Wire are the definitive Art Punk and Post-Punk Band.
Wire formed in London in October 1976 with Colin Newman (vocals, guitar), Graham Lewis (bass, vocals), Bruce Gilbert (guitar) and Robert Gotobed (drums). The first Art-Punks, the four musicians evolved fast from their groundbreaking 1977 debut album Pink Flag , with its 21 short, sharp, minimalist bursts of noise and melody.
Originally associated with the punk rock scene, their debut album “Pink Flag” remains one of the most influential hardcore punk recordings and was described by one reviewer as perhaps the most original debut album to come out of the first wave of British punk. Included on The Roxy London WC2 album, Wire later became central to the development of Post-Punk.
Wire’s musical evolution exhibited a steady development from an early noise rock style to a more complex, structured sound involving increased use of guitar effects and synthesizers (1978’s Chairs Missing and 1979’s 154). Through the use of their richly detailed and atmospheric arrangements and obscure lyrical themes the band continues to be a major contemporary influence.
Without Wire, punk rock might never have developed beyond primitive three-chord thrash and cliched songs about tower blocks and dole queues.
Wire were major catalysts in the shift from punk to post-punk, paving the way for the likes of Magazine, Gang of Four, Public Image Limited and Joy Division.
Paul Lester’s book tells the story of this crucial transitional band, from their early days dodging hostile crowds at punk venues like the Roxy, through to their attempts to inject some arthouse experimentation and Situationist subversion into an increasingly conservative punk scene.
The book covers their split in 1981 and beyond their mid-80s return and their various solo projects taking you behind the scenes with candid interviews with the original members.
This seminal read follows Wire up to the present, poised as they are to come back with a brand new album and filled with a renewed sense of vigour as one of the most important bands in the last thirty years.
If you even have a passing interest in the evolution of Punk, Art-Punk and Arthouse musical experimentation, this is a book that you won’t want to put down.
Here are three tracks from the huge body of music that is WIRE.
12XU (1977)
Colin Newman (vocals/guitar): “12XU was one of our first songs as a four-piece. I wanted to deconstruct rock music, to make it sound like it came from somewhere else”.
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT (1978)
Colin Newman (vocals/guitar): By this point I was obsessed with taking the “’n’roll” out of rock’n’roll and making it very precise. It felt dark and mirrored the times. I knew that this was something nobody had heard before. With hindsight, you might say we’d invented post-punk.
SHORT ELEVATED PERIOD (2017)
Colin Newman (vocals/guitar): “When it was played on BBC 6 Music’s Roundtable, the lady from the Guardian [Kate Mossman] said that she liked the way that Wire have never wallowed in their past. It’s very gratifying when people say our new stuff is as good as anything we’ve done”.
