Wipers

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For the town in Belgium which was called 'Wipers' by British soldiers during World War One, See Ypres.

Wipers

Country	Portland, Oregon, USA
Years active	1978–2001
Genres	Punk rock
Labels	Zeno Records Trap Records Restless Records Tim/Kerr Records
Members	Greg Sage Sam Henry Dave Koupal

The Wipers were a punk rock group formed in Portland, Oregon in 1977 by guitarist Greg Sage, drummer Sam Henry and bassist Dave Koupal.

Is This Real?, The Wiper’s first album, was first released in 1979 and quietly gained a cult following. The Wipers became better known after the wildly popular grunge band Nirvana covered two songs from Is This Real?. Nirvana’s frontman, Kurt Cobain, spoke of being heavily influenced by the band. The Wipers were a major influence on the grunge music scene in general, with bands such as The Melvins, Mudhoney, and Dinosaur Jr. citing them. Wipers albums like Is This Real? and Over the Edge are now widely considered to be among the greatest and most influential punk albums of all time.

While the Wipers began with Is this Real? by pioneering the tight, catchy punk rock that Nirvana and others would later bring to the mainstream, the band quickly evolved into producing guitar-solo soaked, labyrinthine punk rock epics such as were found on their follow-up album Youth of America. Sage became known for not only his do-it-yourself ethic and guitar solos, but also for his domineering approach to the band’s creative process.

In 1988, then 18 year old drummer Travis McNabb joined the band for the tour for the album "The Circle". He went on to join Better Than Ezra and work with Shawn Mullins, Howie Day and Beggars members of which later formed Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

In 1992, the tribute album Eight Songs for Greg Sage and the Wipers (Tim Kerr Records) was released on 4 colored 7-inch records, and included Wipers songs performed by Nirvana, Hole, Napalm Beach, M99, The Dharma Bums, Crackerbash, Poison Idea, and The Whirlees. The CD release of the tribute album was called Fourteen Songs for Greg Sage and the Wipers, and expanded to include covers by Hazel, Calamity Jane, Saliva Tree, Honey, Nation of Ulysses, and Thurston Moore-Keith Nealy.

In 2001, Greg Sage’s Zeno Records [1] released a Wipers Box Set of the Wipers' first 3 albums, which by that time had been long out-of-print.

Sam Henry is still an active musician in Portland, Oregon, and continues to play with popular Northwest songwriters like Pete Krebs and Morgan Grace.

[edit] Discography

Alien Boy (EP) (1980)	Is This Real? (1980)	Youth of America (1981)	Over the Edge (1983)
The Wipers (1985)	Land of the Lost (1986)	Follow Blind (1987)	The Circle (1988)
Best of the Wipers and Greg Sage (1991)	Silver Sail (1993)	The Herd (1996)	Power in One (1999)
Wipers Box Set (2001)

[edit] Singles & Bootlegs

Better Off Dead (1978)	Romeo (1981)	Never Win (1993)	Silver Sail (1993)
The Herd (1996)	Insane (1996)	Wipers Rarities