#412 - Wire - Pink Flag (1977)
MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:
Released in November of 1977 on Harvest Records and produced by Mike Thorne this is the debut album by British, Punk Rock, Art-Punk, Post-Punk, band Wire.
With the non-household names of Colin Newman on vocals and guitar, Graham Lewis on bass and vocals, Robert “Gotobed” Grey on drums, and Bruce Gilbert on guitar there’s a decent chance you’re wondering why this is on The 500.
As Colin Newman said, “We’re the most famous band you’ve never heard of... It’s a very strange kind of fame.”
Now to give you an idea of how close to the Ground Zero of Punk this album is, the other debuts released in 1977 were by Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Jam, Talking Heads, Suicide, Television, The Damned, Dead Boys, The Stranglers, and Elvis Costello.
But let’s start at the beginning…
In the mid-‘70s they were still a sloppy and inexperienced early Punk band of former Art School students called Overload and they had an additional singer/guitarist named George Gill who wrote all their songs.
Colin Newman was only the lead singer then and thought Gill’s songs were terrible so when Gill broke his ankle trying to steal another band’s amp in the anarchic Punk D.I.Y. spirit Newman got the rest of the band together and they agreed to fire Gill.
Despite being a novice guitarist Newman decided he could write better songs and when bassist Graham Lewis handed him the lyrics to a song at their first rehearsal right then he became the main lyricist.
A lot of Punk bands played faster and louder but their roots came out of the Pub Rock tradition which still threw back to the bluesy guitar riffs, horny, teenage, lyrical subjects, and exaggerated machismo of the Golden Age of Rock and Roll.
Although the band had primitive skills Newman knew he didn’t want to sound like anything that came out of that ‘50s era. He was, however turned on by the Psychedelic Pop of the ‘60s but wanted Wire’s music to be even more of a modern reinvention. He explained, “It was ditching the whole rock & roll thing and making something more straightforward, more brutal.”
They pieced together their sound from what they liked and didn’t like around them. They appreciated the Sex Pistols’ absurdity and sense of humor, emulated the speed of the Ramones and Buzzcocks, were intrigued by David Bowie’s and Brian Eno’s cold, angular, arty, German period, and sought to avoid the R&B connections of bands like The Clash and The Jam.
They also incorporated their fascination with the beginnings and ends of songs, sudden and shocking stops and starts within songs, and abruptly ending when they ran out of lyrics.
By 1976 they were known as Wire and after twelve hour rehearsals four days a week in less than a month they had most of this record and some songs for the follow ups written.
They played their first show on April 1st of 1977 and displayed their rejection of many Punk conventions like overtly political or sexual lyrics and having a conspicuous image.
People weren’t exactly sure what to make of them but they knew there was a concept there.
The were ahead of their time by being subversive deconstructionists of their own movement as it was happening.
As Johnny Marr from The Smiths put it, “They weren’t a late-arriving Punk band; they were an early-arriving Post-Punk band.”
In mid-1977 they were featured alongside other bands in their scene on a live compilation album produced by A&R man Mike Thorne. Thorne then got them signed and produced this album.
They had only been Wire for six months.
Nonetheless the surprisingly competent, and simultaneously stark and layered “Pink Flag” exploded with 21 intriguing and rebellious songs in under 36 minutes.
Initially their record company was not as impressed as most critics who praised “Pink Flag” for being challenging, ambitious, and compelling if often cold and hard.
They immediately began rapidly evolving on every subsequent album.
Unlike many of their UK contemporaries their record company sold domestic releases in the U.S. which fortunately made their debut readily available to hungry American Punk fans.
And even though they were never as commercially appealing as other artists their influence was immense... especially in the early American Hardcore Punk scene which responded to Wire’s angular minimalism, liberating lyrical content and musical structures, and their powerfully concise songs that hit it and quit it.
They’ve gone on to influence artists such as The Cure, The Smiths, Nirvana, Blur, Minor Threat, Sonic Youth, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, Guided By Voices, My Bloody Valentine, and last week’s featured band, Minutemen. Some of their songs from this album have been covered by R.E.M., Fugazi, Henry Rollins, and fIREHOSE.
And although they’d split up a few times they’re still going strong with three original members. They even put out a new album earlier this year followed by an exclusive Record Store Day E.P.