Wipers: Портлендтік панк-рок тобының тарихы

American punk rock band

Wipers was a punk rock band formed in Portland, Oregon, in 1977 by guitarist and vocalist Greg Sage, along with drummer Sam Henry and bassist Dave Koupal. The group's tight song structure and use of heavy distortion were hailed as extremely influential by numerous critics and musicians. They are also considered to be the first Pacific Northwest punk band.

Sage's intense interest in music began with cutting records at home as an adolescent. Inspired by Jimi Hendrix, Sage soon picked up the guitar, and in 1969, at age 17, he played on an eponymous album by professional wrestler Beauregarde. Sage thought that the mystique built from the lack of playing traditional rock 'n' roll 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 and interviews. He looked at music as art rather than entertainment; he thought music was personal to the listener rather than a commodity. Wipers' first single, "Better Off Dead", was released in 1978 on Sage's own Trap Records. Sage wanted to make his own recordings and manufacture and run his own label without outside financing. In 1979, Sage approached several Portland punk bands (including Neo Boys, Sado Nation and Stiphnoyds) and asked them to record singles for his new Trap label. The Wipers first album, Is This Real?, was issued in January 1980 on Park Avenue Records, a label that the band hoped would gain them wider distribution. It was originally recorded on a 4 track in the band's rehearsal studio, but the label insisted that the band use a professional studio. The album was, according to Sage, not well received in the United States at the time of its release, though it did fare better in Europe. The next album, Over the Edge, issued in 1983 by Trap via Brain Eater Records, was the first Wipers record to gain significant modern rock airplay. In 1989, drummer Travis McNabb joined Wipers for a tour, during which Sage announced that the band was ending due to music business frustrations and the loss of their studio space. Sage then relocated to Phoenix, Arizona,

Plouf operated a vintage goods/Zeno Records store in Portland, appropriately named Zeno Oddities, which closed sometime between 2009 and 2010. McNabb formed the Beggars, and went on to work as a session and tour drummer for artists including Vigilantes of Love, Billy Pilgrim, Shawn Mullins, Indigo Girls, Brendan Benson, Howie Day, Dar Williams, Mandi Perkins, Big & Rich and Gavin DeGraw. McNabb was a member of Better Than Ezra from 1996 to 2009. In 2007, he joined bluegrass/country music act Sugarland. Davidson (who had previously recorded with the Sage produced Rancid Vat in 1985) played bass on The Jesus and Mary Chain's 1993 EP Sound of Speed.

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'". In 1992, tribute album Eight Songs for Greg Sage and the Wipers was released by Tim/Kerr as a box set of four colored 7" records, featuring Wipers songs performed by Nirvana, Hole, Napalm Beach, M99, Dharma Bums, Crackerbash, Poison Idea, and the Whirlees. The expanded CD release, retitled Fourteen Songs for Greg Sage and the Wipers, also included covers by Hazel, Calamity Jane, Saliva Tree, Honey, Nation of Ulysses, and Thurston Moore and Keith Nealy. The Wipers had an influence on Nirvana. Wipers gained significant exposure as a result of Nirvana's 1992 covers of two songs from Is This Real? ("D 7" on the EP Hormoaning, and "Return of the Rat" on the Eight Songs compilation), and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's mention of Wipers as a major influence. As did Cobain's wife Courtney Love, whose band Hole covered "Over the Edge" both on recording and frequently at live performances. The Wipers were influential for the grunge music scene in general, also being cited by the Melvins, Mudhoney, and Dinosaur Jr. German grunge band Alien Boys named themselves from the Wipers song Alien Boy.