Straight Ahead: The Story of Greg Sage & The Wipers

This is a revised second edition of an earlier book I wrote about the Wipers that was first published in September 2024 and was called “Electric Medicine.” In order to distinguish it from the first edition, I’ve changed the book’s title and cover photo for the second edition. This 2nd edition has now grown by over 100 pages more from the 480 pages of the 1st edition to an expanded length of 582 pages. This is mainly due to the greatly enlarged illustrations appendix, which now stretches nearly 150 pages at the end of the book, from pages 437 to 582. In this 2nd edition almost my whole digital archive of Wipers and Greg Sage-related gig posters is included. The images of gig posters, club ads, and photographs in the illustrations appendix have all been carefully curated by me, in many cases edited by me for greater visual clarity, and all arranged in chronological order from earliest to latest date. The first edition of this book already contained by far the most extensive gigography of Wipers and Greg Sage live shows there had ever been to date. However, a half-dozen more shows have been added to the text, gigography, and posters in the illustrations appendix to this edition. Special thanks goes out to all the people who contributed useful information and/or photographic images to this book, including the following: Tom Robinson, Dave Koupal, Fred Seegmuller, Jack Rabid, Garry Velletri, Steve Pross, Pete Blecha, Chuck Arjavac, David Wilds, Philin Phlash, Curtis Knapp, Michael Esquire, Jay Lundell, Edwin Heath, Tim Green, Jacob McMurray, and Anthony-Anton Long. The book is dedicated to the memory of Sam Henry. Praise for the First Edition: “It's a good introduction for people unfamiliar with the Portland/Seattle 80s pre-grunge scene and the band that influenced/covered by Nirvana, Melvins, Posion Idea, Thurston Moore, J Mascis and many others.” – Karl Braun, admin of the Pacific Northwest Archives Facebook group. “…a remarkable achievement and something that has been definitely missing about one of the most important groups in the history of music!” - Ted Papageorgiou, admin of Wipers Facebook group. “The book that needed to be written, by the guy who needed to write it!!! What a huge undertaking and accomplishment.” - Pete Blecha, PNW Music Historian “….sheds a great deal of detail into the Wipers legacy…staggering amount of show detail…” - Tom Robinson, Wipers soundman 1978-1985: “Wow what an undertaking!…awesome…” Rabid called it a “fine book,” and said, “you did a great job…”- Jack Rabid, editor and publisher of The Big Takeover magazine “If you want to know the truth.” - Dietz Güldner, former proprietor of the Rose Club in Koln, Germany. “The graphics look great.” - Fred Seegmuller, co-owner of the Portland Urban Noize club and publisher of Portland’s Noize magazine. “I’ve learned so much about Greg and Wipers...an almost exhausting, detailed account of Wipers within the context of the era's local and national music scene. Certainly brings back a lot of memories. And I learned for the first time what the sequence of events were after I left Braineater for EMI.” - Garry Velletri, Brain Eater Records “Book arrived and it's Killer / WOW research KOO-DOZS. Very detailed... This is great…this is such a good one!” - Curtis Knapp, NYC music photographer, he took the YOA cover shots. “Electric Medicine contains an enormous amount of valuable information about the shows and set lists and so on.” - Mark Sten, bass player for Fred Cole’s band King Bee.