#wire 154

Semi-transparent oil painting of the band Wire on 11” x 14” glass. This painting is based on their song ‘Map Ref,’ which is probably the best song ever written about aerial cartography (in my humble opinion). The background is a 1970s student VFR sectional.

154  1979/Harvest I was going to start this off by talking about the cometary impact punk music made during the middle of the 1970s but I figured that I'd be biting off way more than a brief blurb on a single song can chew. Plus, everybody and their dawg knows the significance of punk music and the irrefutable cultural revolution that came diving into the mainstream, knocking down the frail folk wimps and prog geeks that thought they'd ride the decade out without conflict. Everybody also knows that punk started in 1975 when the Vietnam War ended and punk-pioneers Kiss released "Alive!", which is regarded as, still, the first and the finest 'punk' album in history, which is also, if I remember correctly, the album that brought the Vietnam War to its knees. The power of the double live album (that's TWO LPs in one package) and its uncanny allure and entrancing qualities have confounded scientists and critics for centuries. Some say the origin of the double live is unknown, and some of society's greatest mysteries are said to have been linked to, in one way or another, the playback of a double live album, but I'm going to stop right there because not only do I get a little spooked by the paranormal, but I relish the sanctity of the unexplained.  Anyway, if I may be very concise, (for volumes upon volumes of books, essays, and other miscellaneous documents have been written about the influence of punk music, and, by much more respectable and experienced people than me) punk music left artists with a whole new set of tools to work with, a new language in which to speak, and a brand new ideology to analyze, adapt, and attempt to recreate. Punk was like a new untasted spice in the rack, or cupboard, or wherever you people keep your cooking appurtenances, and all of the existing musical dishes, now becoming cold, tasteless, completely rotten, or just plain boring, were about to get voraciously devoured again. Maybe punk was just 2 hot 2 handle, because as a whole package, it imploded quickly, but, from its ashes, rose an entire incestuous orgy of new music, ranging from the cerebral to the totally demented. For example, people like James Chance and John Zorn incorporated the punk ethos to the world of jazz music, creating a cacophonous, unpredictable and invigorating mess. Glenn Branca mixed the aggressive and unrelenting sound of punk with the brainy formulaic patterns of neo-classical music. Public Image Ltd. and The Slits did the same with reggae, and so on. Wire, however, was constantly changing, drastically reinventing itself, all within a burst of only three years.   Though, initially, punk was exclusively associated with the young, loud & snotty, raving about anti-establishment and anarchy this and powder drugs and being shitty that, it wasn't long before the bubbling stew of anger and rebellion had cooled down and become a tepid soup for all to enjoy. The smart kids were doing it: lyrics were becoming intellectual, themes of literature and history replaced those of drinking and fighting and jackin' off and stuff. The nice kids were doing it too: they weren't wearing leather jackets and spiking their hair, they were wearing button-down shirts and wearing glasses! Wire's debut album, "Pink Flag", remains, to this day, an enigmatic masterpiece: It's a vision of the future - it's like the aftermath of the explosion of the punk time-bomb, except it was released before the countdown had even begun. It's loud, assertive, and the songs, sometimes clocking in at roughly 30 seconds, jet out, leaving no trail behind, before Blitzkrieg Bop has reached its first chorus.  Their next album, "Chairs Missing", released a year later, saw a veritable decline in tempo, the inclusion of synthesizers (a touchy subject in punk music, one would think), but no change in impact. In only one year, Wire had already shed its skin and was slowly transforming into something unique. That hint of change was merely a sign of things to come: In 1979, Wire released their third album, "154".  My first time listening to "154" was actually pretty memorable. I saw it at a used record store and although I hadn't heard it, I bought it because I had recently discovered "Pink Flag" and I recognized the cover. When the opening song began, I assumed, for a second, that my turntable was playing it at the wrong speed, or something. I was expecting something fast and loud but was faced with a sound that I could only describe as gloomy and cavernous - it totally threw me off and drew me close at the same time. With "154", Wire had somehow changed shape yet again, and this time, it was personal. No it wasn't actually personal, I don't know what it was - the change that occurred in their creativity within those two years was astounding. "154" was brooding, moody, discursive and lush - four adjectives that couldn't possibly be associated with the Wire we had all just recently thought we had known, well, except maybe 'moody', I guess. The brazen bursts of "Pink Flag" were now damp and roomy ramblings, some had anthemic choruses, some were exclusively comprised of synthesizers.  This song, "The 15th", is unlike anything that any band even remotely related to punk has attempted before. It is such a melting pot of emotion that it makes me dizzy and raises the hair on my arms. It's the musical equivalent to being felled by fever-induced delirium: it's warm and cold, comforting and desolate. Apparently, Colin Newman has claimed that the song is literally about nothing, and the title was chosen because it was the 15th song written for the album, or something extremely anti-climactic like that, but I almost refuse to believe that he isn't concealing an earth-shattering secret behind this stoic melancholia. His new falsetto voice fits surprising well, even though it barely manages to stay afloat amongst cloudy tones and distant percussion. Wire broke up for almost 10 years after "154" was released and it's easy to see why: they had displayed an entire transformation without sparing a single minute - with three albums in less than three years they displayed their understanding of the status quo before most were aware of it, and created something brand new out of what seemed like thin air, and in an equally imperceptible amount of time, they were gone. 

Wire - 154 album - 1978 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XBz4nq31Yw