The Wipers' Clean Slate

"It's like there's no rebellion all the sudden. Music was always the vent for that, you'd come of age and your eyes were opened. The world sucked but there was something that brought every generation together, each generation had their own voice and now all the sudden it's gone quiet. Maybe rap and hip-hop have taken that over but... I get e-mails from kids 15, 16, 17 all around the world saying, 'I'm the only one in my school that listens to something different and I'm a total outcast.' It's almost uncool to be unique and different now. It's almost the decade of compliance and it's an unnatural change. It seems like there's no pioneers out there and there are, but it's an endless search for them. The numbers are definitely dwindling."

Although some might look at Sage's track record and see a guy who keeps changing his lottery numbers, in truth he's always stuck to his guns and maintained a belief in the power in one -- himself -- to enact change, to do things differently and to act "uncool" if need be. But being a perpetual iconoclast can be taxing.

David Wilds

See no industry: Music biz black sheep Greg Sage (center) and the late-'80s version of the Wipers

The Kurt Cobain-organized Wipers tribute from 1991.

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More About

• Greg Sage
• Sound Recording Industries
• Kurt Cobain
• Punk Rock
• Radio

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"Now I'm running out of ideas," he says, laughing. "There's too many ways to be uncool now."