ComfortablyNumb
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THE WIPERS
The Wipers were a punk rock band from Portland, Oregon. They were formed in 1977 by guitarist Greg Sage, drummer Sam Henry and bassist Dave Koupal. Their tight song structure and use of heavy distortion has been hailed as extremely influential by numerous critics and musicians, including Nirvana, who covered several of their songs.
The idea for the Wipers started off as only a recording project. Their plan was to record 15 LPs in 10 years without touring or any type of promoting. Sage's thoughts were that the mystique built from the lack of playing the traditional rock & roll promotion game would make people listen to their recordings much deeper with only their imagination to go by. He thought it would be easy to avoid press, shows, pictures, interviews. He looked at music as art rather than entertainment; with that concept in mind he thought music was personal to the listener rather than a commodity.
In spite of the original idea, Wipers used to play live shows and even released a live album. (Wipers Live.)
In 1980 Park Avenue (their label) released their EP Alien Boy, consisting of the title track and three demo outtakes. It was released without the band's permission, the EP was the first of many unauthorized or bootleg Wipers records. They never received royalties from these early releases until Sage's Zeno Records reissued them as a triple-CD in 2001.
After a dispute over the cover art for their second LP, Youth of America, the Wipers parted ways with Park Avenue for good.
Sage later remarked on their initial reception: "We weren’t even really a punk band. See, we were even farther out in left field than the punk movement because we didn’t even wish to be classified, and that was kind of a new territory. ... When we put out Is This Real? … it definitely did not fit in; none of our records did. Then nine, ten years later people are saying: 'Yeah, it’s the punk classic of the ’80s.'"
The Wipers became better known after Nirvana covered two of the band's songs from Is This Real?, "D-7" and "Return of the Rat". Kurt Cobain spoke of being heavily influenced by the band. "The Wipers were a major influence on the grunge music scene in general, with bands such as The Melvins, Mudhoney, and Dinosaur Jr. citing them. Wipers albums like Is This Real? and Over the Edge are now widely considered to be among the greatest and most influential punk albums of all time."
In 1992 a tribute album Eight Songs for Greg Sage and the Wipers (Tim Kerr Records) was released. It included Wipers songs performed by Nirvana, Hole, Napalm Beach, M99, The Dharma Bums, Crackerbash, Poison Idea, and The Whirlees. The CD release of the tribute album was called Fourteen Songs for Greg Sage and the Wipers, and expanded to include covers by Hazel, Calamity Jane, Saliva Tree, Honey, Nation of Ulysses, and Thurston Moore-Keith Nealy.
In 2001, They released a Wipers Box Set, which included the first three Wipers albums, which by that time had been long out-of-print, with additional never-before-released material.
They broke up in 2001.
Great band fronted by an even better guitarist (just as good as Hendrix IMO, people have said Greg Sage was like Hendrix fronting a garage rock band.) Very talented and it is a travesty they never got the recognition they deserved.
Albums
Is This Real? (1979)
Alien Boy (EP) (1980)
Youth of America (1981)
Over the Edge (1983)
Live (1985)
Land of the Lost (1986)
Follow Blind (1987)
The Circle (1988)
The Best of Wipers and Greg Sage (1990)
Silver Sail (1993)
The Herd (1996)
Power in One (1999)
Wipers Box Set (2001) - (Pick this up. it is only $17 through Zeno Records Sage's Record Company, It is their first three albums. So worth it)
