Wipers

• Genre: Post-Punk
• Hometown: Portland
• Wipers Website

About

Influential Pacific Northwest act the Wipers may not have exactly reinvented the wheel, but there has always been enough meat and potatoes guitar/bass/drums squelching through a punk interpretation of the Doors' "Light My Fire" to keep the punters sated. Greg Sage's outfit ultimately abandoned the more straightforward production of their earliest releases; in 1996, Silver Sail had affixed rockabilly delay to their guitar sound, with a Cramps-like dimension, sans the sleaze. But it's the wiry first album Is This Real that remains a punk/indie staple.

- Kelly Bauman