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trevorbarre:

Wire is 40 years old/young!!

Just a brief one today, but this could be much longer, given the vicissitudes that the Wire/The Wire has gone through over it’s 40-year existence. I have considered cancelling my 30+ years subscriptions on several occasion (and still do) but somehow it continues to provide me with enough valuable information about off-the-radar music to still make it a “must-do tomorrow” event horizon.

Nowadays, for me, the magazine consists, in the main, of articles about artists that remain definitely above my radar: this month’s (August 2022) edition’s cover features concerns Saul Williams (never heard of). Most of the sub-features cover people who I’ve never come across, but this is hardly the point. Wire has always pushed me to explore new horizons, and I continue to enjoy the mainstays of the mag’s contents, the editorial, the letters section (to which I still regularly contribute), the Invisible Jukebox, and, of course, the extensive Reviews. This month’s article on Alan Skidmore alone was worth the price of admission.

My very first copy of The Wire (bought for my 30th. birthday by my future sister-in-law) was issue 17 (July 1985) and featured Ray Charles on the cover, with articles on “Miles and Duke on record”, John Gilmore and Herbie Nichols. The latter two were hardly known then (the ‘hard bop revival’ being all the thing at that point), and I have always henceforth thought of this publication as being 'a niche for the less lauded".

It still is, and all the better for it.

Custom Post Images

The banner picture is by the late Mal Dean (1941-1974), which featured on the cover of the 1972 Incus Records vinyl release, Live Performances at Verity's Place, by two free improvisation pioneers, the English guitarist Derek Bailey and Dutch percussionist Han Bennink.