Saturday, June 08, 2013

interesting book (a series) #3

READ & BURN: A Book About WIRE by Wilson Neate



Another meaty treatise (427 pages) but focused entirely on a single band, by the guy who already wrote a 150 page monograph on Pink Flag for the 33⅓ series.  Decisively displacing the existing much shorter (and out of print anyway) Wire tome   Wilson Neate's book is incisive, insightful and full of fascinating information. Of special interest to me was the stuff about the role of A.C. Marias / Angela Conway as art school associate of the band and creative input (particularly in the realm of visual presentation). And then one tiny morsel of data that delighted....   I've always thought there were certain things by The Groundhogs that had a proto-Wire angularity and jagged attack, and as it happens, when Graham Lewis and Bruce Gilbert first met (through the auspices of  Conway, in fact) they bonded musically through shared dislikes and a "few crucial tastes" in common: "Free, Beefheart, and two tracks by The Groundhogs".  That specific  - just "two tracks"! I'd bet money that one of them was "You Had A Lesson". I wonder what the other was...