Pop Culture Press: Wire

A Real Live Wire

WIRE
WIRE ON THE BOX: 1979 (PINK FLAG)

By Wilson Neate

photo by Stefan De Batselier

A few years ago, on the occasion of British punk's 25th birthday, media coverage focused on the usual suspects. The Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, the Stranglers, X-Ray Spex, Buzzcocks and Siouxsie and the Banshees were the most common bands to appear in archive footage on TV documentaries or to crop up in newspapers and magazines. Often conspicuously absent were Wire. Articles tended to ignore or gloss over the band -- maybe a couple of sentences here and there containing words like "angular" or "arty" perhaps, but nothing substantial. Most striking, though, was the absence of any footage of Wire from the late '70s. You could have been forgiven for wondering if the band had actually existed as TV programs devoted to punk and its legacy seemed to feature Johnny Rotten on an endless loop. Thankfully, proof of life has finally arrived in the shape of Wire on the Box, a live set filmed in a Cologne TV studio for Rockpalast on Valentine's Day 1979. (Also included is a bonus CD featuring just the audio portion of the performance.)

Wire's place in the popular narrative of punk has always been problematic. They were the odd band out, the fly in punk's ointment. When it comes to life-changing punk-rock moments, there's an overabundance of when-I-saw-the-Sex-Pistols-for-the-first-time or when-I-heard-the-first-Clash-record stories. People aren't inclined to talk about Wire that way. It's not that they were less important, influential or interesting but, rather, that they were never as obvious as their peers and couldn't be reduced to one specific image, idea or event. They weren't one of the "the" bands with a catchy, confrontational name; they weren't political firebrands or foul-mouthed yobs; they never made controversial gestures or statements; they were never arrested, never smashed anything up, beat anyone up (or got beaten up); and they never had a Top-50 single. In contrast with their peers, Wire were relatively anonymous, choosing not to project a persona at a time when attitudes and personalities were ten-a-penny. Simply put, they weren't tabloid fodder like their peers and, tellingly, 25 years later, they seem to be the only band from that period to receive attention from the more serious broadsheet newspapers in the UK.

Alongside the Pistols with their sneering and sarcasm and the Clash with their dubious heart-on-sleeve political outrage, Wire were enigmatic and cerebral, always maintaining a distance from the crowd. Their debut album, Pink Flag, appeared before the end of the 1977, but it was already a meta-commentary on the punk scene and was, in many ways, far more radical musically than much of the competition. Few punk bands managed to move beyond pared-down glam, football-terrace sing-alongs or shambolic pub rock and, if we're honest, it's true that only a handful of punk records hold up today as anything other than increasingly quaint historical documents. While their peers flogged their one idea to death and paid only lip service to punk's "year zero" credo, Wire took a genuinely radical approach, deconstructing song conventions, exploring new possibilities and reinventing their sound across three albums between 1977 and 1979. THIS IS A CHORD. THIS IS ANOTHER. THIS IS A THIRD. NOW FORM A BAND, ran the caption to the now mythical diagram in a UK fanzine in 1976 and the Pistols embodied that spirit, showing that anyone could do it. Wire showed more interesting ways of doing it once you'd formed that band. Not surprisingly, then, while Wire might not have attracted attention for their public image or their antics, they had a massive impact on subsequent generations of innovative musicians. It's become almost de rigueur for such artists to talk about the musical importance of Wire, perennially listing Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154 as some of the most provocative and original recordings of the punk/post-punk eras.

It might be a couple of decades overdue, but On the Box finally provides an official visual record of Wire performing at the height of their powers. (Bootleg versions of the Rockpalast gig have circulated over the years.) Until now the only substantial evidence of the band in concert during its early years has been the live album Document and Eyewitness, which chronicles a fraught evening at London's Electric Ballroom in February 1980. (The 1996 odds-and-ends collection, Turns and Strokes, includes further tracks from that show.) For the Electric Ballroom gig, rather than play familiar songs in a familiar format, Wire subjected fans to a cacophonous Dadaist free-for-all. Stage directions in the album's liner notes hint at some of the highlights: "woman enters pulling two tethered men and an inflatable jet"; "vocalist attacks gas stove"; "vocalist lit and accompanied by illuminated goose" and so forth. A volatile audience responded in kind with torrents of abuse and the odd thrown bottle. You really had to be there. Or not, perhaps.

On the Box chronicles a markedly different evening, although the conditions are still somewhat adverse. The Rockpalast studio audience (seated) looks like an assortment of school kids on an outing, librarians on dates and pedophiles on parole: a brown, orange and beige sea of anoraks, scarves, frizzy hair and beards and all the rock 'n' roll ambience that that implies. They seem bemused, indifferent and slightly uncomfortable, as if they had actually meant to attend a live taping of the German version of the Montel Williams show, but turned up on the wrong day. Nevertheless, they applaud politely throughout. Wire are unfazed: they've played to tougher crowds and, despite being faced with such overwhelming apathy, they put on a sharp, dynamic show. If it weren't for occasional cut-away shots, you'd never guess that they were actually performing for a catatonic audience.

Shouty, slightly manic and occasionally menacing, guitarist/vocalist Newman is a compelling front man, playing directly to the cameras in the absence of a proper crowd, and leading the band through a set split largely between tracks from Chairs Missing and numbers that would appear on 154. The collar-and-tie combo was signature punk attire but, in his bright white dress-shirt, cricket-club tie and very nice slacks, Newman comes across more like a speed-addled accountant than an anarchic punk rocker. Bassist Graham Lewis, on the other hand, looks like a thug, albeit a diminutive, well-spoken one with a bouffant hairdo; he prowls the stage in black leather trousers, seemingly spoiling for a fight. Unsurprisingly, there are no takers in the crowd tonight.

Some of the strongest numbers find Wire at their most intense: the 56-second opener "Another the Letter," which leaves the audience a little taken aback; the taut, harsh "Mercy"; and the frantic 45 seconds of "Former Airline," another obvious crowd pleaser. Equally memorable are the set's more expansive, atmospheric tracks, which feature Lewis' deep, ominous lead vocals ("Blessed State" and "A Touching Display"). On other numbers, Lewis' backing vocals produce a measure of unintended comedy as his interjections become overly theatrical here and there, particularly on "Practice Makes Perfect" and "Being Sucked in Again."

In contrast with Newman and Lewis, drummer Robert Grey (then known as Robert Gotobed) and guitarist Bruce Gilbert go about their business in the background, in a more anonymous but certainly no less noisy fashion. Indeed, one of this DVD's real treats is the opportunity it affords to see Wire's reticent pair close-up. Gilbert is one of the great anti-guitarists and it's fascinating to watch him coax the jarring fragments, micro-riffs and austere noises from his instrument that are integral to Wire's unique sound. ("Blessed State" and "A Question of Degree" -- on which he uses a bottleneck -- are especially revealing in that regard.) Although famously inexpressive and immobile on stage, Gilbert is quite demonstrative here, nodding his head and even baring his teeth now and then. Like Gilbert, the inscrutable and understated Grey is another legendary minimalist. He plays the smallest kit in the world, but he's undoubtedly one of rock's most distinctive drummers, who proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that less is more. Like Gilbert's guitar playing, Grey's economical, metronomic drumming was (and remains) one of the band's defining characteristics, the heartbeat of Wire.

After a 50-minute set, Wire return for an encore. A bold audience member asks for "I Am the Fly," only to be met with a terse "We don't play requests" from Lewis. The band proceeds to tear up "Pink Flag" and the evening ends. An intelligent post-set interview with the group, conducted by Rockpalast presenter Alan Bangs, features the sort of exchange Wire-watchers have come to expect over the years as Lewis and Newman question the questions, offer slippery responses and engage in a way that's refreshingly smart for rock musicians. The Q&A also offers an unexpected bonus. Most people who've followed the band over the years have never heard Robert Grey speak; here he's positively garrulous, managing a couple of complete sentences.

Well worth the wait, On the Box catches Wire in their prime and offers a welcome antidote for those of us still recovering from Document and Eyewitness. What's really striking is how fresh much of this material sounds, particularly when compared with the work of so many of the band's contemporaries. On the Box isn't just an essential item for Wire completists, though; it's recommended viewing/listening for anyone interested in gaining a more accurate insight into the punk era in Britain, one that gets beyond the boring old narrative that often overlooks Wire's innovative presence.