Fireside Chat

Wire

Pink Flag, UK

Within the space of a year since formation in 1976, Wire were already on the cover of the NME. And while this pace wasn't a rarity during the heyday of punk in London, it's still notable considering the rejection of rock's inherent conservatism that marked the band since day one. Their carefully crafted tracks seemed deceptively simple, with the pure metronomic beats of Robert Grey, leaving plenty of space for the lean bass lines of Graham Lewis and the twisted rhythm guitars of Colin Newman to interlock. The end result could be too lean for the art crowd and too artful for the punk crowd, nevertheless albums like Pink Flag and Chairs Missing turned into instant classics, their influence reaching across the Atlantic to bands from the first wave of American Hardcore. And while acts like The Minutemen took cues from these taunt early albums, Wire embraced the possibilities of electronic music to further their investigations of the monorhythmic and monophonic. After a hiatus in the nineties, Wire returned in 2002 with their 'Read And Burn' series of EPs, continuing to create music on their own terms. Join in for a chat with a band that was post and beyond punk before punk even really started.