Gang of Four (band)
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The Gang of Four is an English post-punk group from Leeds. Original personnel were singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bass guitarist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham. They were fully active from 1977 to 1984, and then re-emerged twice in the 1990s with King and Gill. In 2004, the original lineup reunited.
They play a stripped-down mix of punk rock, with strong elements of funk music, minimalism and dub reggae and an emphasis on the social and political ills in society. Gang of Four's later albums (Songs of the Free and Hard) found them softening some of their more jarring qualities, and drifting towards dance-funk and disco. Their debut album, Entertainment!, ranked at #490 in Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
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[edit] History
Gill and King, the creative forces in the band, brought together an eclectic array of influences, ranging from the neo-Marxist Frankfurt School of social criticism to the increasingly clear trans-Atlantic punk consensus. Their musical work was heavily influenced by a university-funded trip to New York, where they saw Television and the Ramones at the famous CBGB club.
Gill's unique guitar sound had a forebear in the playing of Wilko Johnson, the frenetic guitarist with archetypical British pub rockers Dr. Feelgood. Gill's skeletal, staccato, aggressive guitar has proved an enduring influence in turn, with the Edge of U2 owing much to this style. Jon King's threatening on-stage dancing, while equally idiosyncratic, has proved less easy to imitate. Paul Morley described the band's music as " a kind of demented funk, incredibly white but also, because of political committment and defiant sloganeering, very dark, and ultimately as close to the depraved edge of theblues and Hendrix"
Their first single "Damaged Goods" ( 1978 ,Fast Records) was a No 1 indie chart hit and John Peel radiop show favourite. This led to two outstanding Peel radio sessions, which , with their incendiary live performances, propelled the band to International attention and sold out shows across Europe and North America. They were then signed by EMI records. The group's debut single with this lable, "At Home He's a Tourist", charted in the British Top 40 in 1979. Invited to appear on top rated BBC music program Top of the Pops, the band walked off the show when the BBC told them that they must sing "packets" instead of "rubbers" as per the lyrics of the song, as the original was too subversive for this TV slot. The single was then banned by BBC Radio & TV, which lost the band support at record label E.M.I., who began to push another band instead -- Duran Duran. A later single, "I Love a Man in a Uniform", was banned by the BBC during the Falklands war in 1982.
Critic Stewart Mason has called "Love Like Anthrax" (their first single, later re-recorded as "Anthrax") not only the group's "most notorious song" but also "one of the most unique and interesting songs of its time". [1] It's also a good example of Gang of Four's social perspective: after a minute-long, droning, feedback-laced guitar intro, the rhythm section sets up a funky, churning beat, and the guitar drops out entirely. In one stereo channel, King sings a "post-punk anti-love song", comparing himself to a beetle trapped on its back ("and there's no way for me to get up") and equating love with "a case of anthrax, and that's some thing I don't want to catch."
Meanwhile, in the other stereo channel (and slightly less prominent in the mix), Gill reads a deadpan monograph about public perception of love, and the prevalence of love songs in popular music: "Love crops up quite a lot as something to sing about, 'cause most groups make most of their songs about falling in love, or how happy they are to be in love, and you occasionally wonder why these groups do sing about it all the time." The simultaneous vocals are more than a little disorienting, especially when Gill pauses in his examination of love songs to echo a few of King's sung lines.
According to critic Paul Morley " The Gang spliced the ferocious precision of Dr Feelgood's working-class blues with the testing avant-garde intrigue of Henry Cow. Wilfully avoiding structural obviousness, melodic prettiness and harmonic corniness, the gang's music was studded with awkward holes and sharp corners"
A troubled American tour saw the departure of Allen (who later co-founded Shriekback, Low Pop Suicide and The Elastic Purejoy); he was replaced briefly by Buster Jones (who never recorded with the group), then by Sara Lee, who later joined the B-52's. A year later Burnham also left the band after the release of Songs of the Free.
Like the Velvet Underground before them, the influence of Gang of Four on later musicians is far greater than their original record sales might suggest. Their angular, slashing attack and liberal use of dissonance had a significant influence on their post-punk contemporaries in the States, including Mission of Burma,REM and U2. Gang of Four went on to influence a number of successful funk-tinged alternative rock acts throughout the 80s and 90s, (even, arguably, many rap-rock and nu metal groups "not in touch with their ancestry enough to realize it" [2]), although few of their followers were as arty or political. Michael "Flea" Balzary of the Red Hot Chili Peppers has stated Gang of Four were very influential on his band's early music.
While many musicians have been inspired by the band's groundbreaking punk-funk musical style, they have rarely embraced the Situationist inspired socio-political observations within Jon King's lyrics . However, some American bands with an obvious GO4 influence, such as Minutemen and Fugazi, maintained and expanded the band's early agenda.
Gang of Four can also be credited as one of the early influences on techno or electronic music; they released dance remixes of several later singles.
Recently the band has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity, initially due to emergence of new post-punk influenced bands such as The Rapture, Liars and Radio 4 and then the rise of Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party, which led to the renewed patronage of the NME. The original Burnham/Allen/Gill/King lineup reformed in November 2004. In October 2005, Gang of Four released a new LP featuring new recordings of songs from the albums Entertainment!, Solid Gold and Songs of the Free entitled Return the Gift, along with an album's worth of remixes.
[edit] Personnel
- Hugo Burnham (Drums/Vocals) (first three albums)
- Dave Allen (Bass Guitar) (first two albums)
- Sara Lee (Bass Guitar) (replaced Dave Allen)
- Andy Gill (Guitar/Vocals)
- Jon King (Vocals/Melodica)
[edit] Discography
This list does not include compilation and greatest hit releases.
- Entertainment! (1979)
- Yellow EP (1980)
- Solid Gold (1981)
- Another Day/Another Dollar (1982)
- Songs of the Free (1982)
- Hard (1983)
- At the Palace (1984)
- Mall (1991)
- Shrinkwrapped (1995)
- Return the Gift (2005) (classic songs re-recorded)
- Live at KEXP, Volume II (2006)
[edit] Singles
| Year | Title | Chart positions | Album |
| US Modern Rock | |||
| 1991 | "Don't Fix What Ain't Broke" | #14 | Mall |
| 1983 | Is it Love? | UK Singles Charts | 88 |
[edit] Music samples
- From the album Entertainment! (25 second sample)
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- Recorded live at Hammersmith Palais, 20 March 1981 (25 second sample)
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[edit] External links
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