Straight Ahead (Greg Sage album)


Straight Ahead is the debut solo album of Wipers frontman Greg Sage. It was released in 1985. Half the album consists of just Sage accompanied by his acoustic guitar.
J Mascis covered "On the Run" on his 1996 solo album, Martin + Me. Ryan Adams covered the title track at the Xponential show on 26 July 2014.
Sage said of this album, "After I recorded Over The Edge, I had $5,000 invested into that record. The record company went bankrupt, so they took the money and started a new label. We got screwed and I had no way of paying back the debt, so that was the end of The Wipers. I was out in the Mohave desert and I wrote a bunch of songs on the acoustic guitar, I fixed a tape recorder for somebody. An eight track recorder, so I got to use it for a month as a fee for fixing it, I guess. I just recorded those songs. Then one day someone called from a record label, a guy that used to work for the label that screwed us, and he said "I feel sorry for you guys" and I told him that I didn't have any Wipers stuff for him and that The Wipers didn't exist anymore. Anyway, the label, licensed Straight Ahead, a live record, some old tapes and basically got me out of debt for Over The Edge. If I never recorded those songs, Over The Edge would've been The Wipers' last record."

Track listing

All songs written by Greg Sage:
  1. "Straight Ahead" - 4:12
  2. "Soul's Tongue" - 2:45
  3. "Blue Cowboy" - 3:10
  4. "Your Empathy" - 2:58
  5. "The Illusion Fades" - 2:37
  6. "Seems So Clear" - 1:35
  7. "On the Run" - 2:12
  8. "Astro Cloud" - 4:08
  9. "Lost in Space" - 3:25
  10. "Let It Go" - 3:08
  11. "World Without Fear" - 5:05
  12. "Keep on Keepin' On" - 4:22