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Read & Burn: A book about Wire
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, it was largely by historical accident. Yet they seem never to have quite escaped the label – despite the fact that they had complicated and transformed it almost before they’d begun.
Wire’s story – which honours punk’s original but quickly forgotten commitment to the new – is one of constant remaking and remodelling, one that stubbornly resists reduction to a single identity. However, their path has not been made easy by their career-long determination to keep moving forward with new ideas and their refusal to settle for the familiar. Wire’s insistence on always doing something different has intensified the challenge of balancing artistic endeavour and commercial viability – a task made all the more difficult by the complex creative relationships between the band-members.
Tracing Wire’s diverse output from 1977 up until the present, Read & Burn does justice to their restlessly inventive body of work by developing a sustained critical account of their shifting approaches. It combines analysis and interpretation with perspective drawn from exclusive interviews with past and present members of the group, as well as producers, collaborators, and associates.
If Wire were briefly a punk band, it was largely by historical accident. Yet they seem never to have quite escaped the label – despite the fact that they had complicated and transformed it almost before they’d begun.
Wire’s story – which honours punk’s original but quickly forgotten commitment to the new – is one of constant remaking and remodelling, one that stubbornly resists reduction to a single identity. However, their path has not been made easy by their career-long determination to keep moving forward with new ideas and their refusal to settle for the familiar. Wire’s insistence on always doing something different has intensified the challenge of balancing artistic endeavour and commercial viability – a task made all the more difficult by the complex creative relationships between the band-members.
Tracing Wire’s diverse output from 1977 up until the present, Read & Burn does justice to their restlessly inventive body of work by developing a sustained critical account of their shifting approaches. It combines analysis and interpretation with perspective drawn from exclusive interviews with past and present members of the group, as well as producers, collaborators, and associates.
432 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 11, 2015
One feels a little guilty for giving this book—a labor of love if ever there was one—such a lukewarm rating, but it is fatally long-winded. Neate interviewed all the band members, and he lets them go on at absurd length, covering the same unresolved, decades-old issues again and again. Even for a Wire preacher like myself the book is a trial. One observer notes, with greater conciseness than any of the actual musicians, that the band was a dysfunctional family and that their failure to agree on a common purpose kept them from going as far as they could have. They should be remembered the way the Clash are—during their great late '70s run they arguably made better music—but they didn't have that largeness of heart. Having said all this, I acknowledge Neate is the most devoted Wire chronicler imaginable, uncovering every damn gig, session, and bar fight this band ever engaged in, and his book is essential reading for all Wire fans. There are a few of us.
April 21, 2013
Wire lead singer-guitarist Colin Newman has recently said in interviews that "Wire equals change." His band's latest album, Change Becomes Us, upholds that statement brilliantly, featuring an eclectic and challenging mix of sounds and songs that thematically comment on change as a necessary element in the evolution of both a band and a human life.
And Wilson Neate - the author of the 33 1/3 volume on Wire's seminal first album, 1977's Pink Flag - is the perfect writer to capture the history of the ever-evolving Wire in a book.
Neate should be applauded for writing a text that - like the band he takes as his subject - captures the band's evolution in a non-decorative prose style that serves as a perfect accompaniment to the band's experimental and usually minimalistic aesthetic. Neate is terrific and giving us the key Wire facts.
In Neate's telling and according to some band members, Wire isn't so much a rock band but an art project made for experimentation. And this understanding of Wire is crucial. Newman - who's often considered the most traditional, rock and roll-oriented member of the band - really isn't a traditionalist at all. It's just that his method of working differed from that of bandmates bassist-singer Graham Lewis, drummer Robert Grey, and, most of all, guitarist Bruce Gilbert. The Lewis-Gilbert side of the group favored an at-times almost Dadaist approach to making music, whereas Newman wanted to work within the semblance of a rock and roll framework.
What does this mean? Newman's preferred method of working was (and still is) to use Lewis' texts (they're not lyrics; they're texts!) as jumping-off points for vocal melodies and guitar riffs. Pink Flag and a lot of the more brilliant 1978 follow-up LP Chairs Missing were made in this way.
154, Wire's 1979 release, demonstrated that Wire could work successfully in the more improvisational method of Gilbert and Lewis (but especially Gilbert). But the band's problems with external (bad management and business decisions) and the antagonism that developed between Gilbert and Newman caused the band to disband in 1980, just as they were becoming, in Newman's words (if I remember correctly), "the best band in the world."
Neate's book goes on to talk about Wire's projects though their various incarnations in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s with a passionate meticulousness that never loses its objectivity (even though you can tell that he clearly loves the band).
The story here is about the art - and about how the band members' personalities shine through their aesthetic decisions. At the heart of the book beats the conflicting aesthetic sensibilities of Newman and Gilbert - and these sensibilities are what led to Wire's uneven body of work from their mid-1980s' reunion until Gilbert's departure in 2003.
Wire had many highs in the experimental (The Drill) and pop-friendly vein (A Bell Is a Cup Until It Is Stuck) in the 1980s and 1990s - and the Read & Burn-Send project was a triumph in the early 2000s - but, overall, their output was uneven.
It must be said that the guys in Wire had and have artistic respect for each other but very different narratives about what the band was and is. It's a working relationship driven by antagonist aesthetic ideals.
Gilbert's departure from the band in 2004 left the band in trouble, but they quickly found an identity again by returning to the working methods that Newman advocated for the first two albums.
The result? New classic Wire albums such as Red Barked Tree and this year's Change Becomes Us. These albums were, of course, made under Newman's direction and control - along with the help of multi-talented guitarist Matt Simms, Lewis, and Grey.
Neate's book deftly handles all this change very well. Newman definitely thinks that change becomes Wire - and perhaps us as their audience. But there's a strong part me that wishes that he and Gilbert could just get along.
And Wilson Neate - the author of the 33 1/3 volume on Wire's seminal first album, 1977's Pink Flag - is the perfect writer to capture the history of the ever-evolving Wire in a book.
Neate should be applauded for writing a text that - like the band he takes as his subject - captures the band's evolution in a non-decorative prose style that serves as a perfect accompaniment to the band's experimental and usually minimalistic aesthetic. Neate is terrific and giving us the key Wire facts.
In Neate's telling and according to some band members, Wire isn't so much a rock band but an art project made for experimentation. And this understanding of Wire is crucial. Newman - who's often considered the most traditional, rock and roll-oriented member of the band - really isn't a traditionalist at all. It's just that his method of working differed from that of bandmates bassist-singer Graham Lewis, drummer Robert Grey, and, most of all, guitarist Bruce Gilbert. The Lewis-Gilbert side of the group favored an at-times almost Dadaist approach to making music, whereas Newman wanted to work within the semblance of a rock and roll framework.
What does this mean? Newman's preferred method of working was (and still is) to use Lewis' texts (they're not lyrics; they're texts!) as jumping-off points for vocal melodies and guitar riffs. Pink Flag and a lot of the more brilliant 1978 follow-up LP Chairs Missing were made in this way.
154, Wire's 1979 release, demonstrated that Wire could work successfully in the more improvisational method of Gilbert and Lewis (but especially Gilbert). But the band's problems with external (bad management and business decisions) and the antagonism that developed between Gilbert and Newman caused the band to disband in 1980, just as they were becoming, in Newman's words (if I remember correctly), "the best band in the world."
Neate's book goes on to talk about Wire's projects though their various incarnations in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s with a passionate meticulousness that never loses its objectivity (even though you can tell that he clearly loves the band).
The story here is about the art - and about how the band members' personalities shine through their aesthetic decisions. At the heart of the book beats the conflicting aesthetic sensibilities of Newman and Gilbert - and these sensibilities are what led to Wire's uneven body of work from their mid-1980s' reunion until Gilbert's departure in 2003.
Wire had many highs in the experimental (The Drill) and pop-friendly vein (A Bell Is a Cup Until It Is Stuck) in the 1980s and 1990s - and the Read & Burn-Send project was a triumph in the early 2000s - but, overall, their output was uneven.
It must be said that the guys in Wire had and have artistic respect for each other but very different narratives about what the band was and is. It's a working relationship driven by antagonist aesthetic ideals.
Gilbert's departure from the band in 2004 left the band in trouble, but they quickly found an identity again by returning to the working methods that Newman advocated for the first two albums.
The result? New classic Wire albums such as Red Barked Tree and this year's Change Becomes Us. These albums were, of course, made under Newman's direction and control - along with the help of multi-talented guitarist Matt Simms, Lewis, and Grey.
Neate's book deftly handles all this change very well. Newman definitely thinks that change becomes Wire - and perhaps us as their audience. But there's a strong part me that wishes that he and Gilbert could just get along.
February 3, 2022
Loved it. Big WIRE fan, so I learned tons. Just wish the story went all the way to 2022. But then, there's a documentary film coming out ("People In A Film", probably 2023) so that should offer more recent WIRE insights.
September 12, 2013
On the whole, I think it is healthier NOT to learn too much about your favorite artists.
Leave them as ciphers and just interpret them through their art.
I definitely learned too much about the members of wire by reading this book.
Leave them as ciphers and just interpret them through their art.
I definitely learned too much about the members of wire by reading this book.
March 31, 2015
Welp, Colin Newman comes across as a pretentious, contrarian snob. If you're into that sort of thing. The book itself is very dry and academic - not a particularly interesting read but informative. If you want the facts and the fictions as told by the band and those surrounding them, this is a definitive source. If you're looking for something as interesting to read as Wire is to listen to... Well, that's a tall order. Sometimes the stories just aren't that interesting. Recommended for fans of the band only (I can't imagine anyone else getting past chapter one) but with the asterisk that it may be crushing to listen to the artists themselves bash apart your favorite songs and albums. It was for me at times. Maybe it was an intentional statement from the band themselves that nothing is sacred and that they should not be placed on a pedestal. Maybe they don't want to be liked? Or care? Well done. I'm still bronzing the first three albums regardless. Read and burn indeed.
January 3, 2020
Great book, full and frank interviews reveal the tensions that have kept this amazing band on their toes for almost 40 years. As usual with these kinds of books it can be mildly galling to have some of your favorite tracks and albums dismissed by the artists themselves, but there's also plenty of motivation here to revisit work you may have dismissed yourself. "...A genius in research, I simply fell in love..."
March 30, 2018
Only for Wire fans.
October 15, 2018
Excellent.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 14, 2024
Excellent and thorough look at Wire’s career with participation of all band members. Generally very objective and never succumbs to “fannishness”. In depth look at creative process, studio and production work, etc.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews