WIRELESS - "No Static", 1980 (Anthem Records)

 THE HISTORY : WIRELESS were formed in Canada from the ashes of Australian pop band AUTUMN, who had a couple of albums and a handful of early 70s hits in Sydney before breaking up in 1972. Guitarist Steve McMurray, drummer Glen Beatson, and guitarist Allan Marshall relocated to Canada and formed WIRELESS in the mid-1970s.

I came across "No Static" in the bargain bins of my local record dealer, remembered reading about a band called WIRELESS in a multipart-special on Canadian hard rock bands in Dutch rock/metal magazine Aardschok , and since it said it on the cover this was produced by none other than Geddy Lee (RUSH ) I thought this was probably that very same band, even though the guys themselves didn’t particularly look like hard rockers. Other than that it was cheap so why not give it a try? Boy, was I in for a pleasant surprise!

THE MEMBERS: Alan Marshall – bass, vocals. Steve McMurray – guitar, vocals. Mike Crawford – guitar, vocals. Marty Morin – drums, vocals.

THE PRODUCTION: Hey, what can I say? It’s Geddy Lee! The overall production is clean without being too smooth, raw yet accessible, just like THIN LIZZY (there they are again) at its best.

THE GUITARS: WIRELESS’ hard rock is very raw and riffy yet melodic, sort of like a power pop version of BAD COMPANY with some THIN LIZZY -leanings thanks to some excellent guitar harmony bits. Also like THIN LIZZY the leads are flashy yet economic, which means they are there in abundance

yet never getting in the way of the song material. Like fellow Canadian headbangers GODDO and MAX WEBSTER they incorporate several elements from other genres as well but where those bands tend to get carried away at times by their eclectic wackiness WIRELESS’ sound stays firmly rooted in hard rock.

THE LYRICS: Yeah, I know, we don’t often pay attention to those but WIRELESS’ lyrics are something else. They’re intelligent! I already compared them to GODDO and MAX WEBSTER and another thing they have in common with those bands is a slightly bizarre sense of humor. The album’s opening track "Pay To Ride" for instance has nothing to do with cars but uses a rollercoaster ride as a metaphor for life (!!). In fact, these guys love their metaphors! And song titles such as "Go Naked Through The World" and "Journey Of A Possible Hero" should tell you enough. No songs about booze or groupies here.

HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO JELLO BIAFRA? Despite their Australian roots, WIRELESS are widely considered a Canadian band, especially considering that Michael Lalonde and Michael Crawford are true Canucks, without any known ties to Australia whatsoever. Then there's the label and the producer, Geddy Lee from RUSH to round things out. Well, the missing link is another Canadian trio. NOMEANSNO are a legendary 'jazz-punk' unit that created such masterful discs as "Wrong" and "Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy" in the 80s and 90s. Find a detailed NOMEANSNO discography sometime, and you'll see that they released a collaboration with Jello entitled, "The Sky is Falling and I Want My Mommy" in 1991. It's a piece of cake -- all roads lead to Jello.

THE VOCALS: Allan Marshall handles vocals as well as bass duties and a great deal of the songwriting for WIRELESS. He has one of those hoarse deliveries like Frankie Miller, Michael des Barres (SILVERHEAD, DETECTIVE ) or a younger Rod Stewart. It gives a nice bluesy edge to the mostly up-tempo song material.

TRACK BY TRACK:

"Pay To Ride" - Now THIS is how you open a record! With a slightly punkish up-tempo rock’n’roll-tune with a sharp mean-sounding lead for a hook, that after the second chorus explodes into a full-blown hard rock break. The kind of track that makes you wring your hands in anticipation for what the rest of the album is going to sound like!

"Timekeeper" - "Timekeeper's home/He waits by the phone/Turning the night into day". That's the opening sentence to this slightly more subdued up-tempo rocker (yes, there is such a thing!). It has a beautiful and very melodic chorus in which the singer directly addresses Father Timekeeper, asking him to give us time to live and not make it go too fast. Did I mention these guys had a weird sense of humor.

"Go Naked Through the World" - The tempo goes slightly down for this tough yet bluesy roll-up-your-sleeves hard rocker which has some definite overtones of early BAD COMPANY.

"One Of A Kind" - Did I already mention this record has some great guitar harmonies? This brutal southern-ish heavy rocker opens with an amazing one! And even that doesn’t prepare you for the jaw-dropping guitar harmony lead break in the middle of the song. On this absolute standout-track they give several southern rockers a run for their money.

"East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon" - This is the album's token ballad but definitely not an ordinary one. Where other melodic bands like SCORPIONS always tend to slow down these guys go mid-tempo, giving the song an almost country-ish feel. Until the chorus sets in that is, with its wailing SABBATH-guitars.

"Deep Heat" - It seems like a sort of unwritten rule that on a hard rock record the obligatory ballad should be followed by a loud track. That's certainly the case here because this is definitely the loudest one on the record. It's certainly not the best track but hey, even brainy rockers with a weird sense of humor just want to scream and rock out sometimes. That's exactly what they're doing here and they're doing a good job at it.

"Warm Night With a 3/4 Moon" - Back to zany mode again. Like I mentioned before WIRELESS are one of those bands that occasionally incorporate some elements of other styles in their music as well. On this they seem to combine a LIZZY -ish up tempo rocker with some mariachi-influences (!), where what are supposed to be horn parts are replaced with guitar harmonies. No, don’t stop reading now because although it’s definitely a very odd tune strangely enough it works!

"Friends" - Definitely the strangest track here. First, it's a duet between the lead singer and some other guy where they pretend to be long lot friends meeting again or something. I'm not really sure since a lot of the things they they're saying to each other seem like complete gibberish to me (" I've been entertaining thieves/they really stole the show/If you read the reviews I'm sure you'll know" - riiiiiiiiight!). Musically it's mellow BEATLES-like pop, but with lots of snappy rock leads.

"Journey of a Possible Hero" - ...And this is how you close a record! This sounds exactly like you’d expect it with a title like that; a melodic hard rock band's interpretation of Epic Heavy Metal!

AND IN CLOSING: It’s a damn shame this record isn’t more well known. In my humble opinion it should at least be considered a minor classic but even on the internet you can hardly find a thing on these guys. And what’s even worse is that apparently No Static hasn’t even been released on CD yet! (or is it?)

- Van Hoften

OFFICIAL SITE: www.garylessard.com/wireless

**Click here for a printer-friendly version of this article**