Pink Flag (Harvest, Nov. 1977) 1. Reuters 2. Field Day For The Sundays 3. Three Girl Rhumba 4. Ex Lion Tamer 5. Lowdown 6. Start To Move 7. Brazil 8. It's So Obvious 9. Surgeon's Girl 10. Pink Flag 11. The Commercial 12. Straight Line 13. 106 Beats That 14. Mr. Suit 15. Strange 16. Fragile 17. Mannequin 18. Different To Me* 19. Champs 20. Feeling Called Love 21. 12XU All songs Gilbert, Lewis, Newman, Gotobed except *Annette Green Colin - Vocals, Black Hair Robert Gotobed - Drums, 6'3" B.C. Gilbert - Guitar, Blue Eyes Lewis - Bass, 9 st. 6 lbs. Kate Lukas - Flute on Strange Dave Oberlé - Back-up vocals on Mannequin Produced by Mike Thorne 1994 CD Bonus Tracks: 22. Dot Dash (Newman/Lewis) 23. Options R (Lewis) 2006 credits: All tracks arranged by Gilbert/Grey/Lewis/Newman except "The Commercial" by Gilbert/Grey/Lewis Melody - All tracks by Newman except "The Commercial" by Lewis Words - Tracks 1, 2, 4 - 8, 10, 13, 16, 17 & 19 by Lewis, tracks 3, 9, 14 & 20 by Newman, tracks 12 & 15 by Gilbert, track 18 by Green, track 21 by Lewis/Newman/Gilbert Additional releases: Lowdown/12XU: The Roxy London WC2 (Jan - Apr 77) LP (Harvest, July 1977) (both songs Gotobed, Newman, Lewis, Gilbert) Produced by Mike Thorne Mannequin/Feeling Called Love/12XU (all songs Gilbert, Lewis, Newman, Gotobed) 7" (Harvest, Nov. 1977) Produced by Mike Thorne
I only consider a handful of punk&post punk albums essential to any comprehensive record collection and the "Chairs Missing" album is as essential as the Sex Pistols,Clash debut&London Calling and Elvis Costellos My Aim is True and This Years Model as is The Adverts and X-Ray Spex to understanding the English punk movement of the late 1970s.
Many good ones here but to omit Joy Division and Magazine from this is criminal. I'm afraid I'll need to take up emoticons against you. On the subject, I've loved Wire from the first day I heard this album in the early 80's. The original black jackets, black pants and white t-shirt underneath that the Cure adopted was perfect in the day. Great, great band.......great, great album.
"No solos; no decoration; when the words run out, it stops; we don't chorus out; no rocking out; keep it to the point; no Americanisms." Graham Lewis
Yes but that IMO is 2nd teir but if I were to go past 1979 it would include Gang of Four "Entertainment" & English Beat "I Just Can't Stop It". I was turned on to New Order early 80s through a much younger musician friend.The LP was " Closer" good record just never hit me like Wire and the rest.
I think these opening excerpts from AMG are fitting: “ Wire's Pink Flag plays like The Ramones Go to Art School ..... However; unlike the Ramones.......Very few of the songs followed traditional verse/chorus structures” Therefore catchy tunes and phrases don’t pop to mind like thoughts of the Pistols and Clash. I also don’t think I have listened to it near as much. I view this as a consensus 5-star historical album and highly desirable original UK pressing. I have an original German pressing and the Cd.
I was a weekly denizen of Bleecker Bob's and bought the 3-song Mannequin single when it came into the shop. I loved it, and became an instant Wire fan. I was eagerly-awaiting Pink Flag and keeping tabs on the release date (as best I could in those pre-Internet days). I called Bob's one Sunday morning and the latest shipment from England had arrived the night before. I was living with my parents in NJ after college graduation... I borrowed the car and drove into The Village to grab the album. Parking in NYC is always a challenge, but it's especially tough when there's snow on the ground, and there had been a blizzard. I found a spot, trudged over to MacDougal Street, bought the imported album and drove home [very carefully]. I must have played Pink Flag half a dozen times that afternoon and evening. Wire is a wonderfully original band, but "Eno meets the RAMONES" is a pretty good descriptor of their debut. They established a unique niche in the world of Punk Rock. This is one album-by-album thread that I will heartily enjoy.
I've told this story before...but when The Tubes came over in late 1977 (first tour of the UK I think) I bought a ticket for the Hammersmith Odeon gig as I'd loved the s/t. Anyway, this band came on as support. Little interaction with the audience and just stood there playing a whole bunch of songs. Some were over so quickly you hardly had time to take it in before they launched into the next. My reaction after the set was "Wow, what was that?" So...when my brother asked me what I wanted for Christmas..."Wire Pink Flag please" And been a fan ever since. Never bothered with The Tubes again though... As for the album - still stands up to listening today unlike some of the more embarrassing efforts of the first wave of punk acts in part because they were playing around with the punk format as they openly admit to doing. If you look at their sessionography, it's interesting to see that by the time they recorded PF they were already onto ones that would appear on Chairs Missing - the session on 8th May 77 which appeared on Behind The Curtain includes Practice Makes perfect, Sand In My Joints, I feel Mysterious Today; and Underwater Experiences which was on Document and Eye Witness. In Read and Burn it's said that Mike Thorne was insistent that the new songs shouldn't be included on RF in order to keep the consistency even though the band had outgrown some of the songs and were ready to move on. I have the original album review in my cuttings file which I'll scan in later and post here.
Oh man I needed a thread like this finally listened to Pink Flag last year and it blew me away. There's such a good air on that record, I think the songs are classic. Since become obsessed with Chairs Missing, too. Started listening to other stuff at random online, and boy there's a lot of it.
Got it on vinyl when it was released. They first came to my attention when I purchased the "The Roxy London WC2" album. Immediately drawn by the "catchiness" and also the "gravitas" on them. No cartoon punk band these guys. Reminded me a lot of the Velvet Underground. Obvious from the first listen of their debut that these guys were ahead of the game. Got nearly all of their stuff and don't regret a penny spent!
The first of their 3 absolutely essential Harvest era albums. It is amazing that all 3 of them came in such quick succession and that they all sound so different in terms of song structure, but at the same time they all sound very much like Wire too. Pink Flag is like an ironic take on the nihilist furious energy of punk, melded with oblique art school lyricism. In some ways this coming out in 1977 signposted the emergence of the post punk movement. Their contemporaries such as the Pistols. Clash, Damned etc at that point were still pretty basic revved up pub rock with angry vitriolic vocals so Wire were ahead of the curve somewhat. Colin Newman's sneering London punk rock vocals on a lot of these songs had them with one foot in the adrenaline rush of the punk rock scene of 76/77 but the inscrutable lyrics coupled with the stop start clipped musical changes pointed towards a more art house sensibility and the dawning of the post punk era. By mid 77 they were onto Chairs Missing material and completely slipping out of the straightjacket of punk. Pink Flag is a manifesto of furious intent and still stands the test of time 40 years on. A compelling debut from a (still) great band and you can see in some of the less furious songs that they were not going to be a one dimensional punk act right from the off. Fragile is a lovely pop song, the title track a mesmerising build up to a dense crunching hypnotic riff, Ex Lion Tamer is taut dynamic, melodic, fleet, new wave classic. It all builds to 12XU a furious punk two fingers raised with Newman's tongue firmly in cheek. Took another year for their contemporaries to catch up, with PIL morphing out of the Pistols wreckage and The Clash moving towards London Calling's eclecticism and newer more interesting sounds from The Slits and X Ray Specs etc appearing to join Wire pushing at the tight confined boundaries of the initial 76/77's scene. Classic.
Not sure they bettered it. Different albums to come and many as great as the debut, but better?.....Nah, equally as good.
Once again, I consider myself lucky to be 21 in the age of the CD! Enigma Retro put this (and the other two albums) out, and was able to get them cheap, without knowing a single note of what was on it! Ahhh, the days of 'disposable income'!
One of the great debuts in all of rock. A positive Rolling Stone review made me roll the dice on Pink Flag, and thank goodness. For a 15-year-old obsessed rock fan, great new bands seemed to be everywhere in 1977 and '78.
Just an absolutely crucial debut album by one of my top 5 fave bands of all time. Here's an original ad for the Mannequin single, which I figure should be posted here for posterity:
That's good to see. I assume they were supporting someone on those dates as those are big concert venues for a new band.
