Wire (band)

Wire
Background information
Also known as	Wir
Origin	London, England
Genres	Punk rock, post-punk, experimental rock, alternative rock
Years active	1976–1980, 1985–1992, 1999–present
Labels	Pinkflag, Mute, Harvest
Website	www.pinkflag.com
Members
Colin Newman Graham Lewis Robert Grey (Robert Gotobed) Matt Simms (touring only)
Past members
Bruce Gilbert Margaret Fiedler (touring only)

Wire are an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman (vocals, guitar), Graham Lewis (bass, vocals), Bruce Gilbert (guitar), and Robert Gotobed (drums). They were originally associated with the punk rock scene, appearing on the Live at the Roxy WC2 album—a key early document of the scene—and were later central to the development of post-punk.

Inspired by the burgeoning UK punk scene, Wire are often cited as one of the more important rock groups of the 1970s and 1980s. Critic Stewart Mason writes, "Over their brilliant first three albums, Wire expanded the sonic boundaries of not just punk, but rock music in general."

Wire are arguably a definitive art punk or post-punk ensemble, mostly due to their richly detailed and atmospheric sound, often obscure lyrical themes and, to a lesser extent, their Situationist political stance. The group exhibited a steady development from an early raucous punk style (1977's Pink Flag) to a more complex, structured sound involving increased use of guitar effects and synthesizers (1978's Chairs Missing and 1979's 154). The band gained a reputation for experimenting with song arrangements throughout its career.

History

Wire's debut album, Pink Flag (1977) — "perhaps the most original debut album to come out of the first wave of British punk", according to Allmusic — contains songs which are diverse in mood and style, but most use a minimalist punk approach, unorthodox structures, "Field Day For The Sundays", for example, is only 28 seconds long.

Chairs Missing followed in 1978, and found Wire stepping back from the stark minimalism of Pink Flag, with longer, more atmospheric songs and synthesizer parts added by producer Mike Thorne. The experimentation was even more prominent on 154 (1979). Many of the songs had bassist Graham Lewis on lead vocals.

In 1979, creative differences pulled the band in different directions, leading to the Document and Eyewitness LP (1981), a recording of a live performance that featured, almost exclusively, new material, which was described as 'disjointed', 'unrecognizable as rock music' and 'almost unlistenable'. The LP came packaged with an EP of a different performance of more new material. Some of these songs, along with others performed but not included on the album, were included on Colin Newman's post-Wire solo albums (5/10, We Meet Under Tables), while others were released by Gilbert and Lewis' primary post-Wire outlet Dome (And Then..., Ritual View).

Between 1981-85 Wire ceased recording and performing in favour of solo and non-Wire collaborative projects such as Dome, Cupol, Duet Emmo, and several Colin Newman solo efforts. In 1985, the group reformed as a "beat combo" (a joking reference to early 1960s beat music or even possibly beatniks), with greater use of electronic musical instruments. Wire announced that they would perform none of their older material, hiring The Ex-Lion Tamers, (a Wire cover band named after a song title from Pink Flag), as their opening act. The Ex-Lion Tamers played Wire's older material; Wire played their new material. It released It's Beginning To And Back Again (IBTABA) in 1989, a "live" album of mostly re-worked versions of songs from The Ideal Copy and A Bell Is a Cup...Until It Is Struck, heavily re-arranged, edited, and remixed. A new song from the album, "Eardrum Buzz", became the band's biggest charting single.

Gotobed left the band in 1990, after the release of the album Manscape. After his departure, the band dropped one letter from its name, becoming "Wir" (still pronounced "wire"), and released The First Letter in 1991. There followed a further period of solo recordings, during which Newman founded the Swim ~ label, and later Githead with his wife (ex-Minimal Compact bassist Malka Spigel), while Wire remained an occasional collaboration. It was not until 1999 that Wire again became a full-time entity.

With Gotobed back in the line-up (now using his birth name, Robert Grey), the group initially reworked much of their back catalogue for a performance at Royal Festival Hall on 26 February 2000. Wire's reception during a short tour in early May of the US, and a number of UK gigs, convinced the band to continue. Two EPs and an album Send (2003) followed, as well as collaborations with stage designer Es Devlin and artists Jake and Dinos Chapman.

In 2006, Wire's 1970s albums were re-released with original vinyl tracklistings. Rumours abounded of a renewal of activity^{[citation needed]} to mark the 30th anniversary of the band's debut as a 4 piece and the re-release of Pink Flag"Get laundry at 2:50pmin 2007. A third Read & Burn EP was released in November, 2007.

A full-length album of new material entitled Object 47 was released in July 2008. Bruce Gilbert was not involved in this recording, although according to Colin Newman, he did feature in a minimal capacity on the third Read and Burn EP.

On January 10, 2011 the band's twelfth studio album, Red Barked Tree was released which (according to press release and BBC) "...rekindles a lyricism sometimes absent from Wire's previous work and reconnects with the live energy of performance, harnessed and channelled from extensive touring over the past few years". The album was written and recorded by Colin Newman, Graham Lewis and Robert Grey (no guests involved), but speaking to Marc Riley on the day of the release, Newman introduced as 'a new boy' guitarist Matt Simms (from It Hugs Back) who's been with the band since April 2010 as a touring member.

Influence

Wire are a band whose influence has outshone their comparatively modest record sales. In the 1980s and 1990s, The Urinals, Manic Street Preachers, The Minutemen, Sonic Youth, R.E.M., and The Cure expressed a fondness for the group. R.E.M. covered "Strange" on their album Document, while their song "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?" (from 1994's Monster) emulates Wire's song "Feeling Called Love". Since their 2008 reunion, The Feelies have regularly covered "Outdoor Miner" during its live sets.^{[citation needed]}

Guided By Voices' Robert Pollard claimed that Wire was his favourite band, and that the fact that GBV's albums had so many songs was directly influenced by Wire's albums.^{[citation needed]} One of My Bloody Valentine's last releases was a cover of "Map Ref 41°N 93°W" for a Wire tribute entitled Whore. The song was selected as a favourite cover by Flak Magazine.

More recently, Fischerspooner (who covered "The 15th" on their #1 album), britpop bands like Elastica and Menswe@r and post-punk revival bands like Bloc Party, Futureheads, Blacklist, and Franz Ferdinand owe a debt to Wire. Blur's work, along with many more minor Britpop bands, have been particularly reminiscent of 1970s Wire at various points.

Wire were influential on hardcore punk. Fans included Ian MacKaye of the hardcore punk band Minor Threat and Henry Rollins, formerly of Black Flag. Minor Threat covered "1 2 X U" for the Dischord Records compilation Flex Your Head, as well as Boss Hog on the "I Dig You" EP and CD. Henry Rollins, as Henrietta Collins & The Wife-Beating Childhaters, covered "Ex-Lion Tamer" on the EP "Drive by Shooting". Michael Azerrad reported, in Our Band Could Be Your Life, that at Minor Threat's second gig, each of the seven bands on the roster performed its version of a Wire song. Big Black covered Wire's "Heartbeat" twice, once as a studio version which was released as a single (also included on The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape compilation), and also as a live version, featuring Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis, that was included on the VHS version of its live album Pigpile. The slowcore Mormon band Low included an early, previously unreleased cover of Heartbeat on their career-spanning boxset in 2007. Ampere recorded a cover of "Mr. Suit" for its 2006 split with Das Oath. New Bomb Turks also recorded a cover of "Mr. Suit" on its 1993 album Destroy Oh Boy.

A plagiarism case between Wire's music publisher and Elastica, over the similarity between Wire's 1977 song "Three Girl Rhumba" and Elastica's 1995 hit "Connection", resulted in an out-of-court settlement.

Olivier Assayas's 2010 film Carlos uses four of the band's songs on the soundtrack to increase tension: "Drill", "Dot Dash", "The 15th" and "Ahead".

Discography

Studio albums

• Pink Flag (December 1977)
• Chairs Missing (August 1978) UK #48
• 154 (September 1979) UK #39
• The Ideal Copy (April 1987) UK #87
• A Bell Is a Cup... Until It Is Struck (May 1988)
• It's Beginning To And Back Again (May 1989)
• Manscape (May 1990)
• The Drill (April 1991)
• The First Letter (October 1991)
• Send (May 2003)
• Object 47 (July 2008)
• Red Barked Tree (January 2011)

Compilation and live albums

• Document and Eyewitness (live, June 1981)
• And Here It Is...Again... (1984)
• Play Pop (March 1986)
• In the Pink (live, August 1986)
• The Peel Sessions (EP, November 1987)
• On Returning (1977–1979) (July 1989)
• Double Peel Sessions (February 1990)
• 1985-1990 The A List (May 1993)
• Exploding Views (September 1994, with book)
• Behind the Curtain (May 1995)
• Turns and Strokes (May 1996)
• Coatings (October 1997)
• The Third Day (Feb 2000)
• It's All In The Brochure (May 2000)
• Wire on the Box: 1979] (October 2004)
• Wire: The Scottish Play: 2004 (March 2005)
• The Roxy London WC2 (July 1977)
• Live at the Roxy, London (1977) / Live at CBGB Theatre, New York (1978)] (November 2006)

Singles and EPs

• "Mannequin" / "12XU" / "Feeling Called Love" (November 1977)
• "I am the Fly" / Ex-Lion Tamer" (February 1978)
• "Dot Dash" / "Options R" (June 1978)
• "Outdoor Miner" / "Practice Makes Perfect" (January 1979)
• "A Question of Degree" / "Former Airline" (June 1979)
• "Map Reference 41°N 93°W" / "Go Ahead" (October 1979)
• "Our Swimmer" / "Midnight Bahnhof Cafe" (May 1981)
• "Crazy About Love" / "Second Length (Our Swimmer)" / "Catapult 30" (March 1983)
• "Snakedrill" (EP, November 1986)
• "Ahead" / "Feed Me" (live) (March 1987)
• "Kidney Bingos" / "Pieta" (March 1988)
• "Silk Skin Paws" / "German Shepherds" (June 1988)
• "Life in the Manscape" / "Gravity Worship" (May 1990)
• "So and Slow It Goes" / "Nice from Here" (April 1991, as Wir)
• "First Letter" / "The Last Number" (December 1995, with Hafler Trio)
• "Vien" (1997, as Wir)
• "Twelve Times You" (January 2001)
• "Read & Burn – 01" (June 2002)
• "Read & Burn – 02" (October 2002)
• "Read & Burn – 03" (November 2007)

Singles chart placings

Year	Title	Chart positions				Album
		US Billboard Hot 100	US Modern Rock	US Mainstream Rock	UK Singles Chart
1979	"Outdoor Miner"	–	–	–	51	Chairs Missing
1989	"Eardrum Buzz"	–	2	–	68	It's Beginning to and Back Again
	"In Vivo"	–	24	–	–

Sources

• Reynolds, Nick. "Wire". bbc.co.uk, June 2006.
• Reynolds, Simon. Rip it up and Start Again: postpunk 1978-1984. Faber & Faber, 2006. ISBN 0-14-303672-6
• Eden, Kevin. Everybody Loves A History – SAF Publishing – ISBN 0946719 071 (1991)

External links

• Crawdaddy Magazine interview with Graham Lewis – retrieved 13 August 2010
• Pinkflag.com – official site
• Wireviews – news, reviews and lyrics
• Wire Sound Archive
• Wire at Allmusic