"They never let you down, says The Pig." - so says BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, referring to Cinerama of course. The Pig, by the way, is Peel's affectionate name for his wife.
Cinerama just happen to be one of my favourite bands. They are notoriously low key when it comes to publicising their activities and highly underrated in my opinion. David Gedge has admitted that he doesn't write for the record label, the music press, or the fans, but HIMSELF, so we should applaud him for this. The fact their new album, Torino, didn't even make the top 100, making it the band's biggest "commercial" flop to date, probably has something to do with this. Although the band deserve to be massive in my opinion, I suppose they are just not fashionable enough to be hyped up by the music press, but it's probably better this way obviously. It gives the fans a chance to see them up close, and I get the feeling the band themselves enjoy this aspect of their low profile also.
There appears to be plenty going on right now in Cineramaland. A new compilation of Peel sessions entitled (surprisingly enough) John Peel Sessions: Season 2 was released on 28th April 2003. This second collection of recordings made exclusively for Peel's programme, both in live performance and in studio sessions at the BBC's famous Maida Vale Studios in London, features the earliest renditions of songs that went on to form the core of the band's second and third albums, Disco Volante and Torino, released in 2000 and 2002 respectively. Included are six songs that eventually became singles, among them the string-laden epic, Health & Efficiency, Number 3 in 2001's Festive 50 and a French vocal version of Lollobrigida. The album also features Quick, Before It Melts, Number 2 in 2002's Festive 50 and Your Charms, written to order for a title supplied by Peel himself!
For those who are not in the know, a little about the history of Cinerama; an occasional brief mention in the NME means we just have to spread the word about the greatness of Cinerama ourselves, but this is alright, it's just a shame more people are not aware of the band. The multi talented David Gedge (vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass) has been around as a musician for some time. His previous band, The Wedding Present, played their last show in early 1997, but they had been active since the mid-80's. The Wedding Present (all bedsit angst and introverted fringe facade) haven't actually officially split as a band but since 1997, David has concentrated his efforts on the classic pop-orientated Cinerama. Mostly David's lyrics revolve around the regular themes of affairs of the heart and emotional vulnerability, and he has a very distinctive, fragile and understated vocal style which is nicely complimented by his girlfriend, Sally Murrell's, soaring wordless harmonies. She has a simple, inoffensive voice that plays off Gedge's distinctive inflection well. In my opinion he is an under-rated national treasure - who else could write a line like "You need a paramour/someone to pluck your eyebrows for" and get away with it? In the end, though, for those who are at all interested in resplendent, sexy indie (an unlikely mix), I recommend the music of Cinerama very highly indeed.
Cinerama are a mixed bunch of British, American and Finnish and based in Leeds, London, Cologne & Los Angeles. Though mainly a duo shared with Sally Murrell, Cinerama has employed a varying lineup of collaborators and full blown members. Their first studio album, 1998's Va Va Voom, featured the help of the Church's Marty Wilson-Piper and Emma Pollock of The Delgados. Gedge rescued the rhythm section of the disbanded Goya Dress (Terry de Castro and Simon Pearson) in 1999, taking them on as members, and former Wedding Present guitarist Simon Cleave has been in the line-up since the group's very first show.
Va Va Voom is one of my favourite albums ever and I never get tired of it. The hooks and melodies of the songs are lovely and you can't get them out of your head. David isn't afraid to use the occasional horn or string section. It's the kind of album that you could listen to over and over and it's great lyrically too. The main single on the album, Dance, Girl, Dance, concerns his daydreaming about life with a girl he hasn't even had the courage to speak to yet. Apart from this, Cinerama released a bunch of multi format singles in support of their dubut LP, as well as a number of intervening releases prior to 2000's Steve Albini recorded Disco Volante, their second studio album. Notable was the band's inaugural release on their own Scopitones label on Valentine's Day of 2000 (Manhatten), which featured a pretty good cover of the Smiths' London.
Disco Volante is a little softer and slower than Va Va Voom and there are some very, very nice songs; romantic, witty, clever lyrics and pretty tunes. The songs really do feel your heart with warmth. There was a third album release, conveniently collecting the group's first four singles and a mixture of b-sides and odds and sods. This is Cinerama was released just weeks after Disco Volante. Finally, in April 2001, the band released an album containing their first two John Peel Sessions recorded at the BBC's Maida Vale studios in London. Also included on this CD are two songs extracted from the acoustic set performed and broadcast live and direct from Peel Acres (John's home in Suffolk, England) and two from the band's appearance at 'Peel Night' , a concert staged at Maida Vale in celebration of the presenter's sixtieth Birthday.
With a name like Cinerama, 
you'd expect the theme of film and cinema to be pretty high profile in the band's recordings, and you'd be correct! Cinerama itself was actually a cumbersome, expensive and little used 1950s film making technique involving three cameras shooting side by side to create a gigantic curved widescreen image that literally filled your eyes in either direction. Cinerama paved the way for today’s widescreen films. As for song titles with film connections, Disco Volante was named after a boat in the James Bond film, Thunderball, Honey Rider was a Bond girl, Quick Before it Melts, Dance, Girl, Dance and Barefoot in the Park were films and 146 Degrees is the angle that Cinerama movie screens were at. Also, there are a few other self explanatory song titles like Film, Lollobrigida and Reel 2 Dialogue 2.
SHOW REVIEWS - and I use the term loosely - (written by me)
Mean Fiddler, Charing Cross Road, London, WC2
24th October 2001
Photographs
David Gedge really IS the geezer. This was the final date of the current UK tour and I love the Mean Fiddler. It feels like a proper venue. Elbow were playing at the Astoria about 3 doors down the road, and the shifty looking ticket touts in flasher macs were continuously marching up and down Charing Cross Road shouting “Elbow!, buying or selling tickets for Elbow!” I could tell by the expressions on the faces of most of the passers by, that they were thinking “who the hell are Elbow?” In comparison to Elbow’s flashy neon advertising and “crowd control” mechanisms in place outside the Astoria, good ol Cinerama had a single piece of black and white badly photocopied paper advertising their presence, stuck to the front door of the Mean Fiddler. Much excited anticipation. When we finally got inside, I asked this blonde woman sitting at the merchandising stall, where the ladies was, and she pointed somewhere off in that direction. I said to my friend that she looked a dead ringer for Sally, then we realized it was Sally and felt a bit stupid for asking her were the loos were.
I felt rather sorry for the main support band, who I assume were The War Poets, as there only seemed to be about 10 people lurking around at that early part of the evening, holding a pint, half watching. They were actually kind of boring, though we probably only felt that way because we wanted them out the way so we could see Cinerama, who were still a couple of hours away from coming on stage. The War Poets sounded Manchurian, though I could be wrong. The place started filling up a little bit more by the time the extra special guests (!), Tompaulin, did their stuff. We were actually rather impressed with Tompaulin, they reminded me a little bit of St Etienne, and had a really great girl vocalist.
When the time was right, we made a dash for the front of the stage so we could view Dave’s washed out black sweatshirt at close range. It's traditional. The security guys were a bit mean and kept trying to prevent us from leaning on the front of the stage. The place seemed to be pretty much full by the time Cinerama came on stage, the typical Cinerama/Wedding Present audience being male, mid to late 20’s. There was lots of good natured banter and sarcastic heckling going on, and Dave gave as good as he got as usual, saying stuff about how us Londoners talk funny and have a weird sense of humour. He looked like he was really enjoying himself and was so amiable and a lot less bashful than usual. He admitted that he was having a bad hair day, and somebody shouted out that it looked “perfect!”. Somebody else shouted out to Dave that his hair hadn’t changed in 15 years, and Dave responded with some remark to the effect that us lot *had* changed in those 15 years, i.e. that we’d all got a lot older! Bloomin’ cheek!
Great show overall, I stole this set list from the cinerama.co.uk message board, so hopefully it is accurate, it sounds about right to me: Starry Eyed; Honey Rider; Wow; Cat Girl Tights (new - definitely the title David gave); Dare; Your Time Starts Now; Apres-Ski; The Queen Of Outer Space; This Isn't What It Looks Like (new - couldn't quite hear the title but I'm sure this is right); 146 Degrees; Spangle; Superman; And When She Was Bad (new - definitely the title David gave); Brassneck; Your Charms; Health & Efficiency. Good healthy moshpit going on for the Wedding Present tracks played, and some of the Cinerama songs, Wow, in particular, and we got happily pushed around and half crushed to death. Your Charms and Health and Efficiency also went down a storm. I have warmed a lot to the sound of the Wedding Present this year, but they’re still to me very much more of a bloke’s band. The Wedding Present are more rock; feedback, thrashy guitars, pounding noise, moshpits, angry lyrics; Cinerama are pop; orchestration, piano, girly background vocals, risqué lyrics and cheeky smiles. Generally speaking.
I would add, fantastic sound quality this time around, much better than the ULU show, I could even hear Sally’s vocals loud and clear, normally you can just see her mouth opening and closing, and I was also impressed with the new Cinerama songs that were played, though as usual I will need a few more listens. All too soon, the show was over, Dave said he would see us all again soon and wished us a happy Christmas and stuff. Dave and Sally must have sprinted straight off stage and straight upstairs afterwards, because by the time we had turned around and wandered back up to the foyer, the pair of them were perched on chairs behind the merchandising stall, cool, calm and collected, and waiting to serve us lot. I’ll never know how they got up there so quick. I asked Sally in a rather lame manner to sign my Disco Volante CD sleeve, which I just *happened* to have with me, and then I asked Dave too (I spoke to David Gedge!!). Sally recognized me, and she asked me what the meanie security guys had been saying to us, at the front of the stage. Sally is very, very sweet.
We came out of the Mean Fiddler feeling like we’d just been through two world wars, but fun, fun, fun. Tottenham Court Road tube station a nightmare, the escalators were down for maintenance, so the London Underground guys directed us down this ancient and very unfriendly looking spiral staircase, that seemed to go on forever and ever, and if it isn’t haunted by the ghosts of disgruntled former London Underground employees, I would be very surprised. I didn’t think we were ever going to reach the bottom, it was like journey to the centre of the earth.
University of London Union, Malet Street, London
27th April 2001
Photographs
We arrived at the Malet Street venue way too early and got a bit bored hanging around beforehand, so we decided to check out the student union bar from hell, trying not to look too much like non-students and we waited for the show to start claim our space right in front of David. Everything was running late and two support acts later, Cinerama started setting up their gear on stage. David left the donkey work to the rest of the band, including Sally who was looking very elegant and model like with her long blonde hair and dressed all in black. She was busy rushing around plugging stuff in and checking equipment, etc. and I noticed David hovering nervously in the wings a couple of times, looking on. Sally also brought on a bunch of tall fluffy cats, which she arranged around the stage randomly (I later found out these cats have been on the entire tour and were made by guitarist Simon Cleave, he's made some rats too. They're made of wire and you can put them into poses). I think I counted about 6 or 7 of them in all. Then after what seemed like an age, David appeared to a reception of complete adoration ("we love you!", "you're God!", etc. ) Looking a bit shy, David announced rather appropriately "This is Cinerama!" and off they went! They played a mixed set of old and new stuff. In my excitement, I can only remember about half the set list accurately, but there was Dance, Girl, Dance, Honey Rider and Hard, Fast and Beautiful from Va Va Voom, and from what I can recall they played 146 Degrees, Superman, Heels, Apres Ski, Your Charms and Wow from Disco Volante. Somebody shouted out to David, "What's with the cats?" and David was like "What cats? You must be drunk or something", and then there were the surreal chants of "Yorkshire, Yorkshire!" coming from the middle of the crowd. Why, oh, why?! David innocently made the mistake of asking somebody near the front if they were from London , then realised that this could have been taken as an insult by them, and was very apologetic, hehe. Again in apologetic mode, David felt the need to explain why he was playing new Cinerama songs, i.e. that he knew the fans liked to hear familiar and favourite stuff, but bands like to play their new material. I remember reading after the last tour when Cinerama played the then new Disco Volante songs to an apparently luke warm reception , and now of course we love these songs as much as the original Va Va Voom material. David assured us that in two years time we would love these current new songs just as much also (obviously knowing the ways of us fickle fans only too well!) David had no need to explain himself of course, and the new tunes sounded very sweet.
As promised, the band also launched into a few Wedding Present classics, due to popular demand. Mixed feelings from the fans about this ("I've come to see Cinerama and I wanna hear Cinerama songs", etc.), but the WP songs that David performed (Blue Eyes, Crushed, Crawl, Bewitched?) actually fitted in quite nicely with the familiar Cinerama stuff, even though I am neither particularly fond of or familiar with WP material. Bizarre and interesting seeing the reaction of the obviously hardcore WP fans (of which there were many) present at the venue ("ooh, I remember seeing the guys in '85 when David used to wear those, erm, colourful shirts and shorts on stage.") They went absolutely crazy, knew all the lyrics and I must admit I felt a bit out of it at those moments. I guess the delights of the Wedding Present have passed me by - perhaps I should give them another go. WP fans remind me of Smiths lovers; long memories and very loyal. But anyways David, you need to go shopping! What's with the black sweatshirt you allegedly wore at every UK date!? Maybe it's your lucky sweatshirt or something.
The guys standing behind us had gotten a bit drunken by this stage and after one of the new Cinerama songs one of them heckled, "they all sound the same!" Bastard! I could see David heard but he didn't say anything, until about half a minute later when he'd thought about if for a bit and said something like, "all sound the same? - that must mean they're all good then!" So, good on David. All too soon, the show was over. David and Co disappeared and we all thought he was even more of a God , than we did at the start. We tried to encourage David to come back on again, but to no avail (I guess he gets a bit tired after shows these days), so when the band started packing their gear away we took the hint and left. My friend and I rushed off to catch our Tube and heard afterwards (arrrrrrghhhhhh!!) that David had come out and chatted with the fans after the show and helped sell stuff on the merchandise stall. Oh well, maybe next time we will hang around a bit longer. Overall, a great live sound, very raw, very loud and very exciting. Roll on the next tour.
"The boy Gedge has written some of the best love songs of the rock 'n' roll era. You may dispute this, but I'm right and you're wrong!"
- John Peel - BBC Radio 1
