Hot Wire

With cigarettes more plentiful than Obama buttons in a crowd where hardly a black leather jacket could be seen, let alone a blue mohawk, one of the ghosts of the 80's punk rock scene opened the River to River festival with an appropriately butt-kicking gig at the South Street Seaport Friday night. It was a taste of true underground grit, in a venue so overground it ain't funny. In fact I felt slightly embarrassed to be enjoying myself so much at a City-sponsored rock concert; though I will admit, the old Schaeffer/Dr. Pepper music festival had some impressive shows, not least the Gang of Four out on the pier. Wire reminded me of no other band so much as them, in fact the GOF of Entertainment, not the later more popular stuff with the tight harmonies and go-go girls (well, not quite; but I could have done without the backup singers on songs like "I Love a Man in a Uniform".) There was a lot of hammer-stroke playing, the kind where the guitarists basically bang out the same chord in rapid succession about 500 times, then switch to another chord or two, one of which is required to be on the flatted fifth of the key. It was exhilarating.

I have to admit though, I am beginning to wonder if I was totally out of it in the 80's. I thought I was hip, 'cause I not only played at CB's once or twice but I dug all those post-Sex Pistols naughty British boys, I had all the Clash albums and listened to esoteric groups like The Selecter and Easterhouse and whatnot, as well as the mainstream stuff. But now I keep hearing about these bands that were supposedly so fucking influential that the entire later history of punk rock and more is basically footnotes to them. First it was Joy Division, who I never listened to and barely heard of until a bunch of movies came out, and even Wired (not the almost eponymous band of River to River fame) did a spread on them and their supposed influence. Now Wire is touted as this super-influential British punk band that nobody ever listened to. Next, I guess it will be The Jam or something. Was I dreaming my way through the 80's? I know I had my head buried in anti-nuke protests and sit-ins against U.S. intervention in Latin America (which was very relaxing, 'cause you could sit for a new anti-intervention cause just about every week). But I thought I knew a teeny tiny bit about punk rock. Anyway, I checked in the Bible, aka Jon Savage's England's Dreaming, and Wired does get mentioned and quoted a couple of times, about as much as Joy Division (which clocks in as a "post-punk" group).

Most of their stuff involves, dare I say, wirey vocals, over a drone guitar (think Sgt. Pepper reprise
and you get the idea). The only lyrics clear enough to walk away with were in the first song, and they amounted to, roughly - "Living passes time, thinking passes time, shitting passes time..." Where I could hear a lyric, it generally sounded interesting. The music is art-rock sophisticated, but still pretty straight-off punk. People were doing a lot of jumping up and down, the minimalist answer to dancing, in sync with the repetitive grunge chords pounded by two rhythm guitarists. Which tunes were old, new, I couldn't tell you. According to Savage some of their gigs consisted of songs that lasted about a minute, one running into the next. This was definitely not like that, the songs were 3 minutes and up I think. And don't even ask me if these were all the original members of the band. But other than that, it was like a slice of the British underground picked itself up and moved next to the East River for a while. And that was bloody fine with me, Sherlock.