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Solid gold By Deborah Giattina IN GENERAL, it's a good time to be Andy Gill, guitarist for the most name-checked post-punk band of the late '70s, Gang of Four. He's been producing hot new records, such as the Futureheads' self-titled debut; scores of guitarists currently emulate his aggressive and spazzed-out playing style; and he has just gotten back together with the three other original Go4 members, Jon King, Hugo Burnham, and Dave Allen, for a reunion tour. But at the moment I call him, things could be better. He has just taken solace at a pub because a faulty Firewire hard drive zapped two days' worth of mixing. "Yeah, it was a Gang of Four mix. Hey, I'll just do better," he says from the Old Mitre, a 16th-century pub located in the Holborn section of London, not far from where he was mixing the band's forthcoming double CD. But even in the midst of a catastrophe, the former art student is still channeling the themes, however inadvertently, that inspired him and vocalist King to start a band 27 years ago while the two attended Leeds University. "It's very Dickensian," he says of his location. One mention of the Victorian novelist and I begin to romanticize London's cobblestone streets and flickering lanterns, industrialization gone amok, and a smudge-faced guttersnipe in knickers hobbling down the road seeking his next bowl of porridge. Or maybe I'm just picturing one of those skinny guys from Bloc Party. In any case, Gang of Four were always partial to the notion that our understanding of the world is artificial and often sold to us in fancy packages – not that we have to buy them. Enlisting another schoolmate, drummer Burnham, and grabbing bassist Allen's interest through an ad, Gang of Four hit the scene at a time when British rock was exploding with creativity. Joy Division and the Mekons all wanted to take things in new directions. As Gill recalls, their edgy grooves and the chaotic shows quickly created a buzz that they were the band to watch. Naming themselves after the then recently arrested Chinese leaders because they thought it was funny, Go4 leveled a merciless critique on capitalism, consumerism, and the media, evidenced in lyrics like "Repackaged sex keeps your interest," from "Natural's Not in It." After signing to EMI in the U.K. in '79, the band toured for several years, releasing Entertainment! and Solid Gold. Exhausted, Allen quit the band in '82 and started Shriekback; Busta Jones and later Sara Lee took on bass-playing duties. Burnham has said he was purged from Go4, after Hard (Warner Bros., 1983), by Gill and King because the songwriters decided they didn't need his management skills; he was replaced by a drum machine on record and Steve Goulding onstage. After the live album At the Palace, the pair finally called it quits in 1984 – before reuniting for Mall (Polydor, 1991) and Shrinkwrapped (Castle, 1995). Back in the day, the press conveniently labeled them as "neo-Marxist funk" – though the band never extolled a specific ideology in their songs. Of their politics, Gill says, "I never wanted Gang of Four to be a band that was presenting onstage one foot on the monitors, fist raised high, 'Come on, brothers and sisters, we can break the system if we all work together!' ... It's more like, 'Fucking 'ell.' I'm saying in a rather quiet voice, 'Jesus Christ, I'm paralyzed.' " "Quiet" doesn't seem like the right word choice. Current accounts – such as Jon Pareles's review in the New York Times of their secret show this spring at London's Montague Arms, where he witnessed King assaulting a microwave oven with a crowbar – depict the foursome tearing apart the stage. King flails like he's gone mental. Gill still vaults across the stage unsure of where he'll land and what note he'll hit. In an earlier phone interview, Allen, who has been credited with originating the punk-funk thing on bass and now runs his artistic management company, Pampelmoose, in Portland, Ore., explained that with Go4's growing popularity, the band finally caved to the pressure to get back together, though it wasn't easy, considering King and Gill live in London – where King runs World Television, a video production company, and Gill has penned a book about Bob Dylan, and has written for NME, Q, and Mojo – and Burnham teaches at the New England Institute of Art. Secretly, he worried the press would "savage" their reunion, and the group decided their shows had to be explosive enough to justify touring again. So all wisely started exercise regimens before getting in front of an audience. Additionally, Allen offered tidbits on the double CD: bands such as Franz Ferdinand, No Doubt, and Massive Attack have been handed master tracks and given carte blanche to mix away for the second disc. Purportedly, Karen O will add vocals to "I Love a Man in a Uniform." Here's hoping the change will do us good. |
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