Talk:Wire (band)

Gilbert rumor
I've removed the following statement:


 * In early 1995 it was reported that Gilbert had left the band. News of the band's future and any recording or live activity remain uncertain.

This contradicts the preceding paragraph (i.e. Wire regrouped in 1999 and continued to release sound recordings). And in 1995 the group was once again on hiatus anyway. I wonder if the editor meant 2005, but there is nothing on the band's website nor any Google hits to substantiate such a claim. If someone wishes to restore the statement then please cite a source. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:50, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Management denied the rumour in a less than emphatic manner http://www.wireviews.com/news/2005.html and there have been no further gigs or recordings.

In a recent interview, Colin Newman confirms that Bruce Gilbert has indeed left the band.
 * There should be some note of this in the article, as it is not made clear. Especially since they went to such lengths as to change the name when one of the members left earlier; why the muted reaction this time? 207.58.192.150 (talk) 14:23, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

suggestion
Informative, but lacking the detail that they were the greatest band ever! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.50.228.4 (talk • contribs)

Colin Newman and Duchamp
Someone anonymously deleted the mention that Wire were influenced by Duchamp, so I reinstated that, and here's a citation of sorts, since I don't yet know how to provide footnotes within Wikipedia pages:

Colin Newman said "But Bruce wanted to bring in fine-art connotations, deliberately not to talk about us in a punk way - we're not living in council flats and on the dole, we're into Marcel Duchamp" in this article Mr Frosty 18:42, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Protopunk?
User:ilikeartrock

It says in the intro here that Wire are a protopunk band. Quite honestly, I think alot of this genre stuff splits hairs, but for the record I always though of Wire as a band that developed with the punk movement, not before it, and really, I'd call them one of the first post punk bands. Thoughts?


 * Agreed. If the band started in 1976 they cannot by definition have been protopunk, which is defined in that article as 'precursors to punk'. The very early Wire stuff was Punk, but with Punk basically having run its course by 1977 they thankfully soon progressed beyond that and were one of the most important post-punk bands.--Michig 20:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

External link suggestion: New interview with Colin Newman & Graham Lewis
As an editor at Crawdaddy!, and to comply with COI guidelines, I am not posting the link to this interview with Wire's Colin Newman and Graham Lewis. However, I would like to recommend it on its merits, and hope that an editor will find the time to examine the article and—if he or she sees fit—post it to the external links section. I appreciate your time. Crawdaddy! Mike harkin (talk) 01:41, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

This article reads variously as a fanzine, a band web site, a myspace and a blog.
I have trawled through this article and corrected some, but not all, obvious syntax and textural errors, and have removed erroneous links. Virtually everything was, and still is, unproven in Wikipedia terms, having no independent evidence.

Words and phrases such as "arguably", "gained a reputation",  "very",  "various", "often cited", "Rumours abounded", and "or even possibly", are vague, and best not used in a Wikipedia article unless they  are expanded and proved, or part of a cited quote.

I have removed the personification of Wire...  the article is about a band, not members of a band... are to is; their to its; they to it; have to has; each/their to each/its, and so on.

One "reference" goes to a forum:, Forums can constantly change. Another,, links to the same pinkflag.com, the "official" Wire web site. These are not independent sources: Verifiability. This non-impartial site is added under the "External links" section anyway. Using the band’s site as reference in the text conflicts with NPOV and COI.

The sentence that includes "Robert Gotobed (born Robert Grey, 21 April 1951, Marefield, Leicestershire) (drums)" doesn’t need personal details of an individual band member. As the other band members have a Wiki article to give such information, it may have been felt by somebody that Gotobed needed a bit of a boost to compete with the others. This is the wrong place to do it. If he is notable, he would have his own article.

The sentence "The increased use of electronics on the album Manscape caused Gotobed to fire himself in 1990 when he realised a drummer was unnecessary, even at live gigs." was suspiciously non-NPOV... if this claim is true and needed, it requires a solid citation.

The reference to a biog,, leads to a home page that does not have the text that was written against the reference in the References section, and has no mention of Wire. If the reference was viable, the text would be superfluous; a complete quote that apparently duplicates that of the reference is not needed under References anyway.

No need to aggrandize by adding "Influenced by artists as diverse as the Ramones and Brian Eno ??? Clash, Sex Pistols, Joy Division, Stranglers, Siouxsie and the Banshees..." into the code. If what was written there is important, it should go in the text with viable citations, but put in the code it indicates a possible non-NPOV bias.

Citation certainly and quickly needed for "Rumours abounded of a renewal of activity to mark the 30th anniversary of the band's debut..."

De-disambigged Ampere (band)

In response to the User:Mike harkin request on 16 January 2009 for addition  of Crawdaddy interview - I think it’s relevant

Just a note: I am not associated with Wire, or to my knowledge, with anyone connected with Wire, or any of its fans, now or in the past.

Acabashi (talk) 19:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I have restored British English grammar per American_and_British_English_differences.--Michig (talk) 12:15, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Dead external links to Allmusic website – January 2011
Since Allmusic have changed the syntax of their URLs, 1 link(s) used in the article do not work anymore and can't be migrated automatically. Please use the search option on http://www.allmusic.com to find the new location of the linked Allmusic article(s) and fix the link(s) accordingly, prefereably by using the Allmusic template. If a new location cannot be found, the link(s) should be removed. This applies to the following external links: --CactusBot (talk) 11:15, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
 * http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:siazefekhgf20
 * Fixed.--Michig (talk) 13:54, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

A bit lacking.
Why are "The Ideal Copy" and "A Bell Is A Cup..." only mentioned in passing as source material for "IBTABA"? Why is there no mention of the 8 year break before "The Ideal Copy"? There is also no mention of "Snakedrill", or of Lewis' other band He Said. MyDogKlaus (talk) 16:40, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Four years later, but Lewis has so many music projects under so many names (He Said, He Said Omala, Hox, H-A-L-O, Dome, Duet Emmo, UUUU...) that it's probably better to mention that he has many musical side projects and leave it to the article on him to go into detail. -Dayv (talk) 18:31, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Wire (band). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://www.webcitation.org/65q6kkqhM?url=http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=wire to http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=wire
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.projectdark.demon.co.uk/DJK/wire.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130123180959/http://www.soccergaming.com/features/1661/sg-music-interview-with-ladytron/ to http://www.soccergaming.com/features/1661/sg-music-interview-with-ladytron/

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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 18:45, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Gotobed
There is a reference to "Gotobed" leaving the band, but he is not mentioned in the article anywhere before that.

Later, he is mentioned as being some sort of alternate name for Robert Gray, but that should be made clear at the beginning of the article, don't you think? I would think that we need to know why he is using that alternate name, was it just something he made up? Jimindc (talk) 11:54, 3 May 2023 (UTC)