Wednesday, August 29

August 27, 2018 - Wipers - No Fair (1981)



No Fair starts off like a chilly, wet December day in Portland, Oregon, hometown of Greg Sage and his band, windshield Wipers. Notes drip off a lonely guitar like water off dark, leafless trees. It sounds depressing, like we're being led down stone stairs to a dungeon, especially with the heavy Black Sabbath chords and cymbals.

At 0:46, Greg Sage begins speaking as if in a dream, about shadows and the hallways of a sleepless night. When he comes to his senses at 1:32 and looks at the bars around him, he cries out it's no fair!!! The bass cranks up the tempo at 1:38 and snare locks in with it. The great growling guitar is punctuated by piano chords, a chain hitting against the cell door.

Sage wails out the words, and I notice that when he sings Every time I turn around you're there at 2:17, for whatever reason I am reminded of the line 'are you gonna drop the bomb or not' from Alphaville's Forever Young, which I know from having watched Napoleon Dynamite countless times.

There is a whole Dylan Thomas 'rage against the dying of the light' theme here. If your situation ever becomes hopeless, at least you can choose to not go quietly.

Portland, Oregon, was named after Francis Pettygrove's hometown of Portland, Maine. Pettygrove won a coin toss. If he had lost, the city would have been named Boston, after Asa Lovejoy's hometown. I can't imagine two major cities named Boston, can you? Our country would have twice as much arrogance (and maybe twice as many Red Sox caps. No fair!!)

I dare think this, but what if a coin toss had resulted in Greg Sage being named Tom Scholz? Let's be glad that never happened. I think Portland would rather be known for a cool indie band like Wipers than a classic rock turd loaf like Boston. These guys were both home recording enthusiasts in their younger days, but Sage was the natural artist.

cooler than Boston:

Image result for wipers band 1981



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