[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by whorefrost

I also had a quasi religious experience listening to it whilst being high for the first time as a teen.

Funny you should say that (well, not the stoner part, but bear with me ) - Matthew Simms, the "kid" who's been a member of Wire since 2010 mentioned it as an important formative influence. From Read & Burn: A Book About Wire (highly recommended, by the way):

Simms's familiarity with Wire wasn't encyclopaedic. "I had the first three records," he says. "I wasn't a super-fan. I didn't know them inside out. The first time I read about them was in Mojo, when the first three albums were reissued [in 2006]." However, an appreciation of Wire did run in the family. "My dad had the seven-inch of 'Outdoor Miner'," says Simms. "He bought it when it first came out."

Simms's audition took place on April 28 2010 at Ritz Studios in Putney. He'd been sent a list of seven tracks to prepare: 'Lowdown', 'Comet', 'Silk Skin Paws', 'Boiling Boy', '106 Beats That', 'He Knows', and 'The 15th'. A few tips were also included. The advice for 'Comet' was: "Main thing is knowing when to stop!" and for '106 Beats That', he was cautioned: "The chords are a bastard!" A closing instruction read: "Also surprise us with one thing of ours that we've forgotten" — the idea being that he should choose a song and then 'teach' it to the band, as [Margaret] Fiedler McGinnis had done with 'The 15th'. "I suggested 'Map Ref.'," remembers Simms, "which I think was a surprise for them. I picked it because it was one of my favourites."

Talking about his preparation for the audition, Simms emphasises that he wasn't just concerned with knowing how to play the songs. "I made sure I knew how they worked, but I also made sure I had the right sounds." This interest in sound, as much as technique, was something he had developed early on, as he began to learn his instrument. "When I was really young, and started playing the guitar, the first record I really got into was Sonic Youth's Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star, which my dad gave me when I was about 12. It was a big influence — showing that the guitar could be something more, that you could get all sorts of sounds out of it. That's the side of the guitar I really like." This focus on sound was something that immediately registered with the band. "Even before he started playing at the audition," [Colin] Newman recalls, "he was preparing to play a song, and Graham [Lewis] said, he's like we were when we were younger."