Fun With Wire!

Since we're also talking Colin Newman's other band, Githead, at Blurt today, let's rewind all the way back to the beginning...

By Fred Mills

Most folks have a story about the first time they heard groundbreaking, iconoclastic British punk band Wire, and so do I: In the winter of 1977/78 I was working in the distribution center of southeastern music retailers Record Bar, and with U.S. major labels gradually, if grudgingly, warming up to the then-current exports from England, a shipment from EMI one day was of great interest to me and a couple of my fellow punk-tilting employees: it included the debut album from Wire, whom we'd already been exposed to via Melody Maker and the NME. Among the shipment was a carton of sealed/cut corner promotional copies of Pink Flag intended to be sent around to the various accounts for in-store play, but as we surmised most if not all of them would be wasted - this was the South, after all, and Record Bar, though privately owned, was a mall-based chain - we convinced our supervisor to let us each take a handful of promos for ourselves.

We also set aside one for in-warehouse play. That afternoon my friend Robert furtively slipped the LP into the pile next to the stereo, and it eventually rotated to the top of the stack. Then -

 Thoom... thoom... clang... clang...

"Our own correspondent is sorry to tell

Of an uneasy time that all is not well..."

Perhaps a minute elapsed during which Pink Flag opening track "Reuters" played. Then -

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SHIT?!?"

Talk about your uneasy times. I can honestly say I've never witnessed quite so visceral a (negative) reaction to a piece of music in my entire life as this one: almost to a man, the warehouse employees hurtled verbal abuse in the direction of the office, and the supervisor's assistant scrambled to yank the album from the turntable, summarily replacing it with a Molly Hatchet record. Sigh. Such was life at a warehouse in the seventies. But you can't say we didn't try to subvert from within.

Journalist (and BLURT contributor) Wilson Neate has his First Encounter Of A Wire Kind too: Growing up in England, in 1977 he was 12 and receiving musical transmissions from the likes of John Peel's BBC program and Radio Luxembourg, which eagerly aired the new music of the day. As he outlines in his contribution to Continuum's 33 1/3 series, Pink Flag, his initial exposure was via the single "I Am The Fly," from Wire's second LP Chairs Missing; "I didn't know what to make of the song," Neate confesses, adding that he nevertheless was smitten by its uniqueness. Soon enough he'd backtracked to score a copy of Pink Flag, never suspecting he might one day be interviewing its creators and authoring a book about it.

"A lot of great albums came out in 1977," writes Neate, "but Pink Flag is one of a handful - alongside Low, "Heroes", Before and After Science - that remain objects of fascination to me." And then Neate dispenses with the autobiographical portion of his program and proceeds to outline, in painstaking but rousingly informative fashion, exactly why Pink Flag remains such an object of fascination - to him, to the rest of us, and most of all, to the four men of Wire.

This latter component is of no minor importance, by the way; Neate was able to interview vocalist Colin Newman, guitarist Bruce Gilbert, drummer Robert Gotobed and bassist Graham Lewis at length in order to get the story leading up to and behind the making of Pink Flag. It's not as Rashomon-like as you might presume, either; Wire's subsequent history may be fraught with artistic differences and the comings-and-goings of disgruntled members, but during the early years, at least, it seems they were relatively united in their desire to (a) be different; (b) but not "different" like the punks were "different," as they all chafed at punk orthodoxy; and (c) find new ways of saying old things, i.e., "be different." And it's to Neate's credit that he untangles some of the seemingly contradictory elements of the Wire aesthetic - it's not punk, but it's minimalist, which coming on the heels of bloated ‘70s rock definitely sounded "punk" for lack of a better term; ideas were rampant among the members, but as a group Wire operated via reduction of ideas; etc. - without disappearing up an intellectual journalistic arse-hole.

Although Neate does have a propensity to analyze and dissect in almost dissertation fashion (check some of his reviews and features for BLURT), he's still mindful of spinning an entertaining tale along the way. And that, when you boil down a music volume to its essentials, is what will make or break a book. How many times have you started to get engrossed in a biography when, just as things are really picking up steam, the writer lapses into the dreaded "describe-the-album-track-by-track" syndrome and nearly (or completely) drains the narrative of color and drama?

Hold that thought: Neate's Pink Flag has an entire 60-page section titled "God Those R.P.M.: Pink Flag Track by Track," so if the thought of spending 10 or 15 minutes to read a description of a song that's only 1½ minutes in the first place floats your boat, this dinghy's for you, bro. Only kidding - Neate's well up to the task at hand, and he ably tackles each of the 21 Pink Flag tunes, mixing aural analysis with emotional context, throwing in some cultural or historical tidbits along the way (for example, the trajectory of "Three Girl Rhumba" from original LP to Elastica's 1994 riff appropriation for their hit "Connection" to a European TV commercial that had most listeners mistaking Wire for Elastica, if you can believe that), and adding occasional quotes from Wire members for additional illumination.

And as that tracks section follows some 80-odd pages outlining the history of Wire/Pink Flag - which itself is loaded with copious quotes, enough so that we can justifiably call it The Definitive And Authoritative Treatment of that period in Wire's long career - Neate's book is akin to a wholly filling two-course meal. There's even "dessert" by way of a final coda-like chapter that discusses matters surrounding the 2006 Wire box set and the Pink Flag reissue.

Bottom line: Pink Flag (the book) does Pink Flag (the album) full justice. A lot of the titles in the 33 1/3 series do similarly, but this one deserves to be recognized as one of the top entries to date, period.

***

Incidentally, I still have one of those sealed Pink Flag promos in my collection - I'm looking at it right now, in fact. Oddly, I have an urge to go play some Molly Hatchet. But I'm sure the feeling will pass...