The Wipers are well known among the indie cognoscenti these days; they’re the groundbreaking trio that put out three stunning albums—Is This Real?, Youth of America, and Over the Edge—and three standout 7-inch EPs between 1979 and 1983. Greg Sage, the singer/songwriter/guitar player/recording engineer/tech wizard behind the Wipers, has attained a mythic underground status of sorts—something he has very likely sought to avoid, or at least ignore, in any case.

I first saw the Wipers on New Year’s Eve, 1979. It was my first punk show and so became my high-water mark for the “live music” experience. The Wipers’ dynamic sonic onslaught and singular rhythmic attack (Dave Koupal, bass, and Sam Henry on drums, originally; later Brad Davidson on bass and Brad Naish on drums; most recently, early collaborator Steve Plouf back on drums) could transport you and completely suck you in, simultaneously. And I’d never danced so hard in my life before, if you could really call it “dancing”—I wasn’t moving to the music, it was moving me. It just carried you away physically, by the sheer force of energy erupting from the stage.

At the time, Wipers fans were a pretty small group. If you met anyone anywhere who was into the Wipers, you had that bond, that awareness of something really special. Kurt Cobain and Nirvana raised the profile of the band in the early 1990s, lauding them in interviews and recording “D-7” (U.K. bootleg) and “Return of the Rat” (A Tribute to Greg Sage and the Wipers, Tim/Kerr Records). Also, back in the eighties, the Wipers blipped briefly on the radar screen when Dennis Hopper insisted they be included on the soundtrack to the film River’s Edge