|
Wire and the Wipers are surely close to each other on record stacks, and they both started out with three great albums which they could never again match, but beyond that, why is anyone here comparing them as if they were part of some competition?
Yes, those first three albums are surely 99th-percentile all-time great LPs, and they are not only available on the 3CD "Boxed Set" on Greg Sage's Zeno Records for cheap (along with other unreleased tracks on each disc), they are also recently available on vinyl from Jackpot Records outta Portland and definitely worth picking up on that format, too.
But the Boxed Set doesn't contain everything that's essential.
There's a couple of boots out there, including an LP with a paste-up sleeve called Complete Discography 1978-90, which is, of course, a terrible misnomer. But it's got the first 7" which Greg released on his own Trap Records label, plus compilation tracks from the Portland Punk Live at Earth: 10-29-79 LP (which as a compilation of all bands from one city that was recorded all at one place on the same night stands alone as the greatest record of its kind) and the Trap Sampler. The B-side is pretty iffy, but that early stuff is otherwise extremely rare and very expensive on the collector market.
The Wipers are definitely one of the four or five most-revisited bands around my house.
Straight Ahead--Greg's solo LP that was mentioned here--is also pretty good. There was also a live LP that came out around that time which is pretty good as well, as it covers mostly songs from the early catalog. But after that, things are not as recommendable to most fans or anyone expecting the Wipers to be some kinda pinnacle of punk rock. Greg Sage started to get in touch with his inner Hendrix, but pointing more toward the burned-out, wallowy direction that Jimi's music was taking before he died. There's some moments of beauty and power on those late 80s albums (and into the 90s), but I'm afraid that too much of the early albums' edge is lost, and what edge is left is squandered by a very contemporary-sounding set of studio production values. The drum sound makes me cringe.
|