A chapter of Wire’s history is explored on Not About To Die.
If we step back through the timeline of music piracy tech – yes, before Pirate Bay, before Napster, even before dubious looking men with mic-‘d up Walkmans at gigs – we get to ye ancient realme of the bootleg.
These varied in modes, forms and quality, but were most often the domain of a record ‘label’ domiciled in a region with lax copyright enforcement laws, who would press up some cheap vinyl, put it in a shonky looking sleeve and then proceed to move their stock through mail order and record fairs.
99% of the time the artists got nothing from these in royalties.
Formed in London by three art school graduates in Graham Lewis, Bruce Gilbert and singer Colin Newman – plus drummer Robert Gotobed – Wire, along with the likes of Magazine and Gang Of Four, were one of the first to realise that as a creative outlet punk musically was a dead end.
The quartet were a response to it, not joiners, so it made sense that having released their abrasive debut Pink Flag to widespread acclaim at punk’s height in 1977, they would then start to distance themselves from it rapidly.
Not About To Die is in part what happened next, or more accurately what happened before what happened next. The original bootleg version was made up of demos recorded for EMI by the group for their second and third albums Chairs Missing and 154, released in ’78 and ’79 respectively. Cassette copies were then circulated amongst the label’s employees, and you didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to guess the rest.
Predictably, at the time Newman and co. disowned the whole thing as unworthy and that was pretty much that, until recently when the decision was signed off on having it remastered and given an official release.
You may still have questions, but we only have about 600 words, so diving in what you’ll hear are embryonic but still pleasingly rough takes of tracks like Used to and French Film (Blurred), the latter of which sports the cagey leer of the Buzzcocks’ Boredom and would eventually be a highlight of Chairs Missing.
Lovers of a song’s evolutionary process will also be able to get their jollies with proto stabs at 154 consignees Once Is Enough, On Returning and Two People in A Room; even here the slight withdrawal from the absolutism of Pink Flag is becoming evident, not that Wire were ever familiar with the idea of compromise.
There is also interest away from the forensics: Being Sucked In Again’s mockney cut ups might be the template for a pre-pubescent Blur, the throwaway Love Ain’t Polite could quite easily have teleported itself forward to the C-86 era, and closer Two People in A Room flirts with strutting power pop.
Hands up, you’d be shocked if we didn’t also freely admit that there’s very much a for-fans-only caveat here. In one sense the basic wrongs are righted, such that prototypes never intended to be heard in public can now be listened to and in a sense erm, touched, all in an artist approved format.
Conversely though, this still feels like opening other people’s mail. Mega fans will already have all of the stuff here because they’re well, mega fans. And predictably it’s the inherent qualities of Wire as a band – musical skinniness, pop-as-mechanics, hard edged purpose – that give this material its relevance, more so than the various works in progress themselves.
Whatever you do though don’t buy a dodgy copy off a bloke outside the gig.
