn from movies or books, he says. "I just put myself in that position. It's a bit like being an actor.… But I'm just a nosy person. I like to know what people say to each other and why they say things and how they say things. I've never been interested in Ian McCulloch and that kind of thing that's so poetic… and meaningless, really. It's great imagery, but…. With my songs, everybody knows what I'm talking about. There's no poetry there. It's conversation usually. In fact, a lot of them read like a dialogue if you write them out, like a play."

Or maybe a screenplay.

Cinerama plays with The Minders, The Series and Sunset Valley on Friday, Nov. 6, at The Khyber, 56 S. Second St., 238-5888.