Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Richard Thompson's 1952 Vincent Black Lightning is the story of a romantic ménage à trois between a boy, a girl and motorcycle

1952 Vincent Black Lightning - Richard Thompson Every concert I've seen by ex-Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson has been closed with 1952 Vincent Black Lightning. It's Thompson's tribute to legendary British motorcycle manufactured by the Vincent Company in 50s and 60s that still is an object of obession for motorcycle enthusiasts all over the globe. Thompson owns three motorcyles, but I'm not sure of the make or vintage of his cycles. His passionate description of the 1952 VBL is surely that of a man who has blazed down an open road on a Vincent on many occasions.

I'm going to let Brett Hartenbach a first rate music critic provide you with the critical yada yada on Thompson's musical stature: The song is notable because lyrically Vincent Black Lightning is as close to pure poetry as contemporary music is ever going to get. 1952 VBL should be included in the same anthology of poetry as Leonard Cohen's Sisters of Mercy, Bob Dylan's Tangled Up In Blue, and the Kink's Waterloo Sunset.

Vincent Black Lightning is the story of a star crossed romantic ménage à trois between a girl named Red Molly, a reckless young outlaw named James Adie and a motorcycle, the 1952 Vincent Black Lightning. Thompon crafts the story with the lyrical elegance of a Chekov short story.

Thompson's skill at capturing the simple the unadorned elegance of an ordinary conversation is referred to by writers as an observer's ear. The most talented poets and writers are avid listeners who listen to the content of the conversation, but also listen to the cadence of the speaker, the colloquialisms used by the speaker, the use of signifiers and even listen to what is being expressed by moments of silence in a conversation. 1952 Vincent Black Lightning captures in four stanzas of poetic verse a story of doomed love as compelling as the epic real life romance of Bonnie and Clyde.




1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Lyrics and Music by Richard Thompson

Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike
A girl could feel special on any such like
Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Box Hill they did ride


Said James to Red Molly, here's a ring for your right hand
But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man
I've fought with the law since I was seventeen
I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine
Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22
And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you
And if fate should break my stride
Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Come down, come down, Red Molly, called Sergeant McRae
For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery
Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside
Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside
When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left
He was running out of road, he was running out of breath
But he smiled to see her cry
And said I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won't do
They don't have a soul like a Vincent 52
He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys
He said I've got no further use for these
I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home
And he gave her one last kiss and died
And he gave her his Vincent to ride


That obscure object of desire: The 1952 Vincent Black Lightning

Gavin B.

Musical Controversy of the Day


Dead Weather Shots Themselves in the Foot with Gun Video

America has always been obsessed with censoring sexual expression in the arts and media. To that end, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) prowls radio and television airwaves to make sure that no American citizen will be traumatized the sight of naked people, or somebody's costume malfunction or a four letter word used by Bono at a music awards ceremony.

The government takes very good care to be sure that all of god's children don't become perverts because they've viewed scenes of sexual depravity on their television set. And that's assuming that the naked body, in and of itself, is a display of sexual depravity. The sole exception to the FCC rule is anyone who pays 50 bucks a month to their cable company, can watch scenes of sexual depravity apparently immune from the sexually deviant effect of nekkid ladies on human sexual behavior. Aren't you seeing the logic of all this? No? Welcome to the club, because I'm clueless to the inner workings of the mind of a censorship board member.

As for a programming standard on graphic violence the FCC apparently sees no connection between television violence and tidal wave of random killing sprees by heavily armed berserkers who go postal and make a visit to a local post office, retailer, day care center or school take and out a dozen or so innocent citizens with an arsenal of automatic weapons that are often more powerful than those of the cops who arrive on the scene to stop the killing spree.

On a nightly basis, Americans of any age are free to view graphic violence including decapitations, shooting sprees, stabbings, immolations, mutilations, ax killings and even graphic recreations of autopsies of people who have already been shot, beaten, stabbed to death or mutilated beyond recognition. The F.C.C. is apparently waiting for a live broadcast snuff film before seeing any relationship between television violence and street violence.

The FCC has never commissioned one single serious study on the effects of viewing graphic violence or graphic sex on human behavior, despite all of the solemn and sober judgements they've made on censorship. The FCC just assumes the viewing nakedness leads to not only nudity but also is the underlying cause of a cornucopia of sexual deviancy including pedophilia. A man can hardly carry photos of his children in his wallet, these days, without being accused of being a child molester. On the other hand, the FCC is sees no harmful effect from the nightly orgy of violence on prime time television.

I say all this as a person who is unconditionally opposed to censorship in the arts and media. If people want to produce or view graphically violent art and films they should be free to do so, but if an explicitly violent video is proven to have led to a violent act, those artists should have the guts to accept some responsibility for their role in the violent act. If given the choice, I'd rather have my son view a sexually graphic video and grow up to have sex than view an explicitly violent video and grow up to kill someone.

About now I'm sure you're rolling your eyes and asking yourself what my point is and how this relates to contemporary music. Read on.

The most recent video release by Dead Weather, Treat Me Like Your Mother has Allison Mossman (singer for the Kills) and Jack White (of White Stripes) going at each other with assault rifles which at first shocked me. However with 2 or 3 subsequent viewings I became desensitized to the violence. I call it the Amsterdam effect. Upon my first trip to Amsterdam I was shocked the abundant number of prostitutes freely soliciting sex on the streets. Maybe I was more shocked that they were soliciting me. After or week or so the prostitutes (and ganja clubs) receeded into the background and became a part of my every day normal existence and all of the shock value had disappeared.

The fact is that routine exposure to any behavioral phenomenon be it sexual, violent, authoritarian, benevolent, or sinister will be integrated into any human's perception of normality. We know this as fact from the extensive reasearch studies in the field of coginitive behavioral psychology.

It left me wondering what, if any, effect this video would have upon a mentally disturbed kid, with access to automatic weapons who was in a particularly black mood about his own home or school life. What if any effect, do repeated views of the Dead Weather video have upon his human will to use an automatic weapon to make his own personal statement to a cruel world that treats him like a loser and a nobody?

I've been fully advised that the violence is ludicrously over the top and neither White nor Mossman gets killed by 100 or so rounds of point blank gunfire. But isn't that exactly how human beings are desensitized to violence? Isn't a person essentially desensitized to violence by viewing staged scenes of horrific violence in which nobody (except maybe a few crazy evil bad guys) suffers the consequence of gratuitous violence?

MTV should not ban this video because it gives Jack, Allison and other members of Dead Weather an opportunity to obfuscate the issue by claiming to be victims of artistic censorship. I'd rather listen to whatever contrived artistic statement they have to make for the gratuitous violence in video.

Even rock stars do and say stupid things, but should be held accountable, just as both Bowie and Costello were raked over the coals for their stupid statements about fascism and black folks, a few decades back. Not doing so would makes us victims of our own blind worship of idols.

I certain any Jack and Allison would cringe if anybody suggested Treat Me Like Your Mother might be the springboard for a horrendous act of violence by one of their fans. I love the music of both Allison Mossman and Jack White and their respective bands by the way. And since I don't believe censorship I'm posting the video for you to draw your own conclusions and your own comments on the issue.



Personal Disclosure: I'm unaware any other negative criticism of the Dead Weather video on similar grounds. I'm a fan of both Jack White and Allison Mossman and their musical endeavors and I'd even recommend the Dead Weather album. If the artist involved were Ted Nuggent, I wouldn't even mention it because a video celebrating reckless gunplay is par for the course for Nuggent.

Rickenbacker

Oh come on, who cares about that. If somebody sees this video and shoots someone with an automatic weapon, it's because they're f*cked-out-of-their-mind insane. I'd blame whoever gives them the weapon, not Jack and Allison.

__________________

last.fm
rym
Talk About the Passion - R.E.M.'s Discography Reviewed

Gavin B.

Welcome back Rickenbacker, haven't seen you around for a few days.

You absolutely right about everything you said and I'm not suggesting censorship. But if a persons is f*cked-out-of-their-mind insane, are you prepared to state unequivocally that a video like that has no effect on their behavior? To the contrary, everything you see or hear as an effect on you, unless you're a dead man.

As for blaming whoever gives a spree killer the weapon. Where do you start? There's a million ways for a kid to get a gun including stealing it, buying it from an owner who isn't required to verify the age of the purchaser, or purchasing it at gun show where nobody asks for proof of age.

Viginia Tech Killer, Seung-Hui Cho purchased a 22 caliber Walther P-22 at JND Pawnbrokers in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Cho completed the legally-required background check for the purchase transaction and took possession of the handgun. Cho bought a second handgun, a Glock 19 semiautomatic pistol, on March 13, 2007 from Roanoke Firearms, a licensed gun dealer located in Roanoke, Virginia. Despite having a history of being an in-patient at a mental health treatment facility Cho had no problems passing the psychiatric history check.

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris persuaded Robyn Anderson, an 18-year-old Columbine student to make a straw purchase of two shotguns and Hi-Point 995 Carbine for the pair. Anderson was not charged for her part in the straw purchase in exchange for her cooperation with the investigation that followed the shootings. After illegally acquiring the weapons, Harris and Klebold sawed off the barrels of the shotguns, shortening the overall length to below 25 inches, a felony under the National Firearms Act.

The problem is that spree killers are largely anonymous until some unknown stimuli sets them off. We do know is nearly all young spree killers have a common fascination with violent and mobid images on the internet, music videos and computer games.

Many spree killers claimed to be inspired by movies. The film 'Natural Born Killers' may have set a record, however, with at least 14 murderers having claimed to be emulating the film. All of the killers according to author John Gilbeaut in his book Deadly Inspiration weren't noted by school authorities, neighbors or their own families as being psychotic, violent or troubled prior to their killing sprees.

The first impression I got of the Dead Weather video was that it had the same kind of hip ironic attitude toward violence as the Natural Born Killers which was written by Quentin Tarrentino and directed by Oliver Stone.

Both Tarrentino and Stone are important filmakers who should be aware that a few young people will miss irony of their artistic statements and get swept away by the visceral violence of the film. And these young people aren't raving psychotics, at least prior to viewing the film.

Tarrentino and Stone should own up to some measure of ethical responsibilty when a spree killer tells the world "I was inspired by Natural Born Killers." I've heard Stone express regrets about filming NBK and he also gained an unwanted entourage of scary admirers and stalkers after making the film. That may been what he regretted most about making the movie.

If two weeks from now, two kids have a ritualistic duel in a vacant lot and kill each other at point blank range with automatic weapons are you prepared to say the Dead Weather video had nothing with it, even if you found out later that both kids were obsessed with the video.

Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Luna was the rightful heir to the Velvet Underground's venerable legacy as the archetypal New York band

23 Minutes in Brussels -Luna

Luna never got their due as a band. The band had a huge following in New York City where many fans saw Luna as the rightful heir of the archetypal New York band, the Velvet Underground. During Luna's twelve year run as a band they produced a catalog of 7 studio albums and one live album that was the equal of any band of the mid 90s/early 2000 era.

Luna was a band of formers, my own term for bands formed by ex-members of other prominent bands. The music industry calls them super groups which is a misnomer. The super group tag operates under the specious assumption any high profile band of formers’ musical product will be “super” which it rarely is. Super group is just another music industry tag line use to sell product.

The founding members of Luna were former Galaxie 500 vocalist and guitarist Dean Wareham, former Chills bassist Justin Harwood and former-Feelies drummer Stanley Demeski. If there was ever band of formers that made “super” music, it was Luna. Since none of Luna’s albums ever charted on the Billboard 200, Luna ended up being the antithesis of the music industry’s definition of super group.

In 1999 Justin Harwood left the band to return to his native New Zealand to raise a family and was replaced by Britta Phillips. Britta Phillips was originally a talented young actress and musician who made an impressive acting debut at age 16 in the 1988 film Satisfaction with Liam Nesson, Julia Roberts and Justine Bateman. She had a couple of minor successful film roles after that. In the early 90s she moved to London and formed Belltower a short-lived but well loved indie band.

Luna's Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips performed as a duet in a Luna side project which because a full time gig for Dean and Britt following the breakup of Luna in 2004. The photo of Dean and Britt above is a role reversal parody of a memorable film poster for the 1967 Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic art house film of swinging mod London, Blow-Up. Click here to see the original Blow-Up poster where actor David Hemmings sits astride British supermodel Jean Shrimpton in a strikingly similar pose.

As fate would have it , Britta became an integral part of the revamped 1999 edition of Luna. She married bandmate Dean Wareham and became his musical partner in the seductive and dreamy Europop influenced duo simply named Dean and Britta which was a side project that became full time gig for the Wareham and Phillips, following the amicable breakup of Luna in 2004 A good starting point for those uninitiated to Luna's music is the Rhino Record's well selected 17 song retrospective the Best of Luna issued in 2006.


If you're looking for a sampler of Luna's work, you won't find anything better than this Rhino issued 2006 anthology, The Best of Luna

Luna delivered the goods in their live performances which is aptly demonstrated by the 2001 release Luna Live and the live performance of 23 Minutes in Brussels I've posted. Luna's members were all skilled improvisational musicians and rarely played any song the same way twice in live performances. For Luna, every song was a work in progress. Luna's improvised space jams made bootleg tapes of Luna's live shows an object of obsession for Luna's fans. In the same manner of dedicated Deadheads, Lunatiks amassed prized collections of bootlegged live Luna performances.

On this YouTube video Dean Wareham and 2nd guitarist Sean Eden engage in a 4 minute of ethereal psychedelic guitar crossfire that is reminiscent of the Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd's otherworldly guitar jams for another legendary New York guitar band, Television.

Son of JayJamJah

In Response to the "Treat me Like your Mother" video post:

I don't think an artist should ever consider what effect their vision will have on other people, that corrupts the art. That's a pretty simple statement sure, but I don't have the energy to give the argument much more then that. I appreciate the thought you gave the topic Gavin and this journal is fucking great, as for cause and accountability it is a nature\nurture issue to me. The blame never gets passed the willing participants and those who fostered the environment that created them.

__________________
Me, Myself and I United as One

If you're posting in the music forums make sure to be thoughtful and expressive, if you're posting in the lounge ask yourself "is this something that adds to the conversation?" It's important to remember that a lot of people use each thread. You're probably not as funny or clever as you think, I know I'm not.

My Van Morrison Discography Thread

Gavin B.

Well said JJ. As I said I'm the last person that would argue that any art should be censored. You're correct in theory. That doesn't keep the artist from considering the effect his art will eventually have on people.

In fact many avant garde and agit prop arists create art with the sole intention of shocking people.

The artistic process is a deeply personal and rife with both internal and external conflict. The nature of art is defined entirely by a socially mediated process, while the creation visual art is anti-social process that requires the artist to spend ungodly amounts of time alone. Creative writing requires a similar process. Visual artists and writers aren't required to interact with an audience to complete the creative act. In fact it's a bad idea to have an entourage in tow if you're sculpting a statue or writing poetry. The process it quite different from peformance art.

In the case of performance art like music and theater the creative process usually requires the collboration of others and the performance process requires the partcipation of an audience. Even if that audience is one guy sitting at home alone watching a music video. Even when an audience stares blankly into space and doesn't applaud, on some level they are participating in the performance.

Musicians and stage actor are quite often obsessed with the effect their artistic vision and performance skills will have on others because a performancer is an incomplete artist without the auidence. Indeed the participation of the audience has a very big effect on the artistic outcome of the performance.

Nearly performance artist gives a great deal of thought to the effect of his artistic vision on others because others are an intregal participant in the artistic process.

Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Inara (on guitar) and her entourage of Bee Girls

Love Letter to Japan- the Bird and the Bee

The Bird and the Bee's 2nd album Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future is their first album to penetrate the lower regions of the American music charts (#78 on the on the Billbored sales charts back in Februrary 2009) but the band is also getting some well deserved critical attention for Ray Gun.

The two principals band are Greg Kurstin, a multi-instumentalist and vocalist Inara George a coquettish jazz oriented vocalist in the vampy manner of Julie London. Greg Kurstin studied piano under the legendary jazz pianist Jaki Byard. Kurstin has played keyboards with Beck and has produced the Flaming Lips and Lilly Allen among others.

The band's focal performer is Inara, a self styled It Girl who has a tres chic, haute couture, retrograde fashion sensibility that falls between late 50s Coco Chanel and mid-60's Mary Quant. She has a similar taste for the jazz, tropicala, jet lounge, B-move sountracks, and Europop from the same 1950s-1960s time frame. The Bird and the Bee has a lot more going on than simply Inara's campy and ironic musical oeuvre.

Inara is an interesting study in artistic extremes. She was studying to be a Shakespearean stage actress in Boston and left drama school and returned home to form almost famous post-grunge band Lode with her high school friends. Lode was signed by the mega-label Geffen and after recording a well received debut Lode called it quits. Inara is, incidentally, the daughter of rock and roll icon Lowell George who founded the well loved Seventies rock band Little Feat.

The prestigous jazz label Blue Note was very anxious to sign the band to a long term recording contract and it's rare for Blue Note to take interest in performers with more of a pop orientation than a jazz background. The last artist pop oriented artist signed by Blue Note was Nora Jones and she has become a mainstay of the American popular music scene since the meteoric rise of her 2002 debut album.

Over the the past few years a new crop of female music performers has sprung forth, and each of these rising stars has her own unique fashion sensiblity and idosyncratic approach to making music among. Among those women are E.U. based performers like Lily Allen, Sia, Natasha Kahn, Imogen Heap, Karin Dreijer Andersson, and M.I.A.

The American female artists attuned to this E.U. phenomena are New Yorkers Santigold, Karen O., Sabina Sciubba and L.A. based Inara George. Sabina is frequently compared to Inara but the similarities in the musical style and fashion sensibility of the two women are superficial.

Brazilian Girls singer Sabina Sciubba's musical personae is close to that of Inara's but Sabina often overplays her hand with her international mystery girl routine and her flamboyant Eurotrash fashion sensibilities. Both Sabina and Inara are abudantly talented and serious musicians with an ironic sense of style and musical sensibilities.


Sabina Sciubba(pictured above) of the Brazilian Girls goes over the top with her taste for Eurotrash fashion decadence while Inara George is more of a tres chic House of Chanel kind of girl.

In two albums and one EP the George/Kurstin songwriting team have a catalog of around 30 original songs that would give Burt Bacharach and Hal David a good run for the money. I'm posting both a live version and the band's official video for Love Letter to Japan because there are some interesting contrasts between the live performance and the studio version of the song.

Love Letter From Japan- Live @ The Indie, San Francisco 2/9/09




Love Letter To Japan Official Video

Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Bryan Ferry- Roxy Music's elegant avatar of style

Dance Away- Roxy Music

Even if Bryan Ferry was given to fashion excess, as his lime colored dayglow suit in the video below demonstrates, Roxy Music was without peer in the fine art of crafting the stylish romantic pop ballad. Dance Away is the anchor song is from 1979's Manifesto. Manifesto along with Avalon (1982) is everything you need to know about the second half of Roxy Music's recording career.

All other Roxy albums from 1976 until 1982 are redundant to the point of being too much of a good thing . Only Manifesto and Avalon have the staying power of Roxy's first string of 5 near-perfect albums from 1972 through 1975 for Virgin Records, all of which have remastered and reissued over the past five years.

Face it, music lovers, Dance Away is deeply discoid song, but even so, Bryan Ferry's plaintive world weary lyrics will break the heart of anyone who ever searched for love in all the wrong places:

The best lines of the song come earlier when the lovelorn, star crossed Ferry sighs sadly, "you're dressed to kill and guess who's dying?" People simply don't write lines like that any more.

Alas, by 1979, Roxy Music was beginning to sound a bit out of step with the lead edge of contemporary music scene. Sad to say, but the sun was beginning to set on Roxy Music. The band that was the very epitome of style throughout most of the Seventies was going out of style.

As a Roxy loyalist I bought my mandatory copy of Manifesto but I was more attuned to that other great icon of the glam era, David Bowie as he released Lodger, the final volume of his Berlin trilogy, a fusion of high concept pop with avant garde experimentalism.

Ironically Bowie's collaborator on the Berlin project was Roxy Music founder turned ambient music theorist, anti-rock experimentalist, and future uber producer Brian Eno. Both Eno and Bowie's careers profited tremendously for the timing of their musical partnership. Bowie maintained his street cred with those on the cutting edge of music and Eno who was widely viewed as an avant garde curiosity by the mid-Seventies, expanded his work as a producer of other high profile musicians like Devo, the Talking Heads, and U2.

At the dawn of the post punk era Bowie's tranfiguration from glam rocker to musical provocateur was a shrewd move, as the mighty institution of 70s arena rock crumbled in the aftershocks of the punk revolution. Bowie was more important than he ever was in 1979. Bowie the Chamelon recalibrated his musical oeuvre and fashion sense to blend with the post-punk backdrop and survived, at least for the moment.

Litte did we know that Roxy Music was three years away from the release of Avalon their stunning 1982 swan song album which, for better or worse, was influential enough to alter the direction of post punk music for the rest of the Eighties.

So in the final analysis Bryan and Roxy Music trumped Bowie and forced him to move from the cutting edge to the center, as Bowie followed in 1983 with an album of synthesized post-disco dance music, Let's Dance an album that sounded very much like Roxy Music.

Let's Dance was a turning point in Mr. Bowie's career. Following Let's Dance Bowie spent the past 25 years unable to restore the delicate balance between the commercial and the experimental that made his music so important in the Seventies.

Roxy Music went out at the top in 1982 with Avalon, arguably their greatest album ever, while Bowie has floundered though the rest of the Eighties and into his middle age unable to recapture the musical glory of his "golden years."

I am not worthy, Mr. Ferry. The rumors of Roxy's death in 1980 were greatly exaggerated. Many of us thought Manifesto was about as good as we'd ever get from Roxy Music in the autumn of their years. That being said, Manifesto was still a pretty good gift to get in 1979, even in the glut of great post punk music being made at the turn of the 70/80s decade.

This song Dance Away was radically extended for a 12" mix. While the extension was only a drum beat break in the middle, everyone just had to have that extra 2 minutes to be stylin' on the dance floor. The video is a classic dance floor rendition with Ferry swaying in the aforementioned dayglow lime suit and using his patented "seductive right-eyebrow arch" to sing the lyrics to great romantic effect. Note Bryan's metallic silver loafers when he walks down the steps to the runway. The shoes are perfectly matched to his silver colored ultra-skinny necktie.

My older sister will never look at older photographs of herself because it documents the history of her taste for the lastest strange hair-do trends. The burgundy colored hair with the sleek and angular pageboy cut was really workin' for her back in 1980, but she woke up one day in 2009 wondering what the hell she was thinking about back then. A retrospective Roxy's videos would in the same manner provide a historical documentation for Bryan Ferry's taste for short-lived fashion trends. I'm betting Mr. Ferry makes no apologies because fashion excess is always a viture when you live the glamorous life.

Timeless? Maybe not. Endearing? You betcha. Dance Away remains a song that is near and dear to the fans of Roxy Music.

Gavin B.

Song of the Day



Enigmatic musical maverick, Greg Sage of the Wipers

Taking Too Long- The Wipers

I'm not going to place any descriptive tag on the music of the Wipers, the trail blazing band from Portland that has been tagged with enough conflicting descriptors to render genre tagging useless. The Wiper's founder, front man and guitarist Greg Sage was always reticent to discuss his own musical influences which are probably many and varied. I agree with Sage's view that any stylistic assessments of the Wipers are best left to be unwritten and unsaid.

For the record, Greg Sage hated the music business and even the venerable indie labels, Sub Pop and Relentless who issued most of the Wiper's recordings regarded Sage as a difficult and problematic artist.

The Wipers have been around since 1978. Sage's original goal was to release 15 records in ten years, free of traditional band aspects like touring, television appearances and photo shoots. However, he found out early on that being involved with independent labels involved plenty of compromise — and that independent labels took a great deal of independence away from him, rather than empowering him.

Sage was a hermetic musician who went to great lengths to keep a low profile and stay in the rock and roll underground. When Nirvana broke out in the early Ninties, former Wiper's fan-boy Kurt Cobain covered a few old Wipers songs and would tell anybody listening that the Wipers were his favorite band. When Cobain invited the Wipers to tour with Nirvana, Sage politely declined, remaining stubbornly unmotivated by the lure of fame and fortune. Throughout his lengthy and prolific career, he has downplayed or shunned any attention or recognition given to him, preferring to let the music speak for itself.

The Wipers rarely toured or performed outside of Oregon with a couple of exceptions of two cities, Chicago and Boston where the Wipers had enough of a fan base to draw more than a hundred or so curiosity seekers to a show. It was a different story in the EU where the Wipers reached "almost famous" status and drew as many as 2000 fans to concerts.

In the early nineties when the popularity of grunge rock and a well meaning but unwanted Wiper's tribute album put Greg into an uncomfortable position in the spotlight, he abruptly fled Portland and moved to Phoenix. He built his own home studio. There is an "official" Wiper's website which makes his music available @ this link Official Wiper's Website I personally wish Greg success on his relentless quest for non-success. He a true American original.

In spite of Greg's efforts to avoid musical noteriety, it would be a travesty not to mention the technical mastery Greg Sage's guitar playing which often sounds like a less flamboyant version of Jimi Hendrix's firery guitar pyrotechnics. The Wipers at first glance have the sound of a highly proficent garage band, but if your listen to Sage's technical mastery of extended arpeggios, hammer-ons and pull offs, seamless fret slides, sustained vibrato, and sting bending it's pretty clear that Greg has few very peers as skilled in the guitar trade as he is.