Suicidal Tendencies and Wire: Two Bands You Thought Could Never Be In The Same Post

Suicidal Tendencies was one of the first hardcore/punk bands I ever got into. Sometime in the 7^th grade one of my friends showed up to school with a 90 minute tape they stole from their older brother. On one side was the thrash super group S.O.D  but more importantly on the other was Suicidal Tendencies’ self-title debut. Right from the maniacle laugh of singer Mike Muir before the lead off track “Suicides an Alternative” at the very beginning of the album I was hooked. It had fast songs like “I Shot the Devil”, “Possessed”, “Won’t Fall in Love Today” and “Fascist Pig”. There even songs with slower parts like “Subliminal”, “I Want More”. Plus how could you forget one of the first punk videos played on MTV "Institutionalized". Every song on the record is chock full of thrash riffs and a few metal guitar hooks here and there. 

All twelve songs were awesome but the one which was really original was track 9 “I Saw Your Mommy”. The song had an awesome bass guitar riff at the beginning of the song setting the pace before the metal guitars kicked in. Most importantly the  rhyming semi graphic tongue in cheek lyrics were a hit among me and my friends. 

It wasn’t just the music which made us like Suicidal Tendencies so much. Eventually one of us scored a copy of the actual LP. Looking at the cover and insert, the band looked even cooler than their songs made them seem. Suicidal Tendencies were the real deal off the streets of Venice California. Finding articles about the band in magazines like Thrasher we discovered the band was rumored to be members of various Los Angeles gangs. In the linear notes of the album it thanked Flipside Magazine for voting them “Biggest Assholes” and “Worst Band”. My friends and I thought it was awesome how the band actually printed that in their own record, even better when we learned Suicidal Tendencies showed them by be voted "The Best Band" the following year. Overall everything we found out about the band just made them cooler.



A few years later Suicidal released their second album Join the Army. In the five years between records Suicidal Tendencies sound had moved more into heavy metal territory where they would stay for a long time. Although I own or have owned almost every Suicidal Tendencies album since the debut, they were not anywhere near as good as that first album.

As I grew older and my musical tastes expanded one band’s name which kept popping up: the English band Wire. Artists like R.E.M’s Michael Stipe and The Cure's Robert Smith were always dropping their name as a big influence on their music.

At the time I watched MTV’s late Sunday Night Alternative video show “120 Minutes” religiously hoping to learn about new bands. First I would set the VCR to tape the show but after a few times of missing the show because the VCR’s timer would not go off I would force myself to stay up to ensure I would not miss anything.

One Sunday night as I sat there half asleep in a losing effort to stay conscious until the show’s finish at 2 Am, the VJ came on and announced they were going to play the new video by the English Post-punk band Wire. Instantly I was 100% awake. Then the video came on. It was for the song “Kidney Bingos” off the band’s new album A Bell Is a Cup until It’s Struck. The song was very underwhelming. I thought this band which half the bands I have been listening to have been singing their praises would somehow blow me away, I found a band playing laid back synthesizers and drum machines while the singer sang the same words over and over again. I guess the music was okay but nothing really too mind blowing or special in any way. At least half the bands on the show that night played the same style music, most played it better.

I thought maybe  I was missing something and two days later I purchased the record only to find nine almost identical songs. Just in case this was just a bad album I bought the only other record the store carried by the band, the prior year’s Ideal Copy. Again I found the lazy, almost boring synths and drum machines. When It’s Beginning to and Back Again (IBTABA) came out the next year it was more of the same. Not to mention 120 Minutes played the video for IBTABA’s first single “Eardrum Buzz” week after week after week. The song with its chorus of “Buzz, buzz, buzz in the drum of the ear” may rank up there among the most annoying songs of all-time. For the life of me I could not figure out why this band was so highly touted by so many artists in my collection. Figuring maybe I just didn’t get it, I moved on.

When the Wire album Manscape was released there was even a sticker on the cover with a Michael Stipe quote proclaiming "Wire changed my life in '77. It's time for this decade's dose".

Then in 1990 I read that a new division of Restless Records called “Restless Retro” had released the first three albums by Wire. The albums titles were Chairs Missing, 154 and the debut Pink Flag. Giving Wire’s reputation one more shot I bought all three at the same time.

Each album left me floored after the first listen. This is what all those bands were talking about! All three of the albums were perfect with guitars and drums, not just the washed out keyboards and drum machines of the Wire which had gotten back together 1987.

Although all three of the albums were awesome the one which I favored most was the stripped down art punk rock of Pink Flag. From the dirgy beginning of track 1 “Reuters” (the song still goes through my head everytime I walk by the Reuters building on the way home from work) all the way through the short, sharp and bouncy tracks of side one until the great droning title track closes out the side. Side two has 11 more short, sharp and bouncy songs, including “Strange” which had been covered on R.E.M.’s Document album and “1,2 X U” (definitely the fastest song on the album) which Minor Threat had covered on the legendary Flex Your Head compilation.

But there was one song which sounded so familiar: Track # 20 "A Feeling Called Love". The beginning bass riff and guitars sounded so familiar but I just couldn't place it. Before buying Pink Flag I had no idea "Strange" on R.E.M.'s Document album was even a Wire song until I heard it on here . I scoured my record collection to see if maybe another band had covered "Feeling Called Love" but the song was nowhere to be found. I listened to the song over and over again trying to place where I had heard it. Eventually I gave up and decided to just enjoy what was now one of my favorite records.

The next Monday I got in my car to head to school. Pulling out of the driveway I realized there were tapes to listen to on the ride. Reaching into the back seat while trying to keep my eyes on the road I found one tape lying on floor of the car. Without even looking to see who was on the tape I placed it in the car's tape player and pressed play. Coming over the car speakers was that bass riff of Wire's "Feeling Called Love" which I had listened too a dozen times the previous day. The only thing was I had not yet dubbed a copy for the car. Then the metal guitars came on. It was "I Saw Your Mommy" by Suicidal Tendencies. 

The fact that Suicidal Tendencies "borrowed" the riff to Wire's "Feeling Called Love" is not what shocked me. Many songs have borrowed riffs from other songs over the years. The Door's 
"Hello I Love You" sounds so  remarkably similar to The Kinks "All Day And All The Night" to the point of Ray Davies taking it too court.

The thing which totally shocked me was it was Suicidal Tendencies. I could understand R.E.M. from the college town of Athens, GA running across a copy of Pink Flag in a local record store. The Cure almost coming from the same late 70's/early 80's post punk scene as Wire. Even the young urgent hardcore band Minor Threat covering "1,2 X U" would not be a stretch considering they were actually pretty smart kids from the suburbs who has attended the high class Georgetown Day School. Plus "1,2 X U", like I said before, is definitely the fastest song on the record. But Suicidal Tendencies? This was the band who spawned countless thrash, metal and hardcore bands. The band from the mean  streets of Venice, California.  The band with some of their members rumored to be in gangs. This band made up of big menacing looking guys dressed like "cholos" was secretly listening to a English art punk band. 

I don't know if they "borrowed" the riff because they liked the song or because they thought the bands sounds were so far removed from each other that no one would notice, but after the initial shock I was actually pretty impressed. Like when I found out the band The Dead Milkmen took their name from a character in a Toni Morrison book, it gave me a whole new respect for the band. Now when either song comes over my iPod or car stereo, I laugh about it. Sometimes I even sing the other songs lyrics, always pointing out to whoever is in the car with me the fact which I had discovered. Now you can impress your friends with this info too.

Surprisingly all these years later when you do an online search for the two songs together the only things which comes up is a quick blurb I wrote about them on the website Mog about three years ago.