Our Daughters Wedding
San Francisco's Our Daughters Wedding started playing in 1977 with bass, guitar and drums but in 1978 they quit. One year later they met in New York and decided to start all over again, this time using only rhythm machines and synthesizers. "We started playing at the Hurrah! club as supporting act to James Chance and Mi-Sex. At that time people did not like us and shouted 'where the fuck are the drums, why don't you use any guitars' and that kind of crap. But after a few years it became a fad, so it came as a surprise to us that it all of a sudden was okay to use synths" said a band member. They scored with the dance club hit "Lawnchairs" (1980 Design Records). Then they signed with EMI records and released the 5 song EP "Digital Cowboy" which featured a rerecording of "Lawnchairs", this time using real drums. In 1982 they released the LP "Moving Windows" but the band broke up not long after it's release.
Our Daughters Wedding were:
Layne Rico - synthesizers
Keith Silva - vocals/synthesizers
Scott Simon - saxophone/synthesizers
A complete collection of ODW tracks was recently release on Almacantar Records
Go to the download page to get Our Daughters Wedding - "Lawnchairs" Original 7" version [from vinyl]
19 Comments:
I always loved this song - the synth breaks are killer.
My friends and I must have seen these guys half a dozen times when they played in SF clubs; somewhere we've got a couple of tapes, crudely recorded from the audience, which we enjoyed many times over. Great band! Thanks for posting a synopsis about them.
Around the time this song came out, there was a news story about a guy who attached helium balloons to his LAWNCHAIR and floated about LA's airport. Lawnchairs were indeed everywhere.
I saw them play on Long Island at a nice sized venue at the beach and the club hung all these beach chairs from the ceiling for the show. One of them had long hair which he swung in a cirle a lot. Great show and a few decent songs by them fer shure.
i'm not surprised that people who were at Hurrah's to see James Chance didn't like them. I don't recall anyone getting angry about the lack of drums and guitars when OMD played or when Young Marble Giants played...
Lawnchairs video, shot live in the 1980s in New York, now on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_1UIuAISqY and some photos at http://www.myspace.com/ourdaughterswedding
I saw this band in Detroit and auto music has been on of my favorite songs ever since, very very hip group
The Nightlife Collection is not 'complete'. The album (Moving Windows) track 'Paris' has been strangely omitted. Even more strange, Paris was omitted in favour of another album track 'Daddy's Slave' which is god damn awful song, rare for ODW. I've also noticed that the cd remaster is somewhat deficient regarding the over all 'stereo image' and the top end frequencies are far too exaggerated. Listen to the original mixes and compare, you'll hear what I'm talking about. Don’t get me wrong, It's fantastic to have ODW on a digital format at long last but at the same time, I can't help feeling that it was a squandered opportunity due to the mastering. :o(
Great song.
Bought the record way back, haven't heard for years - most try to find it again!
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Lawn chairs are everywhere...I remember that now! I thought they were British at the time, with those affected vocal accents. Hey, why isn't the 1970s Michigan band, the Algebra Mothers, represented on your site? Their song "Strawberry Cheesecake" is delicious, just check it out.
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Lawnchairs was just stunning; I always thought they were British as well. Have it on seven inch, and I still play it!
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The only reason why I remember this song is because it was the one that some contestant on “The Howard Stern Show” couldn’t remember the song “Lawnchairs.” Good stuff, though.
Great blog, love ODW. I'm on a bit of an 80s binge right now, putting together a DJ set for next month, and "Digital Cowboy" is in the crate, along with OMD (a free EP from an ad in Rolling Stone), Visage, a Talk Talk 7" ("Strike up the Band") and Maurice and the Cliches ("Soft Core")...really enjoying this music again, still sounds great. Keep up the great work --
St. James
wanna PEACE
of Me? -Jesus
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