#chairs missing

Jonathan Shaw:  A university girlfriend gave me Chairs Missing in 1990. I knew about the synthy Wire, which was my only schema for them. The one-two punch of "Practice Makes Perfect" and "French Film Blurred" completely knocked me out, still one of my favorite two-song sequences in music. Canonical in my post-punk imaginary. So the version of "French Film Blurred" here really threw me. As someone who has never made music, I always sort of know that songs get wood-shopped, worked over. And the guys in Wire had very specific ideas of themselves as a band, so one can imagine the journey from initial concept or melody to final version could be really long. But man, that's a very different song, and an interesting glimpse into the band's process.

Ian Mathers: Personally, my favorite of their opening trilogy (and still just my favorite Wire album) is 154. The weird, often kind of mannered energy of that record (the reason I love it!) isn't really found here, even on versions of those songs, but that's not a complaint. I'm most struck by the way that, if I didn't know most of these songs already, I'd be quite willing to believe this was just an early Wire album, and a good one. It might be the use of 'demo' throwing me off a little —  reviewing the Pavement Terror Twilight reissue I listened to a lot of demos, but those were much chintzier efforts intended by the songwriter to show the rest of the band what the song sounds like. These demos feel more like Wire are at least considering the idea that any of these could be basically the final songs. If anything they feel more like the different takes on the Stooges' Fun House box than a lot of more recent demos I've heard.

I guess at least some of the material here was included on the previously released Behind the Curtain comp, but maybe because that's less focused (31 tracks in I think a bit over an hour, versus 18 tracks in a little under 40 minutes) I could never get into them there, whereas I've been listening to Not About to Die a lot, and enjoying it. Something like "Chairs Missing (Used To)" is an example of a demo for one of my favorite Wire songs that's both different and lacking a lot of what I specifically love about the LP version of that song, and yet I love this one too. And then stuff like "Stalemate" just feels like a lost gem. I came into this interested to hear this record and expecting to find things of interest, but already I'm thinking this is just getting added to my regular collection, which I didn't necessarily expect.

Tim Clarke: Like Ian, 154 is my favorite Wire, so on initial listens, the hard-edged punk energy of the opening run of songs on this collection threw me a bit. I've never been that attracted to the fast and loud aesthetics of punk, but what's really striking with Wire is how tight they were as a band during this era, even when throwing together demos. Admittedly, part of the magic comes from what they brought to the songs in the studio, but there was clearly chemistry within the band that came from just playing together in a room.

Jonathan Shaw: Fast and loud is where most of my listening is located, so my surprise at the record's relative polish is inflected differently. I also come at demo recordings with other contexts for how the form functions. There's a long tradition of public-facing demos in heavy music, stuff that's recorded for large(ish) audiences by bands that haven't yet been signed, stuff recorded by signed bands that's issued outside of labels' releases. Those tend to be rough and raw by design, a sort of marker of the music's authenticity. That's a fraught term in punk — always has been: see the venom associated with scene "posers" in the 1980s. It's even more fraught when listening to a band with such sharp attitudes about Art. Still, I share Tim's enjoyment of the sense of the band "just playing together in a room." Wire's music is not famed for its warmth, but these recordings have a sort of warm immediacy that's appealing. 

Jennifer Kelly:  I was just A/Bing "French Film (Blurred)," and it's a really striking transition.  The demo version is loose and live sounding, sort of barked out vocally, with those really serrated, punk rock guitars, not that far off from the Buzzcocks or the Clash.  The one on 154 tamps the vocals down to an ominous whisper (and gets it way more under control pitch-wise), while bringing the guitar and bass up and sharpening them up.  There are some close harmonies in the chorus, where in the earlier version they could barely get the right notes on one vocal line.  It's just so much more carefully coiffed, at once odder and more pop sounding.  And having said all that, I like them both, and I maybe like the demo a little better.  

Bryon Hayes:  I was doing this as well with "The Other Window," as on my first listen through of the demos, I didn't know what song I was actually listening to.  The demo is a chugging guitar rave-up with actual sung vocals that could easily have fit in on Pink Flag.  Had I heard this version before the one on 154, with its underwater guitars and spoken word, I might have thought that the latter was actually someone like Bauhaus covering Wire.  I know that this is anachronistic, since the "Bela Lugosi's Dead" single came out the same year as 154, but I think this is also more evidence of Wire having a major influence on such a diverse array of bands and musicians.  Even more evidence: my introduction to the band was actually through Flying Saucer Attack's cover of "Outdoor Miner."

Jennifer Kelly:  Anyone want to share early live Wire experiences? I don't have any, but I bet someone does.

Bill Meyer:  I believe that Wire did a tour of the USA with Roxy Music in the late 1970s, but I didn't see it. My first encounter was in 1980, when I went to Wherehouse Records in East Lansing with a request for guidance. I'd just picked up XTC's Drums and Wires and dug it, so I wanted to hear some more new wave sounds. I was directed to 154, which was a bit of a mind-blower for me. I worked my way back over the next couple years, picking up Pink Flag and Chairs Missing, and I also enthusiastically embraced Colin Newman's solo albums. My first impression of the demo recordings under consideration is that they lack the precision and conscious preference to take roads less traveled that made Wire's albums so powerful. I suspect that part of the Wire recording process in the 1970s was to take their songs and figure out what about them sounded like someone else. Those parts had to go. 

I didn't get to see Wire live until 1987, when they came to town in support of Snakedrill and Ideal Copy. They weren't playing anything earlier than "Drill," but they did have the ex-Lion Tamers on hand to play Pink Flag straight through. I remember being amused by the open act (who were very accurate), and very impressed by the spareness of Robert Gotobed's drum it - one hi-hat, one snare, and a bass drum with a garbage can lid nestled inside. I was also very impressed with the rhythms he played using that set-up. The band's sound was pretty streamlined, but "Drill" had real teeth live. Oh, back then Graham Lewis had a rather impressive mullet, which in combination with his fierce faced delivery made him look a bit like Frankenstein's monster.

Jonathan Shaw:  I have never been in the room with the band, but this set from German television in 1979 is pretty great. It was released as a CD/DVD bundle a number of years ago. Likely my favorite Wire music.

Tim Clarke:  Comparing 154 opener "I Should Have Known Better" with its demo version here (entitled "Ignorance No Plea") demonstrates how restraint and subtle changes in tempo can transform the feeling of a song. In its demo form, it starts off slower than the album version, dragging its heels, then picks up speed and introduces plenty of cymbals that swallow up the high end. The demo works fine as a standalone song, and it's not massively different to its final form. However, they reined in the sense of release that comes from the demo's second half and introduced eerie reverb, crafting the song into a more effective album opener.

Likewise, the production on the album version of "Two People in a Room" really dials up the huge snare sound and the dissonance between the guitars and bass. The demo almost has a rockabilly feel, plus that distracting phaser effect on the guitars. Wire really knew how to pare songs back to essentials in order to maximize their impact.

Bill Meyer:  The differences between the demo and final  versions of “Chairs Missing (Used To)”  are, I think really informative. Jonathan used the word “warmer” to describe the demo editions, and I do think that the added electronic sounds and more restrained vocal of the final edition result in a decidedly chillier sound. I’m also intrigued that the demo has such an elaborate vocal arrangement; this was not a dashed-off performance, and they threw out some elaborate work to get to the song to its end form. 

“Being Sucked In Again,” on the other hand, wasn’t drastically changed at all. The modifications are mostly a matter of tweaking gestures to make them stick out a bit more.

Jonathan Shaw:  The opening seconds of the demo version of "Used To" sounds like a blues shuffle. I almost expected ol' Keef Richards to start riffing over it. Like Bill, I'm struck by the experimenting with vocal arrangement--wonder if "5th demo" indicates a number on a tape reel or the fifth version of the song. I think the former is more likely, but the band must have worked hard on many of these songs.

The version of "I Should Have Known Better" here isn't so radically different from the 154 version, but the demo has some serious 1977 punk attitude. Strongly prefer it.

Ian Mathers:  Funnily enough, the Flying Saucer Attack cover of "Outdoor Miner" was also MY introduction to Wire!

I hadn't done many A/B comparisons before reading about the ones mentioned here, and it's been really interesting! Something like "Options R" is a case where the demo sounds so great and so... finished, I might have thought they didn't really change it unless I compared. The actual b-side version is largely the same, possibly a slightly less winning performance. But the slight vocal distortion and the way they turn the sort-of guitar solo near the end into this shimmering, serrated thing is another example of those small, distinguishing touches that really makes the finished versions worthwhile in their own right (compared to such strong demos, I mean). 

I'd seen the Wire on the Box video Jonathan shared before, and love it - one of my favorites from them as well. I wasn't able to see them live in person until even later than Bill, on the tour for the first Read & Burn EP. They did not have any Ex-Lion Tamer equivalent with them, I think may have just played one older song, during the encore (sadly it's not up on setlist.fm and I didn't take any notes back then!), and was one of the louder shows I've ever seen. I definitely heard some fans lamenting the lack of earlier material, but honestly they played with such ferocity I respected the not-looking-back gesture.

Jennifer Kelly:  In addition to alternate versions, there are a few cuts here that never made a proper Wire album.  I'm liking "Culture Vultures," for instance, which was recorded on a Peel Sessions, but never for a studio album.  

As was often the case, Peel got something especially visceral out of the band.  

Bryon Hayes:  I'm really liking "Underwater Experiences".  This track wound up on Document and Eyewitness and the more recent 10:20 collection, but in a sped up and aggressive format.  The version on Not About to Die is such a slow burner, you can feel the aggression building but it doesn't really burst until that last line, "to free my mind and break my neck".  Priceless!!

Bill Meyer:  Ian, that Read & Burn tour really drew me back in. As Wire’s music got more ponderous and less rhythmically interesting in the latter part of the late 1980s-early 1990s run, I grew very disenchanted. When they did the tour in the late 1990s where they finally played all the old tunes, I just didn’t want to know, and I sat it out; it seemed antithetical to their concept as a project in perpetual progress, and given what the Wire album had sounded like, I didn’t trust their judgment. But then I heard a promo of the first Read & Burn EP, I liked it, and decided to see the tour. The short, ferocious, and (yes, very) loud set of new material made it clear that I was wrong to write them off. The Read & Burn/Send era still really holds up for me.  

Jonathan Shaw:  Speaking of short and ferocious: I really like the way the recording quality gives some of the playing such an immediate snap. The opening seconds of "Stalemate," for example, in which the action of the strings feels so taught and sharp; or Gotobed's crazy, tight rhythmic structures in "Stepping Off Too Quick (Not about to Die)." The undercurrent of anxious tension is just about palpable. I've often found that really engaging on some of the classic records we've been discussing. "I Feel Mysterious Today" is a batshit song--as insanely paranoid as it is playful. That weird, psychologically inflected quality feels especially present in the playing on these demo tunes. So sharply attuned, so beset by nervous intensity. It's not the most pleasant thing to tune in to, but feels very much in tune with that thing we call post-punk.