Song of the Day
Enigmatic musical maverick, Greg Sage of the Wipers
Taking Too Long- The Wipers
I'm not going to place any descriptive tag on the music of the Wipers, the trail blazing band from Portland that has been tagged with enough conflicting descriptors to render genre tagging useless. The Wiper's founder, front man and guitarist Greg Sage was always reticent to discuss his own musical influences which are probably many and varied. I agree with Sage's view that any stylistic assessments of the Wipers are best left to be unwritten and unsaid.
For the record, Greg Sage hated the music business and even the venerable indie labels, Sub Pop and Relentless who issued most of the Wiper's recordings regarded Sage as a difficult and problematic artist.
The Wipers have been around since 1978. Sage's original goal was to release 15 records in ten years, free of traditional band aspects like touring, television appearances and photo shoots. However, he found out early on that being involved with independent labels involved plenty of compromise — and that independent labels took a great deal of independence away from him, rather than empowering him.
Sage was a hermetic musician who went to great lengths to keep a low profile and stay in the rock and roll underground. When Nirvana broke out in the early Ninties, former Wiper's fan-boy Kurt Cobain covered a few old Wipers songs and would tell anybody listening that the Wipers were his favorite band. When Cobain invited the Wipers to tour with Nirvana, Sage politely declined, remaining stubbornly unmotivated by the lure of fame and fortune. Throughout his lengthy and prolific career, he has downplayed or shunned any attention or recognition given to him, preferring to let the music speak for itself.
The Wipers rarely toured or performed outside of Oregon with a couple of exceptions of two cities, Chicago and Boston where the Wipers had enough of a fan base to draw more than a hundred or so curiosity seekers to a show. It was a different story in the EU where the Wipers reached "almost famous" status and drew as many as 2000 fans to concerts.
In the early nineties when the popularity of grunge rock and a well meaning but unwanted Wiper's tribute album put Greg into an uncomfortable position in the spotlight, he abruptly fled Portland and moved to Phoenix. He built his own home studio. There is an "official" Wiper's website which makes his music available @ this link
Official Wiper's Website I personally wish Greg success on his relentless quest for non-success. He a true American original.
In spite of Greg's efforts to avoid musical noteriety, it would be a travesty not to mention the technical mastery Greg Sage's guitar playing which often sounds like a less flamboyant version of Jimi Hendrix's firery guitar pyrotechnics. The Wipers at first glance have the sound of a highly proficent garage band, but if your listen to Sage's technical mastery of extended arpeggios, hammer-ons and pull offs, seamless fret slides, sustained vibrato, and sting bending it's pretty clear that Greg has few very peers as skilled in the guitar trade as he is.