This is NOT your daughter's country music. Raised on the hard twang of Johnny, Hank, Buck and Merle, Bob Wire has developed his personal brand of rockin' country that has been filling dance floors for more than ten years. A guitarist and singer based in Missoula, Montana, Bob writes songs for adults who have a sense of humor, and aren't afraid to think for themselves. Fans of Steve Earle, Dwight Yoakam, the Bottle Rockets, and other hard-rocking country artists have come to love the Bob Wire sound. It's a rootsy stew of traditional country, blues, rockabilly and swampy folk that drives a highly entertaining mix of lyrical subjects. Fourteen of these original nuggets comprise Bob's first solo album, 'American Piehole.' A self-recorded, self-released effort, the album features Bob's current band, the Magnificent Bastards. David Colledge plays lead guitar, Jack Barnings plays drums, and Ron Setzer is on bass. Setzer also helped produce 'Piehole' with Bob, and served as the album's engineer. Bob Wire and his orginal band, the Fencemenders made the rounds in Western Montana for ten years from the mid-90's to 2004, during which time they were voted 'Best Local Band' three times by the readers of the Missoula Independent. They pinned back ears with their firebrand honky-tonk, opening for the Old 97's, Larry McMurtry, and Brad Paisley. In 2000 they released one CD, the rollicking 'Waiting for Dark.' In 2004 Bob left the Fencemenders to pursue a solo career that would allow him to record and promote his own songs. Songs like 'Laundromat,' 'She Took a Powder,' and 'White Trash Paradise' have the energy and drive to make it impossible to sit still, while the lyrics will have you cracking up while you dance. Other tunes, like 'Tucson,' 'As For Me,' and 'Saigon' are more ruminative, yet still have that fresh, rhythmic drive of a band hitting on all cylinders. Bob received a Special Award of Merit from Paramount Publishing in Nashville, for his song, 'Too Tired to Cheat,' which appears on the album. Songwriting has become a true passion for Bob, and he strives to avoid the clichés that litter the popular music landscape of today. He performs solo occasionally, peppering his show with jokes and bawdy comments. But the full force is in play when he performs with the Bastards at some Montana honky tonk like Missoula's Union Club, or the Bitterroot Brewing Co. In Hamilton. While not the road warrior he was in his early career, Bob is enjoying a steady calendar of gigs, bringing his loopy, tequila-tinged show to appreciative crowds all over western Montana. From the Missoulian Entertainer, Thursday, May 4, 2006 by Joe Nickell: GET WIRED There was a time when Bob Wire seemed to be everywhere. As front-man for Bob Wire and the Fencemenders back in the late '90s and early '00s, Wire often performed twice a week or more around Missoula and western Montana. Publicly, he's been considerably scarcer in recent years; and the Fencemenders have officially broken up. But don't think Bob Wire has stopped playing. If anything, he's been more focused on music than ever before. "When I quit the Fencemenders in 2004, it's because I decided I really wanted to concentrate on songwriting and developing that part of my musical life," explains Wire (whose real name is Ednor Therriault). "I've been really focused on that ever since." So focused, in fact, that although he is just about to release his first new album since 2000, Wire already figures he's got the material together for his next record. First things first, though: This week, Bob Wire will release "American Piehole," a 14-track run of jangly honky-tonk tunes, all of them written by Wire himself and performed with the Magnificent Bastards, a backing band that includes guitarist David Colledge, drummer Jack Barnings, and bassist Ron Setzer. "I considered calling the group Bob Wire and the Bob Wire Band featuring Bob Wire, but it didn't fit on the bass drum head," Wire says. Such quips sound like classic Wire, who is known equally for his tasty country music and his comic stage banter between songs. Wire knows all too well that his comic tendencies might make him seem less like Johnny Cash than Weird Al. He says his newest album is, in a way, an attempt to balance that well-known irreverence with through-written music built around earnest topics. "I try to write mature music for adults who have a sense of humor," says Wire. Indeed, sometimes these days, he just tries to write mature music. Take the song "Saigon," which tells the tale of a young soldier in Vietnam who has just received a "Dear John" letter from his stateside love. "I researched that song for over a year so I could get the details right, even though Vietnam is just a background to the song," says Wire. "There's nothing there that's funny; it's a pretty straight story. It's probably the closest thing to a folk song I've written." Of course, a moment later, he can't resist to add a punchline: "Too bad I'm 30 years behind the times." Wire admits he misses spending so much time bathed in the spotlights. "After being off the stage a year and a half, I find I really need it," he says. "It's a release that very few people ever know. It saves me a ton of money in therapy." So catch Bob Wire when he returns to the stage, along with the Magnificent Bastards, at the CD release party for "American Piehole" this Saturday, May 6, at the Union Club in Missoula. A special drink called the Magnificent Bastard will be available at the bar, and the first 200 people to arrive receive free beer cozies. From the Missoula Independent, Thursday, May 4, 2006 by Jason Wiener: Who Is Bob Wire? Ednor Therriault orders beer and a double Mo burger for lunch. At least I think I'm eating lunch with Ednor-the 46-year-old freelance graphic artist and father of two who's dressed in shorts and Chacos on this spring-bordering-summer afternoon-and not his alter ego Bob Wire, but that's only because the guy across the table's given me a simple criterion for distinguishing: "If I'm wearing the hat, it's Bob. If I'm not, it's Ednor." Still, every once in a while, despite the hat's absence, I'm pretty sure it's Bob sitting across the table, mainly because, as Therriault puts it, "Bob will say things in public that I would not say-usually involving the word vagina." As, for instance, when my interlocutor, whoever he is, gleefully relates how Bob Wire got Ednor Therriault in trouble by reciting a nugget from chucknorrisfacts.com-"When Chuck Norris breaks up with a girl, he doesn't break up with her. He just punches her in the vagina, and she goes away"-that made it's way into some patter during a recent show at the Union Club. The reaction? "I had some woman read me the riot act after the show." Reflecting on the incident, and Bob's tendency to crassly refer to genitalia in inappropriate settings, Therriault says, "You know, it's just not worth it." Maybe not, but it's unlikely Therriault's Bob Wire persona will get retired anytime soon, since this Saturday Bob Wire and the Magnificent Bastards release their debut CD, American Piehole. The studio effort, coproduced by Magnificent Bastard bass player Ron Setzer, sports 14 tunes of straightforward, traditional country music driven by storytelling and a reflective equilibrium honed with Bob Wire's aesthetic sensibility: "Every time I write a line or the music to it, I immediately think of how it's going to go onstage at the Union Club," where Therriault spent scores of nights playing as part of Bob Wire and the Fencemenders, with whom he released Waiting for Dark in 2000. While gigging with the former band (the Fencemenders still occasionally reunite, by request), Therriault explains, "I wound up becoming Bob Wire sort of by default" because, at the band's inception, "none of us were going to be Bob Wire...But after playing live with that name people started calling me Bob Wire-like Deborah Harry being called Blondie-and I thought this is kind of fun to get up o
This is NOT your daughter's country music. Raised on the hard twang of Johnny, Hank, Buck and Merle, Bob Wire has developed his personal brand of rockin' country that has been filling dance floors for more than ten years. A guitarist and singer based in Missoula, Montana, Bob writes songs for adults who have a sense of humor, and aren't afraid to think for themselves. Fans of Steve Earle, Dwight Yoakam, the Bottle Rockets, and other hard-rocking country artists have come to love the Bob Wire sound. It's a rootsy stew of traditional country, blues, rockabilly and swampy folk that drives a highly entertaining mix of lyrical subjects. Fourteen of these original nuggets comprise Bob's first solo album, 'American Piehole.' A self-recorded, self-released effort, the album features Bob's current band, the Magnificent Bastards. David Colledge plays lead guitar, Jack Barnings plays drums, and Ron Setzer is on bass. Setzer also helped produce 'Piehole' with Bob, and served as the album's engineer. Bob Wire and his orginal band, the Fencemenders made the rounds in Western Montana for ten years from the mid-90's to 2004, during which time they were voted 'Best Local Band' three times by the readers of the Missoula Independent. They pinned back ears with their firebrand honky-tonk, opening for the Old 97's, Larry McMurtry, and Brad Paisley. In 2000 they released one CD, the rollicking 'Waiting for Dark.' In 2004 Bob left the Fencemenders to pursue a solo career that would allow him to record and promote his own songs. Songs like 'Laundromat,' 'She Took a Powder,' and 'White Trash Paradise' have the energy and drive to make it impossible to sit still, while the lyrics will have you cracking up while you dance. Other tunes, like 'Tucson,' 'As For Me,' and 'Saigon' are more ruminative, yet still have that fresh, rhythmic drive of a band hitting on all cylinders. Bob received a Special Award of Merit from Paramount Publishing in Nashville, for his song, 'Too Tired to Cheat,' which appears on the album. Songwriting has become a true passion for Bob, and he strives to avoid the clichés that litter the popular music landscape of today. He performs solo occasionally, peppering his show with jokes and bawdy comments. But the full force is in play when he performs with the Bastards at some Montana honky tonk like Missoula's Union Club, or the Bitterroot Brewing Co. In Hamilton. While not the road warrior he was in his early career, Bob is enjoying a steady calendar of gigs, bringing his loopy, tequila-tinged show to appreciative crowds all over western Montana. From the Missoulian Entertainer, Thursday, May 4, 2006 by Joe Nickell: GET WIRED There was a time when Bob Wire seemed to be everywhere. As front-man for Bob Wire and the Fencemenders back in the late '90s and early '00s, Wire often performed twice a week or more around Missoula and western Montana. Publicly, he's been considerably scarcer in recent years; and the Fencemenders have officially broken up. But don't think Bob Wire has stopped playing. If anything, he's been more focused on music than ever before. "When I quit the Fencemenders in 2004, it's because I decided I really wanted to concentrate on songwriting and developing that part of my musical life," explains Wire (whose real name is Ednor Therriault). "I've been really focused on that ever since." So focused, in fact, that although he is just about to release his first new album since 2000, Wire already figures he's got the material together for his next record. First things first, though: This week, Bob Wire will release "American Piehole," a 14-track run of jangly honky-tonk tunes, all of them written by Wire himself and performed with the Magnificent Bastards, a backing band that includes guitarist David Colledge, drummer Jack Barnings, and bassist Ron Setzer. "I considered calling the group Bob Wire and the Bob Wire Band featuring Bob Wire, but it didn't fit on the bass drum head," Wire says. Such quips sound like classic Wire, who is known equally for his tasty country music and his comic stage banter between songs. Wire knows all too well that his comic tendencies might make him seem less like Johnny Cash than Weird Al. He says his newest album is, in a way, an attempt to balance that well-known irreverence with through-written music built around earnest topics. "I try to write mature music for adults who have a sense of humor," says Wire. Indeed, sometimes these days, he just tries to write mature music. Take the song "Saigon," which tells the tale of a young soldier in Vietnam who has just received a "Dear John" letter from his stateside love. "I researched that song for over a year so I could get the details right, even though Vietnam is just a background to the song," says Wire. "There's nothing there that's funny; it's a pretty straight story. It's probably the closest thing to a folk song I've written." Of course, a moment later, he can't resist to add a punchline: "Too bad I'm 30 years behind the times." Wire admits he misses spending so much time bathed in the spotlights. "After being off the stage a year and a half, I find I really need it," he says. "It's a release that very few people ever know. It saves me a ton of money in therapy." So catch Bob Wire when he returns to the stage, along with the Magnificent Bastards, at the CD release party for "American Piehole" this Saturday, May 6, at the Union Club in Missoula. A special drink called the Magnificent Bastard will be available at the bar, and the first 200 people to arrive receive free beer cozies. From the Missoula Independent, Thursday, May 4, 2006 by Jason Wiener: Who Is Bob Wire? Ednor Therriault orders beer and a double Mo burger for lunch. At least I think I'm eating lunch with Ednor-the 46-year-old freelance graphic artist and father of two who's dressed in shorts and Chacos on this spring-bordering-summer afternoon-and not his alter ego Bob Wire, but that's only because the guy across the table's given me a simple criterion for distinguishing: "If I'm wearing the hat, it's Bob. If I'm not, it's Ednor." Still, every once in a while, despite the hat's absence, I'm pretty sure it's Bob sitting across the table, mainly because, as Therriault puts it, "Bob will say things in public that I would not say-usually involving the word vagina." As, for instance, when my interlocutor, whoever he is, gleefully relates how Bob Wire got Ednor Therriault in trouble by reciting a nugget from chucknorrisfacts.com-"When Chuck Norris breaks up with a girl, he doesn't break up with her. He just punches her in the vagina, and she goes away"-that made it's way into some patter during a recent show at the Union Club. The reaction? "I had some woman read me the riot act after the show." Reflecting on the incident, and Bob's tendency to crassly refer to genitalia in inappropriate settings, Therriault says, "You know, it's just not worth it." Maybe not, but it's unlikely Therriault's Bob Wire persona will get retired anytime soon, since this Saturday Bob Wire and the Magnificent Bastards release their debut CD, American Piehole. The studio effort, coproduced by Magnificent Bastard bass player Ron Setzer, sports 14 tunes of straightforward, traditional country music driven by storytelling and a reflective equilibrium honed with Bob Wire's aesthetic sensibility: "Every time I write a line or the music to it, I immediately think of how it's going to go onstage at the Union Club," where Therriault spent scores of nights playing as part of Bob Wire and the Fencemenders, with whom he released Waiting for Dark in 2000. While gigging with the former band (the Fencemenders still occasionally reunite, by request), Therriault explains, "I wound up becoming Bob Wire sort of by default" because, at the band's inception, "none of us were going to be Bob Wire...But after playing live with that name people started calling me Bob Wire-like Deborah Harry being called Blondie-and I thought this is kind of fun to get up o
This is NOT your daughter's country music. Raised on the hard twang of Johnny, Hank, Buck and Merle, Bob Wire has developed his personal brand of rockin' country that has been filling dance floors for more than ten years. A guitarist and singer based in Missoula, Montana, Bob writes songs for adults who have a sense of humor, and aren't afraid to think for themselves. Fans of Steve Earle, Dwight Yoakam, the Bottle Rockets, and other hard-rocking country artists have come to love the Bob Wire sound. It's a rootsy stew of traditional country, blues, rockabilly and swampy folk that drives a highly entertaining mix of lyrical subjects. Fourteen of these original nuggets comprise Bob's first solo album, 'American Piehole.' A self-recorded, self-released effort, the album features Bob's current band, the Magnificent Bastards. David Colledge plays lead guitar, Jack Barnings plays drums, and Ron Setzer is on bass. Setzer also helped produce 'Piehole' with Bob, and served as the album's engineer. Bob Wire and his orginal band, the Fencemenders made the rounds in Western Montana for ten years from the mid-90's to 2004, during which time they were voted 'Best Local Band' three times by the readers of the Missoula Independent. They pinned back ears with their firebrand honky-tonk, opening for the Old 97's, Larry McMurtry, and Brad Paisley. In 2000 they released one CD, the rollicking 'Waiting for Dark.' In 2004 Bob left the Fencemenders to pursue a solo career that would allow him to record and promote his own songs. Songs like 'Laundromat,' 'She Took a Powder,' and 'White Trash Paradise' have the energy and drive to make it impossible to sit still, while the lyrics will have you cracking up while you dance. Other tunes, like 'Tucson,' 'As For Me,' and 'Saigon' are more ruminative, yet still have that fresh, rhythmic drive of a band hitting on all cylinders. Bob received a Special Award of Merit from Paramount Publishing in Nashville, for his song, 'Too Tired to Cheat,' which appears on the album. Songwriting has become a true passion for Bob, and he strives to avoid the clichés that litter the popular music landscape of today. He performs solo occasionally, peppering his show with jokes and bawdy comments. But the full force is in play when he performs with the Bastards at some Montana honky tonk like Missoula's Union Club, or the Bitterroot Brewing Co. In Hamilton. While not the road warrior he was in his early career, Bob is enjoying a steady calendar of gigs, bringing his loopy, tequila-tinged show to appreciative crowds all over western Montana. From the Missoulian Entertainer, Thursday, May 4, 2006 by Joe Nickell: GET WIRED There was a time when Bob Wire seemed to be everywhere. As front-man for Bob Wire and the Fencemenders back in the late '90s and early '00s, Wire often performed twice a week or more around Missoula and western Montana. Publicly, he's been considerably scarcer in recent years; and the Fencemenders have officially broken up. But don't think Bob Wire has stopped playing. If anything, he's been more focused on music than ever before. "When I quit the Fencemenders in 2004, it's because I decided I really wanted to concentrate on songwriting and developing that part of my musical life," explains Wire (whose real name is Ednor Therriault). "I've been really focused on that ever since." So focused, in fact, that although he is just about to release his first new album since 2000, Wire already figures he's got the material together for his next record. First things first, though: This week, Bob Wire will release "American Piehole," a 14-track run of jangly honky-tonk tunes, all of them written by Wire himself and performed with the Magnificent Bastards, a backing band that includes guitarist David Colledge, drummer Jack Barnings, and bassist Ron Setzer. "I considered calling the group Bob Wire and the Bob Wire Band featuring Bob Wire, but it didn't fit on the bass drum head," Wire says. Such quips sound like classic Wire, who is known equally for his tasty country music and his comic stage banter between songs. Wire knows all too well that his comic tendencies might make him seem less like Johnny Cash than Weird Al. He says his newest album is, in a way, an attempt to balance that well-known irreverence with through-written music built around earnest topics. "I try to write mature music for adults who have a sense of humor," says Wire. Indeed, sometimes these days, he just tries to write mature music. Take the song "Saigon," which tells the tale of a young soldier in Vietnam who has just received a "Dear John" letter from his stateside love. "I researched that song for over a year so I could get the details right, even though Vietnam is just a background to the song," says Wire. "There's nothing there that's funny; it's a pretty straight story. It's probably the closest thing to a folk song I've written." Of course, a moment later, he can't resist to add a punchline: "Too bad I'm 30 years behind the times." Wire admits he misses spending so much time bathed in the spotlights. "After being off the stage a year and a half, I find I really need it," he says. "It's a release that very few people ever know. It saves me a ton of money in therapy." So catch Bob Wire when he returns to the stage, along with the Magnificent Bastards, at the CD release party for "American Piehole" this Saturday, May 6, at the Union Club in Missoula. A special drink called the Magnificent Bastard will be available at the bar, and the first 200 people to arrive receive free beer cozies. From the Missoula Independent, Thursday, May 4, 2006 by Jason Wiener: Who Is Bob Wire? Ednor Therriault orders beer and a double Mo burger for lunch. At least I think I'm eating lunch with Ednor-the 46-year-old freelance graphic artist and father of two who's dressed in shorts and Chacos on this spring-bordering-summer afternoon-and not his alter ego Bob Wire, but that's only because the guy across the table's given me a simple criterion for distinguishing: "If I'm wearing the hat, it's Bob. If I'm not, it's Ednor." Still, every once in a while, despite the hat's absence, I'm pretty sure it's Bob sitting across the table, mainly because, as Therriault puts it, "Bob will say things in public that I would not say-usually involving the word vagina." As, for instance, when my interlocutor, whoever he is, gleefully relates how Bob Wire got Ednor Therriault in trouble by reciting a nugget from chucknorrisfacts.com-"When Chuck Norris breaks up with a girl, he doesn't break up with her. He just punches her in the vagina, and she goes away"-that made it's way into some patter during a recent show at the Union Club. The reaction? "I had some woman read me the riot act after the show." Reflecting on the incident, and Bob's tendency to crassly refer to genitalia in inappropriate settings, Therriault says, "You know, it's just not worth it." Maybe not, but it's unlikely Therriault's Bob Wire persona will get retired anytime soon, since this Saturday Bob Wire and the Magnificent Bastards release their debut CD, American Piehole. The studio effort, coproduced by Magnificent Bastard bass player Ron Setzer, sports 14 tunes of straightforward, traditional country music driven by storytelling and a reflective equilibrium honed with Bob Wire's aesthetic sensibility: "Every time I write a line or the music to it, I immediately think of how it's going to go onstage at the Union Club," where Therriault spent scores of nights playing as part of Bob Wire and the Fencemenders, with whom he released Waiting for Dark in 2000. While gigging with the former band (the Fencemenders still occasionally reunite, by request), Therriault explains, "I wound up becoming Bob Wire sort of by default" because, at the band's inception, "none of us were going to be Bob Wire...But after playing live with that name people started calling me Bob Wire-like Deborah Harry being called Blondie-and I thought this is kind of fun to get up o
