I made three mixtapes for Michael & Elisabeth Mainelli’s wedding, which were used at the informal party on the Sunday after the formal wedding. I kept track listings (dated 12 May 1996) and can therefore recreate the experience, 25 years later, in embedded YouTube form. Occasionally such embeds get moved, removed or delisted, but you should be able to hear most if not all of them.
Here’s Tape Two, which comprised my idea at that time for a dance party mix with a bit of a 1990s feel to it but mostly rooted in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, which is the era of dance music for which I sensed that most of the guests, like ourselves, could not resist dancing if they heard the right sound.
Frankly, looking at the mix today, 25 years on, I would still happily put this mix on if I wanted to get people dancing. Might need a few leaning props around the dance floor and some stretcher-bearers on standby for people of my generation.
Michael & Elisabeth Wedding Tape 2 Side A: Dance Fast We Are Family, Sister Sledge Twist & Shout, Chaka Demus & Pliers Harvest For The World, Isley Brothers I Feel For You, Chaka Khan Sex Machine, James Brown Love Machine, Miracles Incredible, M-Beat Featuring General Levy I Want You Back, Jackson 5 This Old Heart Of Mine, Isley Brothers Backstabbers, O-Jays Pump Up The Jam, Technotronic Featuring Felly Harlem Shuffle, Bob & Earl Land of 1000 Dances, Wilson Pickett
Michael & Elisabeth Wedding Tape 2 Side B: Dance Varied La Bamba, Los Lobos Stayin’ Alive, N-Trance featuring Ricardo da Force Sexual Healing, Marvin Gaye Now That We’ve Found Love, Third World Proud Mary, Checkmates Ltd Ride On Time, Black Box You Never Can Tell, Chuck Berry I Knew the Bride…, Dave Edmunds Easy, Commodores I Say a Little Prayer, Aretha Franklin Do You Love Me?, Contours 54-56, Toots & the Maytals Shake, Otis Redding If You Don’t Know Me By Now, Harold Melvyn & The Bluenotes
I made three mixtapes for Michael & Elisabeth Mainelli’s wedding, which were used at the informal party on the Sunday after the formal wedding. I kept track listings (dated 12 May 1996) and can therefore recreate the experience 25 years later in embedded YouTube form. Occasionally such embeds get moved, removed or delisted, but you should be able to hear most if not all of them.
Here’s Tape One, which comprised a fair amount from Michael’s own collection of recordings, mixed in with some of mine that I thought would go well with Michael’s own choices.
The other two tapes were more my own ideas.
Michael & Elisabeth Wedding Tape 1 Side A: Soft Rock Moondance, Van Morrison Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes, Paul Simon Eternal Flame, Bangles We Built this City, Starship Lets Stay Together, Tina Turner Modern Love, David Bowie Downtown, Petula Clark Cherish, Kool & the Gang Keep On Loving You, REO Speedwagon Come Monday, Jimmy Buffett Don’t Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult
Michael & Elisabeth Wedding Tape 1 Side B: Harder Rock American Girl, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers The Kids Are Alright, Who More Than a Feeling, Boston Just What I Needed, Cars Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen Travelling Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival New Speedway Boogie, Grateful Dead Rosana, Toto Because The Night, Patti Smith Group Total Eclipse of the Heart, Bonnie Tyler Stairway To Heaven, Led Zeppelin 99 Red Balloons (irritatingly short excerpt) Nena (singing in English)
I didn’t keep a journal or diary for the week-long wedding celebrations for Michael and Elisabeth Mainelli…but that doesn’t matter because I went one better – I wrote a song lyric – which Janie and I performed at the wedding breakfast party – setting out the multi-day event in ballad form. The rest is detail, although I shall, below the lyrics, set out that detail such as it survives in my memory and pictures.
Was the wedding really held at a place named Schloss Mainelliberg?
THE DAY WE WENT TO PFERSDORF (A Bavarian drinking song to the tune of “The Day We Went To Bangor”)
VERSE 1
Didn’t we have a lovely time The day we got to Schweinfurt? Straddles the Main, With its beer and its wine, In Franken, that’s North Bavaria; We used our nous, Went to the Brauhaus, Where some friends of ours did meet us; We ate and drank, With some visiting Yanks, So the beer went down.
VERSE 2
Didn’t we have a lovely time The day we went to Kreuzberg? A beautiful vista, Except for the mist and The stuff that we call smog back home; Up on the hill, The monks can distil(l), And they brew a beer like bitter; Liz drank a few, And young Michael did too, So the beer went down.
VERSE 3
Didn’t we have a lovely time The day we did the Beer Fest? We were relaxin’, And eating schweinshaxen, And drinking the cold weissbeer you know; Can’t understand Why some bloke in the band, Got a pipe and played the toilet; New folks showed up And some old folks throwed up, So the beer went down.
VERSE 4
Didn’t we have a lovely time The day we went to Wurzburg? A beautiful town, Which we nearly burnt down, But not that the guide went on about it; Great elegance, At the Residenz, With its roof by Tiepolo; The guide how he droned, We sloped off to get stoned, So the wine went down.
VERSE 5
Didn’t we have a lovely time The day we did the wine tour? A beautiful day, Strolled through vines on the way, And lunch in one of the towns below; There on the Main, We tasted some wine, For some local do tomorrow; Tried about six, Got confused by the mix, So the wine went down.
VERSE 6
Didn’t we have a lovely time The day we came to Mainberg? A beautiful schloss, But we’re all at a loss, Cos we don’t know why we’ve all been brought here; Then someone said, “Those two have got wed, And we’ve gathered here to party”; It’s their wedding day, So sing hip hip hooray, As the booze goes down.
Arrival In Schweinfurt, 14 May 1996
Janie and I were among the first of the wedding guests to arrive at the Hotel Ross in Schweinfurt. Many of the guests were going to stay at this hotel.
I recall the rather suspicious greeting we received – I’m not sure that parties of English and American visitors were the hotel’s favourite parties at that time – but Janie in particular managed to ingratiate herself with the management and staff quite quickly. By the end of the week, the hospitality was warm and friendly; certainly towards us, anyway.
Michael, Elisabeth and the Reuss family had arranged several days of activities for those who wanted to join them in the pre-nuptial celebrations as well as the wedding itself.
As the days went on, more and more people arrived and joined in those activities.
On that first night, though, I think we were “on our own”, by which I mean that the few of us who had arrived on the Tuesday were left to our own devices.
In truth I don’t remember who comprised that early arriving group. I think Keith Holland was around for most of the week, as were Andrew & Samantha Poole, Rupert Stubbs & Sophie. The “visiting Yanks” I refer to Verse 1 comprised several members of the extended Mainelli family, I think, plus some of Michael’s old friends – perhaps Emma & Betsy were early arrivals. I’m fairly sure the Schlossmans, the Ridges and the Lucas-Clements contingent were early arrivals too.
Anyway, I recall that we quickly settled on going to the Market Brauhaus, probably on the advice of the hotel management, where we ate and drank pretty well in the time-honoured provincial German fashion. Janie and I probably indulged our tatse for Schweinshaxn and this might well have been a beer evening rather than a wine one.
Pre-Nuptial Events 15 to 17 May 1996
We were coached around like tourists for the next few days, with eating and drinking being the main focus of the touring.
Verse 2 of the song pretty much sums up the day we visited the Kreutzburg Monastery. We couldn’t see much up in the mountains on that misty day, but we did enjoy the monastic beverages with a tasty lunch and got to know each other a fair bit better.
I think it was on the monastery tour that the lunch included some superb local white asparagus – quite exceptional it was. But the asparagus might have been on the wine tour. Or both the beer tour and the wine tour. Anyway, I remember that white asparagus fondly.
I have a feeling the beer fest (described in Verse 3) was the same day as the Kloster Kreutzburg tour, as I recall Janie and I wondering at the end of that first full day of celebrations whether we were going to be able to keep up with the other guests. **Spoiler Alert** – we WERE just about able to keep up with the other guests.
There must have been a visiting group of Mexicans, comprising a Mariachi band, touring the beer fests at that time – there’s no other possible explanation – dig the shorts.
On the Thursday, the coach trip took us into Würzburg, a trip described in Verse 4 of the lyric. It was an especially interesting tour, the Würzburger Residenz being a quite spectacular piece of architecture with a fascinating history dating back to the early 18th century. We actually had a tour guide for Würzburg, who seemed to take great pains to remind us regularly that the allies did severe damage to the Würzburger Residenz and even more severe damage to the town towards the end of the second world war. While describing this treatment of Würzburg as inexplicable, she also took pains to explain to us the strategic importance of the place as a junction in the centre of Germany to enable commodities and supplies to traverse the country.
On the Friday, we were taken on a rather glorious wine tour described in Verse 5 of the song, where we got to sample Franconian wines of several grape varieties.
Woe betide you if you suggest that the Franconian wine bottle resembles the Mateus Rose bottle. The Franconians are very clear that they went for the above shape first. Got it?
I think this depicts the wine tour…but it might have been the monastery beer tour
If the song lyric is to be believed, we were actually sort-of sampling/selecting the wines for the wedding breakfast. In truth it seems highly unlikely that the actual wines for the actual wedding were not already ensconced in the Schloss ready for the hoards who were due to descend on the place (ascend to the place?) the next day.
The Wedding Day, Schloss Mainberg, 18 May 1996
As Verse 6 of the song suggests, by the Saturday we had no idea where we were or why we were there.
So I have engaged the services of Dr Kevin Parker who, along with wife Kate, took the sensible precaution of turning up just for the wedding, so they might have been in some sort of decent order for the ceremony.
Below is Kevin’s take on the event.
...we flew out to Germany on the Friday evening, and left fairly early on the Sunday morning (I think we went by car from Schweinfurt up to Frankfurt Airport).
So my striking memories are in order:
Walking around Schweinfurt market on Saturday am.
Being so impressed with the erudite and multi-lingual minister at the service.
Watching the log cutting ceremony on the steps outside the church (and observing which half of the newly married couple was doing most of the work of sawing).
Going up to the Castle and having ‘kaffee und kuchen’ provided by local ladies to keep us going while being shown around. This then meant we could have a proper meal at a proper dinner time, and has been an innovation I have recommended to participants in all future weddings I’ve been involved with!
I also seem to remember talking to Prof Mike Smith’s new fiancee/wife [Marianna] to see whether my small vocabulary of Slovenian words had any counterpart in Slovakian, but I’m not sure whether pronunciation was good enough for her to tell!
Kevin does not describe the party in Schloss Mainberg, but that’s Ok, as I have plenty of pictures. All of the pictures in this Ogblog were supplied to me by The Mainellis soon after the wedding – the exact provenance of each is probably lost in the mists of time.
Janie enjoying the company of Kim Ridge to her left and Adrian Burn to her right. Don’t ask how someone got to take a photo of me from that angleThat’s better – a statuesque, dignified look if ever there was oneI’m still moving my feet like the statue, while Janie actually movesAn audience with the groom himself.Janie and I singing the very song shown at the top of this piece
While the Parkers (and several other guests) left the scene on the Sunday, Janie and I stuck around for a while longer – not least some informal partying on the Sunday. What little I remember of that (and the music playlists from the tapes I made for Michael & Elisabeth to help make that party swing) will be covered in the subsequent Ogblog pieces.
We loved Complicité, (or Théâtre de Complicité as it was then known) back then. This joint production with West Yorkshire Playhouse at the Young Vic was perhaps not their best work.
It is based on a J M Coetzee novel which is basically a sequel to Robinson Crusoe.
We found it impenetrable.
It seems we weren’t alone with that feeling. Michael Billington reviewed it thusly:
I wrote this parody poem for Michael Mainelli’s stag night, which was held on Rupert Stubbs’s barge in Chiswick.
A rare example of a piece I wrote and performed myself; given the cosy audience and their state at the time of the recitation, unsurprisingly it went down rather well.
HARRENDOUS
One of the most godawful lays made about the city MCMXCVI
(A poem not entirely dissimilar to Horatius by Lord Macaulay)
VERSE 1
Liz Lizbetchen, she of Chiswick
By the sauerkraut she swore
That the great house of Franken
Should suffer wrong no more.
By the sauerkraut she swore it,
And named a wedding day,
And bade her messengers set sail,
Letters, faxes, calls and e-mail,
To summon her array.
VERSE 2
Letters, faxes calls and e-mail
She let them know real fast,
In hamlet, town and cottage
And little places you’d drive past.
Shame on the false Etreusscan
Who lingers at the stalls,
When Lizbetchen of Chiswick
Has Michael by the balls.
VERSE 3
Now from the dock St Katherine’s
Could young Mainelli spy
The line of blazing bridesmaids
Across the midnight sky.
The buddies of Mainelli,
They sat all night and day,
For every hour some faxes came
With tidings of dismay.
VERSE 4
To London and to Franken
Have spread the Reusscan bands
Nor house, nor fence, nor dovecote
Unrenovated stands.
Bayswater down to Bishopsgate
Hath wasted in a dash;
Our Liz has stormed through Selfridges
And spent shitloads of cash.
VERSE 5
They held a council standing
Before the River Thames;
Short time was there, ye well may guess,
To stop him buying gems.
Out spake the Verschoyle roundly:
“That Liz must great go down;
Mainelli’s sense is truly lost,
We might as well rave on down.”
VERSE 6
Then out spake brave Harrendous,
The one from Michael’s firm:
“To every man upon this earth
Wedlock cometh like a germ.
And how can a man wed better
Than pissed as a bloody fart
Cos he’ll still be window shopping
For a fresh bit of jam tart.
VERSE 7
So start the rave Sir Rupie,
With all the speed ye may;
I with two more to help me,
Will get on down, way hay.
The legal limit of a thousand
May well be drunk by three.
Now who will stand on either hand
And get well pissed with me?
VERSE 8
Then out spake Lucas Clementus;
A boating man proud was he:
“Yo, I will stand at thy right hand,
And get well pissed with thee.”
Then out spoke Ricardus Sealyus,
Of filming man fame was he:
“I will abide on thy left side,
And get well pissed with thee.”
VERSE 9
Then out spake Marcus Schlossmanus,
A photographer proud and tall:
“Don’t mind if I do have a quick jar or two,
Until I’m senseless and I fall.”
Then out spake Julius Mountainous,
A friend from firms gone by:
“I’ll knock them back, build up a stack,
I can drink this damned barge dry.”
VERSE 10
Then out spake Rupius Stubbsius,
A Saatchi man by trade:
“Just hold it a tick with your big swinging dicks,
This is my party I’m afraid.
For stags at stag nights quarrel
Spared either girl or dame,
No maids, no duff, no bits of fluff,
Not even one that’s on the game.
VERSE 11
Imbibers oh imbibers!
It’s Michael we must drown,
A bachelor but a few days left,
So just shut up and party on down.”
So he spake and speaking sheathed
(tho “why sheathed” in this company? doesn’t it make you think??)
And with his wineglass in his hand
Plunged headlong in the drink.
VERSE 12
Years later, you’ll not remember
Much about that night gone by;
But you’ll recall the week of migraine
And that month of sustained red eye.
With weeping and with laughter
You’ll tell the stories right,
How well Mainelli held his drink,
On Michael’s wild stag night.
