Gang of Four

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Gang of Four
Gang of Four performing in Bergen, Norway in 2007
Background information
Origin	Leeds, England
Genres	Post-punk
Years active	1977–1983 1987–1997 2004–present
Labels	V2 Records EMI Warner Bros. Records PVC/Jem Fast Product
Website	Official site
Members
Jon King Andy Gill Mark Heaney Thomas McNeice
Former members
Dave Allen Hugo Burnham Sara Lee Busta "Cherry" Jones

Gang of Four are 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 line-up reunited but in 2005 Allen was replaced on bass by Thomas McNeice and Burnham on drums by Mark Heaney in November 2005.

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 are widely considered as one of the leading bands of the late 1970s/early 1980s post-punk movement. Their later albums (Songs of the Free and Hard) found them softening some of their more jarring qualities, and drifting towards dance-punk and disco. Their debut album, Entertainment!, ranked at Number 490 in Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. David Fricke in Rolling Stone said "Gang of Four are probably the best politically motivated dance band in rock & roll."

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. Gang of Four was named by a member of the Mekons when while driving around with Gill and King he came upon a newspaper article on the intra-Party coup against China's "Gang of Four".

Their musical work was heavily influenced by a university-funded trip to New York, where they saw Television and the Ramones at CBGB.

Gill's unique guitar sound had a forebear in the playing of Wilko Johnson, the frenetic guitarist with archetypal British pub rockers Dr. Feelgood. Gill's skeletal, staccato, aggressive guitar has proved an enduring influence in turn.^[1] 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 commitment and defiant sloganeering, very dark, and ultimately as close to the depraved edge of the blues and Hendrix." Critic Greil Marcus found his first viewing of the group's performance so shattering that he left after their set rather than risk having the impact of the deeply political Gang of Four's songs dampened by the pop-punk of Buzzcocks.^[2]

The Gang's debut single, "Damaged Goods" backed with "(Love Like) Anthrax" and "Armalite Rifle", was recorded in June 1978 and released on 10 December 1978, on Edinburgh's Fast Product label. It was produced by the Gang and the Fast Product honchos Bob Last and Tim Inman. It was a Number 1 indie chart hit^{[citation needed]} and John Peel radio 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 label, "At Home He's a Tourist", charted 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 and TV, which lost the band support at EMI, who began to push another band, Duran Duran, instead.^{[citation needed]} A later single, "I Love a Man in Uniform", was banned by the BBC during the Falklands War in 1982.

Critic Stewart Mason has called "Anthrax" not only the group's "most notorious song" but also "one of the most unique and interesting songs of its time".^[3] 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",^[3] 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 (on the original E.P. version) a detailed account of the technical resources used on the song, which on the re-recorded album version is replaced by 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 rather 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."^{[citation needed]} At the time, the band was recognised as doing something very different to other white guitar acts. Ken Tucker, in Rolling Stone, 1980, wrote: "...rarely have the radical edges of black and white music come closer to overlapping... the Gang of Four utilize their bass guitar every bit as prominently and starkly as the curt bass figures that prod the spoken verses in [Kurtis Blow's "culture defining" huge summer hit] “The Breaks.”

In 1981 the band released their second LP, Solid Gold. Like Entertainment!, the album was uncompromising, spare, and analytical; such songs as "Cheeseburger," "He'd Send in the Army," and "In the Ditch" exposed the paradoxes of warfare, work, and leisure. Van Goss, in a Village Voice review said: "Gang of Four embody a new category in pop, which illuminates all the others, because the motor of their aesthetic is not a 'personal creative vision.'"

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 Busta "Cherry" Jones, a sometime player with Parliament and Talking Heads. He left to work with The Rolling Stones and was replaced by Sara Lee, who was Robert Fripp's bassist in League of Gentlemen. Lee was as good a singer as bassist, and she helped give the band's third studio album, Songs of the Free, a more accessible quality. Although "I Love a Man in Uniform" from the album was the band's most radio-friendly song, it was banned in the UK shortly after its release because Britain was at war in the Falklands Islands. Lee later joined The B-52's to be replaced by Gail Ann Dorsey, later famous for her long time bass playing association with David Bowie. A year later, Burnham left the band after the release of Songs of the Free.

1986 saw the release of The Peel Sessions, a collection of rawly rendered material recorded from 1979 to 1981 for British radio. Melody Maker dubbed the album "a perfect and classic nostalgia trip into the world of gaunt cynicism."

After the release of The Peel Sessions, Gill and King continued Gang of Four releasing Hard in 1983, Mall in 1991 and finally Shrinkwrapped in 1995.

The original lineup of Jon King, Andy Gill, Dave Allen and Hugo Burnham reformed in November 2004. In October 2005, Gang of Four released a new disc 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.

Mark Heaney replaced Hugo Burnham as drummer in November 2005 when he recorded the drums for Return the Gift, playing alongside Allen until, in May 2008, Allen announced his departure. The band, now comprising Gill, King, Heaney and new bass player Thomas McNeice continue to perform at major festivals and concerts in Europe includng Meltdown, Benicasim and Lovebox

Influence

Gang of Four went on to influence a number of successful funk-tinged alternative rock acts throughout the 80s and 90s, although few of their followers were as arty or political. Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers has stated that Gang of Four were the single most important influence on his band's early music.^[4] Andy Kellman, writing in Allmusic, has even argued that Gang of Four's "germs of influence" can be found in many rap metal groups "not in touch with their ancestry enough to realize it".^[5]

Sara Lee was also a judge for the 5th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers. ^[6]

In recent years the band has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity, initially due to emergence of new post-punk-influenced bands^{[citation needed]} 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.

Discography

Studio Albums

• Entertainment! (EMI, 1979) - UK Number 45, Australia Number 39
• Solid Gold (Warner Bros., 1981) – POP Number 190, UK Number 52
• Songs of the Free (Warner Bros., 1982) – U.S. Pop Number 175, UK Number 61
• Hard (Warner Bros., 1983) – U.S. Pop Number 168
• Mall (Polydor, 1991)
• Shrinkwrapped (Castle, 1995)

^[7]

Live albums

• At the Palace (Mercury, 1984)
• Solid Gold (Warner Bros., 1995)

Compilation albums

• A Brief History of the Twentieth Century (Warner Bros., 1990)
• The Peel Sessions (Dutch East India, 1990)
• 100 Flowers Bloom (Rhino, 1998)
• Return the Gift (V2, 2005)

Extended plays

• Yellow (EMI, 1980)
• Another Day/Another Dollar (Warner Bros., 1982) – U.S. Pop Number 195
• Tattoo (Castle, 1995)

Singles

Reissues

• Hard/Solid Gold (Wounded Bird, 2003)

Music samples

	At Home He's A Tourist From the album Entertainment! (25 second sample) What We All Want Recorded live at Hammersmith Palais, 30 March 1981 (25 second sample)
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References

External links

• Official site
• Allmusic entry for Gang Of Four
• thisisoffset | videos, music and biog
• Offset Festival - Gang of Four and Wire