Wipers “Alien Boy” 1980/2019 Record Store Day release. Jackpot Records, 4 song EP from the original master tapes, first time reissued. “Alien Boy,” along with the B-side tracks “Image of Man,” “Telepathic Love” and “Voices in the Rain” also appear on the Wipers’ 1980 debut album Is This Real? initially released on Park Avenue Records and then reissued on SubPop in 1993 without the band’s involvement. Apparently the tracks were first recorded on a four-track recorder in the Wipers’ rehearsal space and then rerecorded more professionally for the LP. I can’t be sure about the masters used for this RSD 7″ but the sound is pretty good: a punked-up, Devo-ish weirdness and a lot of high-end tension in the guitar.

The track “Alien Boy” is about James Chasse, a Portland, Oregon man who suffered from mental illness and was a friend of Wipers frontman/guitarist Greg Sage (their conversations inspired much of the lyrical imagery on Is This Real?). Chasse (aka Jim Jim) was killed by two Portland police officers in 2006. Sage wrote in a 2007 website entry for Zeno Records about Chasse’s death at the hands of the Portland police: “The Sad Facts: Jim’s toxicology came back clean, no drugs – alcohol. All 17 of his ribs were broken. His lung was punctured. He suffered head trauma from being kicked while he was on the ground. He was not taken to a hospital, but to jail.  He died in the back of the squad car. Medical Examiner Reports: James Chasse was bludgeoned to death. Witnesses claim excessive force was used. It would seem that the police would have known that Jim Jim was disabled since he spent so much time on the streets. So far the PDX police claim that his death is Justified!” There was additional public outcry about the incident and after a few years and investigation, the officers were mostly exonerated but steps were taken for the police to change their training on dealing with their response to citizens with mental illness.