Wire - 3rd Millenium Punk Rock?
Published 1st Nov 2002 by Alison@c2

Wire @ C2: Thurs 7th Nov

Since Wire's inception in 1976, members Colin Newman, Bruce Gilbert, Graham

Lewis and Robert "Gotobed" Grey have spent far more time on hiatus, or

pursuing solo projects, than they have working together as an active musical

concern.
The quartet's initial, four-year-long creative collaborative burst produced
the smart punk of Pink Flag (1977), the fractured pop of Chairs Missing
(1978), and the art assault of 154 (1979), three of the most important and
impressive albums of the so called Punk era (all on EMI Records)
Wire's second phase was best defined by the "monophonic monorhythmic
repetition" (their words) of the group's signature '80s song, "Drill," which
debuted on 1986's stunning Snakedrill EP, and which appeared ten times on the
deliciously obsessive,

era-ending 1991 album aptly entitled The Drill (Mute Records www.mute.com)

Reforming again only after a personal invitation from The South Bank Centre's
Head of Contemporary Music Dept (& Meltdown Producer) David Sefton, for an
intial one -off concert @ Royal Festival Hall, London in February 2000,
performing an almost entirely retrospective set to a sold out venue (capacity
2500) it was reported variously as a "triumph" in The Guardian, The Wire &
Select, or a "disaster", in The NME.
The band said ""Playing the RFH was nerve wracking, more people than we've
ever played to in London before, & after such a long time, & to such a
heartening response was thrilling" .

Their re-emergence swiftly garnered an offer of "Special Guests" for the
Mogwai- curated "All Tomorrow's Parties" festival in April 2000, for the 3000
musical youths at the Camber Sands Holiday Camp, UK which saw the NME
reconsider & describe them as :
"Not only looking more alluring than bands half their age, they sound
FANTASTIC"
& the Melody Maker to say:
"...nothing short of faith-restoring. Wimpoid guitars become helicopter
blades, muted elecro-stomps become mutant 60 second thrashes & rock'n'roll is
once more fed through the world's largest combine harvester"
Extracts of the performance were aired twice on BBC Radio One by both John
Peel & Steve Lammaq.

America called, & WIRE answered, with a headlining 8 date tour (May 2000) to
again, predominately capacity audiences.This time to american under 30 year
olds who somehow seemed to know all the words to songs that were recorded
when the audience was just barely school age, & then home again to a
celebratory sold out three nights back in London @ The Garage.

WIRE were encouraged & inspired to start work on a series of new recordings,
& a year passed by as they rediscovered their inter-band writing skills,
honed the new pieces that combined the speed & spirit of their earlier work
with maturity & grit of their age.All the material was recorded & engineered
by Colin Newman in his own SWIM Studio, in London.

Rejecting various record company offers in favour of expanding their own
"cornershop" label "pinkflag.com (distributed now via Cargo, Revolver USA &
postevreything.com), which had orginally only been set up to sell rehearsal &
live ephemera from the intial London show.
Bruce Gilbert explains "pinkflag.com allows us to work out our own pace &
direction in a way no outside label can offer us...... Label expectations
that warped WIRE in the 70's & 80's are now nothing more than what WE want
acheive at a pace we set for ourselves, which suits WIRE's perversity &
shifting horizons exactly"


Newman, Gilbert, Lewis and Grey are back in the racks again this month (June
2002) with their first new studio recordings together in over a decade.

Read & Burn :1 is a deliberately short (six songs, 17 minutes) and savage
reintroduction to WIRE of almost unbearable intensity,its brevity driven by
the palpable fury and energy which went into its creation which leaves the
listener fully and eagerly primed for what this new phase of WIRE's evolution
may bring.

Stewart Lee of The London Sunday Times Culture Section ( 23/06/02) grabbed a
sneak preveiw to say :
"Now WIRE return with a six track mini album thats sounds like their 1980's
incarnation playing their 1970's songs, and delivers a fiecely intense noise
within tightly delinated limits.The opening lines of Comet are an accurate
description of, and sales pitch for the record itself: "It's coming fast,
it's a comet, it's coming your way with your name on it"

U.S journolist Eric J Smith says "Even if they don't ever release another
record, Wire (Phase Three) will have been a success, based strictly on the
17-minute stab of genius that is Read & Burn.
Read & Burn rockets along at tempos and timbres far outstripping anything on
any of their prior records, the high octane Pink Flag included.
A deeply rhythmic Wire, with Grey's metronomic ticky-tick drums and Lewis'
steroid rage bass bits anchoring Wire's signature "dugga dugga dugga"
cadences, creating a crystal pure beat combo attack that stands, awesome, at
the middle of the maelstrom of bees created by Gilbert and Newman's buzzing,
grinding guitars.

Toss some intense, distorted lead vocals by Newman (five tracks) and Lewis
(on "The Agfers of Kodack," the angriest sounding song of them all) onto the
mix, and you've got a record that grabs you and shakes you in all the ways
that great rock & roll records are supposed to".

Prior to release WIRE test-flew a section of their all new set with a brief
performance in April this year @ the tiny 93' East Club in East London.
"WIRE delivered a ferocious set...these new songs were as punk, raw &

single-minded as anything from their youth." The Wire magazine (April 2003)

Then went to premiere the whole set by headling both Saturday Nights of this
Years "All Tomorrows Parties" curated by long time fan Steve Albini & his Shellac
cohorts. MOJO Magazines Keith Canmeron reports "For the second year in a row,
homegrown presence (@ ATP) is non-existent, save for war veterans The Fall &
Wire. The former are as half cocked as they've ever been, but two years on from
their last performance here, Wire, are an incandescent spectacle, debunking
any thoughts that they might settle for a greatest hits nostalgia routine
with a barrage of new material which effectively synthesises their electronic
& acoustic periods to righteous & thrilling effect".

Albini in his festival programme notes says "Without WIRE I doubt few of the
bands playing at ATP this year would exist".
Praise indeed.

In the Diary for now:
July 20th - performance - Institute of Contemporary Art, London
July 21st - recording - BBC Radio One John Peel Session
September 8 - 26 - 14 date USA Tour
October 25 - performance - Iain Sinclairs M25 Multi-media performance @ The
Barbican Main Hall, London
November 8-23 - 13 date Europeon Tour (TBC)

contact
for information & photos
www.pinkflag.com
press@pinkflag.com
Management - Paul Smith - stengsmith@aol.com
USA agent - Bilions Corporation, Chicago - Boche@Billions.com
Europeon Agent - Sabine Waltz -IBD

Bodenseestr.91, 81243 Munich-germany

ph: +49.89.8342410

fx +49.89.8342288

sabine@ibdbooking.de

www.ibdbooking.de

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