Customer Reviews

Wipers Box Set

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One of the most under rated bands of all time. This is a great set. You get the first 3 lps plus tons of bonus tracks. This set is recommended both as an introduction to the Wipers or for the long time fan. Songs like "Over the Edge", "Youth of America", "Doom Town" and "Return of the Rat", american rock songwriting doesn't get better than this. Greg Sage's desperate yet haunting guitar playing is beyond words. Buy this now!!

Greg Sage and the Wipers make music that defies classification. Sure, the references here are definatly "punk" but calling The Wipers just a "punk rock" band is like calling Van Gogh just a "painter". I think Van Gogh is a pretty decent analogy for the incredible music Sage has made over his 20+ years in music. He has never compromised his intregity in anyway, and has gone through some pretty horrible "music-business" type experiences, but continues to remain focused on his prime directive. Many people compare him to Jimi Hendrix (blazing sonic fury, incredibly melodic guitar riffs), and that is not entirely incorrect. With this box set you get The Wipers first 3 albums, "Is This Real", "Youth Of America", and "Over The Edge" along with 23 bonus cuts!!!! With 6 never before released songs!!! Wow I can't recommend this highly enough. I have even seen some people comparing The Strokes to The Wipers, so for all the people that are going nuts for the new "flavor of the week", check out where it all came from.

To me, The Wipers are comparable to bands like the Velvet Underground (before they finally became famous), Love, or Big Star: one of the greatest bands to ever plug in their amplifiers, and yet relatively unknown to the public at large. These guys are unreal! I profoundly regret that I never heard them live. I almost did. In the Winter of 1994 Nirvana was going to play the Aragon in Chicago, and the Wipers were going to open for them (the Wipers were major influences not only on Nirvana but most of the great bands to come out of the Pacific Northwest in the eighties and nineties). I was primed and ready. Unfortunately, the Wipers pulled out, and tragically I decided not to go to the concert. It turned out to be the last time Nirvana played Chicago.

This box set collects the first three albums by the Wipers. I have to confess that the second of these albums, YOUTH OF AMERICA, is my least favorite Wipers album. IS THIS REAL? isn't their best, but over the years it has had more replay album than almost any other album I own. Just one phenomenal cut after another. But the real gem of the album is OVER THE EDGE. It is far and away my favorite Wipers album, and one of my favorite albums period. The title track is also my favorite Wiper cut.

I write "The Wipers," but that is a misnomer. "The Wipers" was Greg Sage, and whoever he had playing drums and bass at a particular point varied from album to album. Sage is a decent singer, a very fine song writer, a musical visionary, and a stunning guitar player. I think comparisons to Jimi Hendrix are absurd. Their playing styles are strikingly different. Sage, unlike Hendrix, very rarely plays "trumpet solos" (when what we think of as guitar solos were first being introduced in music, they were seen as analogs with what was being done with trumpet solos, with the emphasis on a succession of single notes), but instead focuses almost exclusively on thick, massed chords. A Sage "solo" will consist of the aggregation of a large number of driving, distorted, piercing chords of maniacal force and energy.

These albums contain almost the first stirrings of post-punk music. It is alternative rock over a decade before Nirvana made alternative pop. Whatever it is, this is absolutely essential music for anyone who loves awesome rock music. It is also essential because it is the only way to obtain the incredible album OVER THE EDGE. A must-own. And the bonus tracks aren't bad either.

The Wipers had some really great tunes and were fronted by Greg Sage, a supremely prolifict song-writer who would often go against the grain of style present in the American underground of the late seventies and eighties. Long songs, solos, melody... Still, a lot of us would come to recognize the Wipers as cult heroes and their albums classics. If you're young, or from the east, then you've probably onyl heard the Wipers via Cobain's gushing in the early ninties and Nirvana's covers. Be sure to check out the source.

My favorite song, bar none, is "Mystery." The song comes off the "Is This Real" album. There's also a demo version, which, to be honest, I prefer. You really get your money here; the first three albums plus the amount of songs availible to us back in the eighties is doubled for you here with the inclusion of unheard demos, live songs, and alternate versions. A valuable, inspiring, collection.

A very addictive set of records... Particularily 'Is this Real?' and 'YOA'. It's beautifully flawed stuff: self-romanticized teenager music that takes itself too seriously; but damn, is it awesome.

Very sincere. Honest, sometimes angry and most often naive. Very thoughtful changes, sometimes almost amatuerishly ornate. Oh yeah. And they also rock.

Listen to any of these records once, and I can understand if you aren't blown away. Listen three times, and if you're not madly, hopelessly in love, it's because you have no soul.

So... the Wipers. I'm almost tempted to repeat the obvious - who they influenced, the sad lack of publicity for this work - but I won't.
Instead, what I will say is that this album may be one of the most incredible rock albums you can purchase. It's pure - the guitar is crisp and direct, the rhythm section is unbendingly solid, and the singing is more or less ideal for the tone of the songs. This is rock and roll distilled down to it's basic elements.
Admittedly, it's hard to get the first few spins. One is simply not used to hearing music like this. But, like similar discs - Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges is the only one that immediately comes to mind - it grows on a person.
The Wipers have created an almost unique piece of work - the alienation of modern man fused with the primal energy of music. It's fascinating to listen to.
I would include Greg Sage on any list of great guitarists.

The Wipers were the band I always needed to hear. They were frequently dropped as influences by various artists during the nineties including Blur, Nirvana, My Vitriol and more. This box-set brings you three of their most popular and well-known albums and more rarities than you could ever wish for. The first album, Is This Real?, is an enlightening and inspiring collection of classic pop-punk songs. The energy of Return Of The Rat, the alienation of D7, the anger of Mystery, the melancholy of Don't Know Who I Am and the pop brilliance of Let's Go Away. You will never fall out of love with this album. Then there's Youth Of America. It's quite different than the previous album but equally compelling. It tends to be slightly more of a challenge to get into but once you're into it, it's well worth it. The most accesible song is Can This Be, a stunning punk rocker that has some of Sage's best riffing. The title track, a ten minute-plus epic, is strange and interesting and eventually get's the listener hooked on it's unforgettable main guitar riff and great chorus. No Fair is your typical Wipers song. Taking Too Long features piano, Pushing The Extreme is enjoyable and closer (excluding bonus tracks) When It's Over is a beatiful instrumental which is well worth the listeners attention. Last is Over The Edge (my personal favourite). This has a raw production which may steer some listeners off, but is a unique blend of the two previous albums. I won't go into much more detail other than to check out absolute masterpieces like the beatiful The Lonely One, So Young and the Wipers best pop song, Messenger. If you love music, in it's purest form, more than anything else, you will adore The Wipers, one of the most passionate, energetic and inspirational bands of all time.

Wow on the reviews. They are much deserved.

I saw the Wipers live a number of times. Remember they formed in about 1977. So I wouldnt call them post punk, but maybe the first westcoast punk band.

The Nirvana connection is warrented, since Kurt Cobain was a big fan of the Wipers and saw many live shows.

I agree with the others, the Wipers arent a punk band. What is punk anyways. Im 44 and heard the Ramones in 1974, were they punk, no, they were pure Rock N Roll.

Greg Sage has a style that defines original.

Greg if you read this, I saw you a bunch of times at the Satyricon. Also some industrial part of Portland when the microphone hit you in the teeth. You missed about a half of sec, then kept singing.

Greg and the Wipers, thx for the memories.

Zenorecords.com go to buy Greg and Wipers itmes.

BTW, Roky Erickson rocks. Check his music out also.

Like others reviewers have said, the Wipers truly are incredible! These three albums are definitive without a doubt so if you're reading this and are not sure about what to do just fork over the 20 bucks and have at it on this box set. Like another reviewer mentioned it's not like a Rhino or Legacy thing where you get all this hoopla and name dropping. This is the Wipers and forget the bullsh*t "scene." You pay 20 bucks for three albums and get incredible music with basic liner notes that don't glorify the "good ol' days" which I'm sure were not all that good and/or easy at all. If you don't like them the first time around, listen to them again and by the third or fourth time around you will be blown away unless you think The Exploited or some goofy Sex Pistols rip off band is your idea of "punk." These guys should have had as much or more press in the day as their contemporaries such as Black Flag and the like. If I had to name a band that had zero pretense it would have to be the Wipers on these first three albums. It is just so unfortunate that bands like this are not much more recognized. I think what impresses me more than anything is how the Wipers were one of the few bands lumped in with the whole hardcore/punk early 80s thing that actually marched to their own drum and actually could produce a powerful sounding album without being a bunch of tough guys about it. In the early eighties not many bands had the balls to try to put a picture of themselves with their dog on the back of an album cover!

I have to admit, I'm not so hardcore that I like the rougher early albums best -- my favorite album, included here, is "Over the Edge"

...but if you have any interest at all in the evolution of rock to punk to post-punk, you need these records. I mean mandatory need.

And oh by the way it really is the greatest guitar sound you've ever heard. And oh by the way, Greg plays with an agility that lets his energy and ideas through unrestricted. And he sings with an emotion that Cobain (may the Lord rest his soul) never achieved.

Lots of fans of bad bands think that said bands were "too good to become famous". You could almost say this about the Wipers, but Greg was anti-"success", and it worked. Unfortunately.