My vinyl copy of this has long been stowed away for future generations to excavate & appreciate (i.e. it's in The Shed & I can't be arsed to dig it out) - I've had a hankering to hear it for some time now but it's becoming increasingly difficult to find, even on the normally dependable blogosphere. The original Strange Fruit issue has never been repressed as far as I can summise & nobody's shown sufficent foresight to pick up the gauntlet in the meantime so, incredibly, Wire's 3 outstanding Peel sessions remain totally unavailable 'cept in secondhandrecordshophell or at modest little outposts of the 'net like this one...
What's terrific about Wire at this point is how incredibly fast they were moving, certainly in relation to their peers. Their debut January '78 session, recorded when Pink Flag was still only a couple of months old, suggests that they were already someway into formulating it's follow-up (& their masterpiece IMHO), Chairs Missing, & eager to put their early recordings to one side. Ditto the second session - broadcast just over six months later & in the same month Chairs Missing appeared - it's made up exclusively of very different versions of 154 songs an entire year before that album was actually completed & released. Their approach here is much more succinct & propulsive than on those later, official versions (a view from the other window, if you like?) & certainly no less essential. Noticably, the "Punk Floyd" elements that 154 was derided for upon release are largely absent here. The final session here, the notorious "Crazy About Love" was recorded in Septemeber '79, the same month that 154 was finally released, but bears little relation to the music thereon. 17 minutes long & totally improvised, it paves the way for their suicidally experimental post-EMI/Harvest period, catalogued on Rough Trade's schizophrenic Document & Eyewitness package (aka Where's Our Arts Council Grant, Margaret? - just my little joke...). The track itself briefly appeared as a standalone 12" backed by a wickedly belligerent reworking of "Our Swimmer" & some instrumental odds & ends but is unfortunately long gone. God knows if people were still buying Wire records by this point but, in retrospect, it's a fantastic piece of work, if rather demanding of it's already shellshocked audience (presumably a few Magazine fans might've still been interested...?).
It's worth pointing out that, though these were Wire's only BBC commissions in their original incarnation, Peel did get them back on more than one occasion during their on/off Mute-era & that he was still booking them into Maida Vale as recently as 2002 (their A Bell Is A Cup Until It Is Struck-era set is definitely worth your attention). I saw them live last year & was tempted to shout for "Crazy About Love" once the encores rolled 'round but figured Graham Lewis might twat me with his bass (or at least flick a canape at me). Whatever, they still definitely qualify for The Best Band Ever as far as I'm concerned...
Colin&Graham&Bruce&Robert
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