Wire

Harvest and Pink Flag

Wire formed in London in October 1976 as a five-piece of Colin Newman, Graham Lewis, Bruce Gilbert, George Gill and Robert Grey, who played as Robert Gotobed in the early years; Gill, the early principal songwriter, left in February 1977, and the four-piece's first gig was at the Roxy on April 1, 1977. They signed to Harvest, Pink Floyd's label, and the British press dubbed them the Punk Floyd. Newman has rejected the punk label, saying the band simply existed at the same time as punk. Their cited influences include the Ramones, Neu!, Can, Kraftwerk, Roxy Music and Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd.

Pink Flag (November 25, 1977) was followed by Chairs Missing (September 8, 1978, producer Mike Thorne, UK 48; Pitchfork 10 out of 10) and 154 (September 1979), their highest-charting at 39 in the UK, named for the number of gigs they had played. Creative differences and the lack of label support led to a split around 1979 and 1980, with the live Document and Eyewitness (1981) and the side projects Dome, Cupol and Duet Emmo. They reformed in 1985 as a beat combo, more electronic and without old material live, playing the Rose Bowl in June 1988 to support Depeche Mode, with The Ideal Copy (1987), A Bell Is a Cup (1988) and Manscape (1990). Grey left in 1990 and the band briefly became Wir for The First Letter (1991).

They returned full time in 1999, and played "12XU" and "Being Sucked in Again" live for the first time since the 1970s at the Royal Festival Hall on February 26, 2000. Send (May 2003) came from Newman's live remixes of "12XU", Gilbert left in 2004, and later albums include Object 47 (2008), Red Barked Tree (2010), Change Becomes Us (2013), Wire (2015), Silver/Lead (March 31, 2017) and Mind Hive (January 2020). Admirers include Big Black, Sonic Youth, Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins; R.E.M. covered "Strange" and Robert Pollard called 154 the greatest album of all time.