Lowdown The Story Of Wire

The first major book on the post-punk legends! Wire were the seventies band who perhaps did more than any other to usher in the post-punk age. Author Paul Lester has interviewed the four original members of Wire - Colin Newman, Graham Lewis, Robert Gotobed and Bruce Gilbert - as well as many of their producers and collaborators. Charts the band's history from their days at Watford Art College through their abrasive encounters with punk audiences hostile to their groundbreaking material on albums like Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154. and their 2008 release Object 47. Those albums were to exert an enormous influence on subsequent generations of alternative rock musicians. To bands as diverse as Black Flag, Blur, R.E.M. and My Bloody Valentine, Wire's expansion of the sonic possibilities of rock proved highly significant. Lester has also followed the band's story as it expanded into a melee of break-ups, reformations, parallel projects and solo forays, culminating in their current status as a sort of British Velvet Underground: cultish and modest-selling but uncompromising and immeasurably influential.

This study connects the idiosyncratic modernism of Wyndham Lewis, co-founder of the Vorticist art movement, with works of several artists from the British art rock tradition, among them Bryan Ferry, David Bowie, art-punk pioneers Wire and electronic pop musician John Foxx. By taking a transdisciplinary and intermedial approach to texts from two fields normally studied in isolation and staking out the elements of a shared modernist ethos, the book presents a new perspective on both fields relevant to scholars of literature, popular culture, and the visual arts alike. While the book rests on sound research from the fields of literary criticism, art history, and pop theory, the structure and writing of the book is fundamentally designed to be accessible and comprehensible to non-scholarly readers.

In contrast with many of their punk peers, Wire were enigmatic and cerebral, always keeping a distance from the crowd. Although Pink Flag appeared before the end of 1977, it was already a meta-commentary on the punk scene and was far more revolutionary musically than the rest of the competition. Few punk bands moved beyond pared-down rock 'n' roll and garage rock, football-terrace sing-alongs or shambolic pub rock and, if we're honest, only a handful of punk records hold up today as anything other than increasingly quaint period pieces. While the majority of their peers flogged one idea to death and paid only lip service to punk's Year Zero credo, Wire took a genuinely radical approach, deconstructing song conventions, exploring new possibilities and consistently reinventing their sound. THIS IS A CHORD. THIS IS ANOTHER. THIS IS A THIRD. NOW FORM A BAND, proclaimed the caption to the famous diagram in a UK fanzine in 1976 and countless punk acts embodied that do-it-yourself spirit. Wire, however, showed more interesting ways of doing it once you'd formed that band and they found more compelling uses for those three mythical chords.

Thoughtful, action-packed memoir of one American soldier's combat tour in Vietnam in 1970

THE SERIES WITH OVER 2 MILLION DOWNLOADS and 20,000+ REVIEWS New York Times & USA Today Bestselling McRyan Mystery Series FATALLY BOUND... by one decision with deadly consequences. Hannah opened the backdoor of her house and walked inside, closing the door behind her and locking it. Out of the dark his massive left arm wrapped around her chest like a vice followed by his right hand pressing a soaked rag to her face. Gasping for air she breathed in the fumes from the rag. She convulsed and thrashed but the man was immense and she couldn't break free. FATALLY BOUND... by one killer with deadly intentions. A brilliant, methodical and vicious killer is on a mission leaving a trail of women’s bodies behind with little or no evidence. The hunt for the killer will put Mac McRyan and Dara Wire in harm's way testing their partnership, resolve and endurance like never before. FATALLY BOUND... by one mystery with deadly results. A suspenseful and nerve-fraying murder mystery with an ingenious plot. New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Roger Stelljes has crafted another addictive pulse-pounding thriller filled with his trademark twists and turns. Vince Flynn described Roger Stelljes as "A powerful new thriller voice." Never miss a new release again. Join the list at www.RogerStelljes.com Detective Mac McRyan Mystery, Thriller and Crime Series: FIRST CASE: Murder Alley - Book 1 THE ST. PAUL CONSPIRACY - Book 2 - USA Today Bestseller DEADLY STILLWATER - Book 3 - Free ebook FIRST DEADLY CONSPIRACY - Books 1-3 Box set - New York Times & USA Today Bestseller ELECTING TO MURDER - Book 4 FATALLY BOUND - Book 5 - USA Today Bestseller BLOOD SILENCE - Book 6 - USA Today Bestseller MYSTERIES, THRILLERS AND KILLERS - Books 4-6 Box Set NEXT GIRL ON THE LIST - Book 7 FIREBALL - Book 8 - New release STAKEOUT: A Case From The Dick Files - Short story The McRyan Mystery series is for fans of Vince Flynn, Jack Reacher Series, Brad Thor, James Patterson, Lee Child, Alex Cross Series, Nelson DeMille, David Baldacci, John Sandford, Harlan Coben, Robert Crais, Mark Greaney, Tom Clancy, Robert Bryndza, J. D. Robb, Lisa Gardner, Karin Slaughter, Stuart Macbride, Patricia Gibney, Jo Nesbo, Tami Hoag, Angela Marsons, Lisa Jackson and other great authors and their characters in the mystery and thriller genre.

Read & Burn is the first serious, in-depth appraisal of Wire, one of the most influential British bands to emerge during the punk era. If Wire were briefly a punk band, however, it was largely by historical accident. Despite the fact that they had complicated and transformed that category almost before they'd begun, they seem never to have quite escaped the label. Be it punk, post-punk, or art-punk, critics have clung onto the p-word in an attempt to capture the essence of Wire's innovative uniqueness. But their story - which honours punk's original yet quickly forgotten commitment to the new - is one of constant remaking and remodelling, one that stubbornly resists reduction to a single identity. As a result, the group's projects have always balanced uneasily between artistic endeavour and the need for commercial sustainability, played out against the backdrop of the musicians' perennially complex creative relationships. Tracing Wire's diverse output from 1977 up until the present, Read & Burn seeks to do justice to their highly influential and restlessly inventive body of work.