Gang of Four (band)

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Template:Infobox band The Gang of Four was a British post-punk group from Leeds, England. 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.

Gill and King, the creative forces in the band, brought together an eclectic array of influences, ranging from Situationism to the increasingly clear trans-Atlantic Punk consensus. More specifically, 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 Wilco 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.

The group had a single in the British Top 40 with "At Home He's a Tourist" in 1979. Invited to appear on top rated BBC music show 'Top of the Pops' the band refused to sing 'packets' instead of 'rubbers' as per the lyrics of the song and this principled stand for artistic integrity lost them support at record label E.M.I. who began to push another band instead - Duran Duran. A subsequent single 'I love a man in a uniform' was banned by the BBC due to the sensitive political situation caused by the Falklands war in 1981.

They played a stripped-down mix of punk rock, with strong elements of funk music 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.

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.

A troubled American tour saw the departure of Allen and a year later Burnham also departed the band at the request of King and Gill after frequent arguments and the release of Solid Gold. He was replaced briefly by Buster Jones (who never recorded with the group), then by Sara Lee; Allen later co-founded Shriekback, Low Pop Suicide and The Elastic Purejoy.

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. 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. 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.

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 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 the albums Entertainment!, Solid Gold and Songs of the Free entitled Return the Gift.