1. No Fair (4:25)
2. Youth of America (10:27)
3. Taking Too Long (3:07)
4. Can This Be (2:54)
5. Pushing the Extreme (3:13)
6. When It's Over (6:36)
Reissued a few times later on Trap and Gift of Life, with different covers and tracklistings. In 2001 Youth of America comprised the second disc of the three-disc Wipers box set (Zeno Records), with the addition of pertinent bonus tracks:
7. Scared Stiff (2:52)
8. Pushing the Extreme (alternate version; 3:11)
9. No Fair (alternate version; 4:31)
10. When It's Over (alternate version; 6:26)
11. Youth of America (alternate version; 10:25)

Produced by Greg Sage.

Wipers:

Greg Sage - guitar; vocals; piano
Sam Henry - drums
Dave Khoupal - bass
(there were line up changes early on, I have leant my box-set out so can't confirm if this was the line up that recorded Youth of America - will edit at a later date if this ain't the case!).

All songs by Greg Sage.

IN LOVE WITH GUITARS...
I'm not sure there's that much to say. The idea that a record might speak for itself is a novel one and there is an idea listening to Youth of America, the second LP by Wipers, that it's undeniably great. It seems like one of those records - you know, the kind of record that collectively blows everyone's mind when played. Not sure there is such a thing as an undeniable classic, though once in the early 90s a bunch of friends and I, whose main soundtrack to chemical experimentation had been ambient/electronica/early Pink Floyd, all sat and had our minds blown when the friend whose house we were at put on the title track to Marquee Moon by Television. I'm sure that was the moment I fell back in love with guitars - just a shame the original cd issue sounded so crap. Everyone was bowled over...and I was reminded of that time as I listened to Youth of America by Wipers.

RIVER'S EDGE...
Wipers were one of those names I was mildly aware of, probably while pretending to have heard of them - god I hate that annoying "I've heard it all"-schtick! They were obviously a bigger deal for those in America and it's lovely independent underground, bands like Dinosaur Jr and Melvins citing them - their most famous moment pre-1991 was their appearance on the soundtrack to the classic cult movie River's Edge (1986), where Let Me Know took it's place alongside Slayer and an idea of angular punk combined with something decidely more metal formed. How most people, myself included, heard of Wipers, was though Kurt Cobain...

KURT COBAIN...
Cobain. It's a difficult one. Some of the records are over-familiar, which doesn't mean bad. The whole turning him into a Saint or a cliched Jim Morrison/Sid Vicious style rock'n'roll martyr is annoying - as wank as that Chris Evans BT-ad where John Lennon's face was superimposed Forrest Gump/Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid/Citizen Kane-style onto the famous protestor at Tianneman Square in 1989. This seemed as wrong as the t-shirts I saw in Prague of Lennon facing off the Berlin Wall/Iron Curtain. A Forrest Gump, utopian idea of a rock'n'roller - Albert Goldman was probably more on the money...anyway, Cobain. Sometimes I think he was trying too hard. Sometimes I think it's really sad. Sometimes I think he became everything he didn't set out to be. Sometimes I think he was a great writer of pop song, but not so convincing when trying to be the Jesus Lizard, Melvins, or Rapeman. Sometimes I think Sliver is the best song ever written. About a Girl too. Milk It, for some reason. Sometimes I think Nirvana were the end of something, rather than the beginning. Sometimes I think others were most definitely first and lazy-arsed journalists and the lazy list-based culture of the last decade (...which I'm sure I've contributed to as I spewed top 10/20/50/100 lists in my sleep...) have forgotten that many others got there first: Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, Melvins, Husker Du, Meat Puppets, The Replacements, The Pixies etc. Say what you like about Kurt Cobain, but he never forgot and cited those acts who he drew from - The Vaselines, Black Flag, Meat Puppets, Devo, Melvins, Flipper, The Raincoats, The Smithereens (...I'm guessing that's where the pop nous came from?), and Wipers. That was the place I heard their name, and Nirvana covered D-7 from the first Wipers record for a tribute album (there have been a few)...

D-7
Wipers' records seemed quite hard to find, but it would have been Cobain and D-7 that I filed away for a future date...Cut to 2007 and now we can get everything, and the last few years I've ordered all sorts of stuff on line that wouldn't easily be found in your stock record shops (especially if you don't live in cities). The kind of thing you pick up for dollars in North America. I've been moving through lists of stuff, certain books, sites like this, similar lists, reviews, namedrops...there's always something great out there. Something I missed. D-7 was on a quite decent compilation given away with a magazine like Mojo selected by the screamingly dull Red Hot Chili Peppers a few years ago (...also included Funkadelic, Circle Jerks, Adolescents, The Slits, James Brown, Harmonia/amongst others). The original D-7 was something I hadn't heard till then - it was tremendous and found it's way onto an awful lot of compilations. Nirvana hadn't done much with it, apart from add Cobain's fantastic howl - though to be fair, Greg Sage's holler was damn fine, and on the slow bit, Sage sounds like Cobain (which means Cobain sounds like Sage...doh!).

FEAR OF MUSIC...
Back to lists and the like...I was browsing through some of the bookshops in Hay on Wye, and came across a cheap remaindered copy of Fear of Music...by Garry Mulholland. Yeah, what I said about some lists. The book was cheap, had pretty pictures of the album covers, was the kind of thing you used to get in some of the music weeklies, and had some curious selections alongside some you thought were obvious. Mulholland had a problem with the way certain albums were being seen as classics, becoming something like a Bloom/Bradbury style index of what is classic, and what isn't. This throws out any notion of something being enjoyed subjectively, or that a classic LP might not sound classic to some. & the usual suspects - Sgt Pepper, The Joshua Tree, OK Computer, Pet Sounds, Astral Weeks, London Calling etc - well, I've heard them. Some are classic, some are not. But just the usual trot spilled out again and again, a degree of conformity as everyone buys them (I recall another conversation with someone else in the mid 90s where a girl and I both chatted about music, at the start of the night we rhetorically concurred that Astral Weeks was a classic...by the end of the night, several drinks later, we both concurred we didn't get it). This is not to say it's wrong to like it, I love the title track and Lester Bangs' piece on it, and I know that sometime soon, I'll probably get it. Some of the classic list is classic...could that be undeniable? Mulholland's book was enjoyable as it was written with knowledge and opinion, some good arguments on the way, and some curious selections - many of the records you might expect, some omissions you might not (he doesn't rate Psychocandy and doesn't bother with The Cure after 1979 - Kilimanjaro is the only JC title in there btw!!), and some titles you want to track down. It felt more like that word of mouth thing than a tedious and/or subjective glut of lists (...as well as making me go back and listen to some selections I had purchased and never got into - like Scary Monsters (which I always thought was one great side and one so so one) and A Kiss in the Dreamhouse (great - where's the remaster? I started an Unsung of that, but it was quite Sung really); and picking up stuff that sounded good in words, e.g. the Le Tigre debut, the Mutant Disco compilation...). I mention Mulholland as he "sang" about 'Youth of America'. His description, from page 130 of Fear of Music (Orion, 2006) tempted me greatly, even if I think it's a bit inaccurate:

PORTLAND, OREGON...
'Youth of America, the second Wipers album, consists of just six songs and lasts less than thirty minutes [actually 45 seconds over that! - pedantic reviewer]. It is a strong contender for the best guitar-rock album of all motherfucking time. It sounds like someone put all the best things about The Saints, The Stooges, Kraftwerk, PIL, and movie theme master John Barry into one burst of frantic creativity...The album is the very essence of rock'n'roll' - all stuff that is subjective, and I don't really hear Kraftwerk, PIL, or John Barry (...yet...). But The Saints and The Stooges...yes...and a whole lot more. The whole motherfucking time thing too. I'm sure someone on here compared Wipers to Wire, and there's a hint of that - the epic title track made me think of 'Up on the Sun' by Meat Puppets, which has always made me think a little of Television...or how Television would have been if they were a few years later in Portland, Oregon-

FUGAZI...
Greg Sage was ahead of the pack, predicting by a few years, the approach that acts like Fugazi and Godspeed You Black Emperor! took towards the industry. No press, interviews...all that crap - just the music. The idea was for Sage to put out something like fifteen records as Wipers, a sometimes shifting line-up...and that was it. I guess he reached the number, though a rare, brief (& unverified) interview via their website suggests he would have liked to have stopped with the later stuff. Sage seems to have seen through the whole showbiz record company thing at an early time and opted to go his own way - famously rejecting Cobain's advances. He must have been an influence on Minor Threat/Embrace/Rites of Spring/Fugazi ? - sometimes it's great just for the band to release the records they want to, play live...and that's it.

IS THIS REAL?...
I picked up the Wipers box-set, a collection Sage put out for the price of one album that contained their first three albums - 'Is This Real?' (1979), 'Youth of America', & 'Over the Edge' (1983) plus bonus tracks in the form of e.p. tracks and alternate versions of stuff. Wasn't sure about 'Is This Real?', which contains stuff like 'D-7' and 'Potential Suicide' - maybe it's the reminders (then predictions) of Nirvana? I thought of the Mulholland review and a few other things I'd read about 'Youth of America', and moved onto that...sadly I've become so enamoured, I haven't yet wanted to move onto 'Over the Edge', let alone buy some of the later stuff...

MY WAR...
As can be seen in my earlier review of Husker Du's 'Eight Miles High', there was some really interesting stuff coming from the punk thing in the States. You'd already had Pere Ubu from Rocket from the Tombs, though with the Ubu I tuned out around 'New Picnic Time' - an LP I admire, but can't wholly love (& one veering off up the arse). Dead Kennedys' certainly had some great Beefheart bits, but a lot of the US punk thing was noise till the bands settled down and breathed some direction - Husker Du doing their psychedelic thing, Black Flag that killer second side of 'My War', Embrace spawning what might become EMO, Mission of Burma something much more angular, and Flipper going where PIL should have, if they had listened to more Sabbath and not let Lydon take over. I always thought out of all that stuff came Dinosaur Jr, Melvins and Nirvana...but hearing 'Youth of America' and Wipers, this seems very pioneering.

NO FAIR...
'No Fair' opens, a bit like 'Black Diamond' by Kiss or the Replacements, as Sage delivers a spoken word vocal that wouldn't be out of place on a Slint record, and after a minute and half, "IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!" - Sage and co tear into something anxious and melodic, there's even piano - it feels kind of tuneful as Sage repeats, "No fair, no fair, no fair!!!" I don't know many rock records - of course there's 'I'm Waiting for the Man' - that can get away with piano: I have a recurring dream of the E Street Band trudging through a medley of 'Thunder Road', 'Jungeland' and some other extremely long and tedious Boss number as Old Grey Whistle Test presenters ejaculate.

YOUTH OF AMERICA...
The title track is the one, 'No Fair' just warming up, opening with guitar that might not be far from 'Death Disco' (thinking of the PIL comparison), but sounding like 'LA Woman' colliding with 'Lexicon Devil' - not that Portland, Oregon has anything to do with LA. The rhythm is relentless and suggests to me that one bass, one guitar and drums might be enough - despite my attraction to the whole two-drummer thing Melvins and Modest Mouse currently have. I still haven't got the lyrics down, so I won't quote any here, but I love the sound of them - the way I interpret them, or apply meaning to the feeling they evoke. Yes...something like that. I guess the title track isn't far from 'Fun House' by The Stooges, possibly where they might have gone had things not ended up how they did? (I still haven't got to grips with 'Raw Power'...apologies!). The song shifts off into psychedelic punk rock, the tight Levene-like guitar (...I've warmed to the PIL comparison now!) at the centre as the rhythm section play seemingly regardless of an end or an audience. What a moment...I can't stop playing it; the alternate version on the second disc of the box-set is dandy too...One of those songs like 'Marquee Moon' that should never end.

TAKING TOO LONG/CAN THIS BE/PUSHING THE EXTREME...
The following trio of songs are at a more conventional length - 'Youth of America' taking us to the centre of the album. 'Taking Too Long' sounds so sharp, and it has to be said, the song is catchy as fuck - Sage's guitar after the second chorus sounds fantastic, probably pissing over Verlaine.
'Can This Be' could be a standard rock song, the missing link between the more intense punk acts in LA and New York and someone more conventional and RAWK like The Replacements (...I still love 'Let It Be', even more so after that 33 1/3 book by the dude from the Decemberists). 'Pushing the Extreme' opens slowly before shifting into something angular and melodic, the verse part sounds not unlike Josef K or Pink Flag-Wire, but underneath and on the chorus there is something more punk rock - it really reminds me of the first disc of that Dischord box-set (Nation of Ulysses were one of the bands who appeared on a tribute album to Wipers). Love the minimal drumming, almost as great as that drum machine/Lol Tolhurst sound on 'Seventeen Seconds' by The Cure!!

WHEN IT'S OVER...
'When It's Over' reverts to the slightly longer form - the band apparently had tunes ranging from 13 seconds to 10 odd minutes. Here they're pre-empting that hardcore thing where Black Flag would play six-minute plus stoner-jazz instrumentals or the Du would lay something down like 'Reoccuring Dreams' - Sage & co already seeming to see that punk rock was a state of mind and not constricted by a tedious view of it restricting it to short songs, a certain uniform, or slam dancing. Conformity doesn't rule - though I know 'Little Johnny Jewel' and '30 Seconds Over Tokyo' were released before this, and 'Statues' (9 mins in full version) by the Du too. The song feels more like an instrumental and less song-based, maybe the missing link between 'LA Blues' and the second side of 'My War'? Sage feels like an Iggy narrator, as the Herrmann-like piano plays along with the tight angular punk rock - everything seems thrown in here, the track predicting as many people in the future as it reminds of elements of the past....& that's it: YOUTH OF AMERICA.

UNSUNG...
The rest of the second disc of the box-set is great, lovely alternate versions and the brief, almost poppy, almost Devo 'Scared Stiff' - wonderful stuff and Sage was very nice to include them as well (there's even a jazzy trumpet on 'Scared Stiff'!). But those six tracks. Why can't I stop playing them? Why can't I move onto the next Wipers record, and then check out their later back catalogue? I guess this the last time I played a rock record I didn't buy at the time this much, it was 'Accelerator' by Royal Trux - which sounds bugger all like it, but the addictive greatness indicates how vital I think this record is. I think the first album is more revered in some quarters, more punk and the Nirvana thang more evident. But I'll take the second LP over that. This is one of those I'd rescue from a burning house, and one of those titles I'd add to one of those obligatory wanky lists. Most definitely Unsung and most definitely worth picking up. I can't believe I waited so long to find out...

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