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Don’t blame GANG OF FOUR for the glut of dance-punk redundancy-feel free to blame their imitators, though.
Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 10-Oct-05 @ 12:00 AM
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Minimalist, Angular Dance-Punk Fueled By Political (And Internal) Tension-Until
They Started Sucking, At Least YEARS OF EXISTENCE: 1977-1984; reformed 1990, 1995, 2005 RECORD TO START WITH: Entertainment! (1979, Warner Bros.; reissued 1995, Infinite Zero; reissued 2005, Rhino) AFTER THAT, CHECK OUT: Solid Gold (1981; reissued 1995, Infinite Zero); 100 Flowers Bloom (1998, Rhino) GO DOWNLOAD: "Ether," "Natural's Not In It," "Not Great Men," "At Home He's A Tourist," "I Found That Essence Rare," "Damaged Goods," "Anthrax," "Paralysed" THE MUSIC, THE MESSAGE: It wasn't by virtue of the name's ring that Gang Of Four-in their original, classic lineup of vocalist Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bassist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham-took their moniker from a radical Chinese Communist faction. Fiercely Marxist-inspired, to the point of writing songs that criticized their own position as a musical commodity, GO4 created some of the most thought-provoking music of the post-punk era. Of course, the band's politics would be a mere historical footnote if their music-particularly their early recordings-weren't so energizing. Powered by staccato rhythms, dub-reggae undertones, a brilliant use of negative space, and Gill's slashing, idiosyncratic guitar workouts, Entertainment! and the Yellow EP-both jointly reissued, along with bonus tracks, this year by Rhino-are the pinnacle of GO4's catalog, and the recommended starting point for new listeners. (For an extended primer, check out Rhino's 1998 GO4 anthology, 100 Flowers Bloom.) Solid Gold, released in 1981, burns with much of the same urgency (as does the same era's Another Day/Another Dollar EP); and even the disco-humping, club-single-yielding Songs Of The Free has its moments. Sadly, however, 1983's Hard, along with the pathetic, Allen- and Burnham-absent Mall (1991) and Shrinkwrapped (1995), is the sound of an expiration date long overlooked. PUNK-ROCK RELEVANCE: Critics used to accuse the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fugazi and any other white alt-rock band that dared dabble in funk of stealing from Gang Of Four; but really, it's only today that we're seeing the extent of the band's shadow. If you've spent any time in the Williamsburg-Brooklyn party scene of the past few years, odds are you've danced to, brushed against or perhaps even played in something close to GO4 at their prime (exhibit A: the Rapture). Which isn't to say GO4's influence is limited to NYC coke stalls: From the West Coast (Moving Units) to Kentucky (VHS Or Beta) to England (Bloc Party), to anywhere else $250 jeans and angular haircuts reign supreme, the scrabbling, agitated funk of the band's late-'70s/early-'80s heyday is the stuff hipster dance parties are made of-minus, of course, the Zen-like sense of discovery and political incisiveness that fueled GO4 into being. No insult meant to Bloc Party and their ilk, of course, but come on: You play anything off Silent Alarm next to the first two songs on Entertainment! and tell us who's master of this game. CURRENT WHEREABOUTS: Having enjoyed post-Gang Of Four success in A&R, music publishing and teaching (Burnham), record-label ownership (Allen), multimedia administration (King and Allen), and record production (Gill), the classic GO4 lineup reformed around Entertainment!'s reissue to atone for the sins of their last few albums, launching a series of remarkably energized live dates-including some featuring Long Island-based GO4 clones Radio 4 as support (one can only assume the old men have a sadistic side). And while they haven't aged as well as, say, Morrissey, GO4 '05 are proving that it was soul, not youth and fashionability, that birthed the genre currently known as dance-punk. Quick, someone tell the Bravery. -Aaron Burgess |
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