Gang of Four
Background information
Origin	Leeds, England
Genre(s)	Post-punk, New Wave
Years active	1977–present
Label(s)	Recently V2 Records, previously EMI, Warner Bros. Records
Website	Official site
Members
Jon King Andy Gill Dave Allen Hugo Burnham
Former members
Sara Lee

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 line-up reunited. Image File history File links GangOfFourBand. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_England_(bordered). ... Leeds is a major city in West Yorkshire, England. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ... A music genre is a category (or genre) of pieces of music that share a certain style or basic musical language (van der Merwe 1989, p. ... Post punk generally refers to the particularly fertile and creative period following the initial punk rock explosion. During the first wave of punk, roughly spanning 1976-1983, bands such as The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones and The Damned began to challenge the current styles and conventions of rock... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... V2 Records is a record label which was started in 1996 by Richard Branson, four years after he sold Virgin Records to EMI. Over the years V2 acquired Junior Boys Own, Gee Street Records and Big Cat Records. ... The EMI Group (LSE: EMI) is a music company comprising the major record label, EMI Music, based in Brook Green in London, England, and EMI Music Publishing, based on Charing Cross Road, London. ... Warner Bros. ... Jon King, born June, 1955, is a singer, musician and founder member of the Leeds based UK rock band Gang of Four. ... Andy Gill is the guitarist for the British rock group Gang of Four. ... Dave Allen is the bassist for the post-punk band Gang Of Four. ... Hugo Burnham is the drummer for the British rock group Gang of Four. ... Sara Lee is an English bassist and singer-songwriter, possibly best known for replacing Dave Allen in the Gang of Four. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ... Post punk generally refers to the particularly fertile and creative period following the initial punk rock explosion. During the first wave of punk, roughly spanning 1976-1983, bands such as The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones and The Damned began to challenge the current styles and conventions of rock... Leeds is a major city in West Yorkshire, England. ... Jon King, born June, 1955, is a singer, musician and founder member of the Leeds based UK rock band Gang of Four. ... Andy Gill is the guitarist for the British rock group Gang of Four. ... Dave Allen is the bassist for the post-punk band Gang Of Four. ... Hugo Burnham is the drummer for the British rock group Gang of Four. ... For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is 150 kilobytes or more in size. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

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 début album, Entertainment!, ranked at #490 in Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... Funk is a distinct style of music originated by African-Americans, e. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... This article is becoming very long. ... Entertainment! is the 1979 debut album by English post-punk band Gang of Four. ... This article is about the magazine. ... Promotional Book Cover The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone magazine published in November 2003. ...

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. In a sociological sense, neo-Marxism adds Max Webers broader understanding of social inequality -- such as status and power -- to Marxist philosophy. ... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist social theory (which is more akin to anarchism than communism), social research, and philosophy. ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... NY redirects here. ... The Ramones were an American rock band often regarded as the first punk rock group. ... The outside front facade of CBGB CBGB (Country, Blue Grass, and Blues) was a legendary music club located at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. ...

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.^{[citation needed]} 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." Wilko Johnson (born John Wilkinson on 12 July 1947, in Canvey Island) is a guitarist particularly associated with 1970s British rhythm and blues band, Dr. Feelgood. ... Dr. Feelgood is a British Pub rock band, which was formed in mid 1971. ...

Their first single "Damaged Goods" (1978, Fast Records) was a No.1 indie chart hit 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 début single with this label, "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. Top 40 is a radio format based on frequent repetition of songs from a constantly-updated list of the forty best-selling singles. ... For the song by The Smashing Pumpkins, see 1979 (song). ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is one of the largest broadcasting corporations in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of more than £4 billion. ... Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a long-running British music chart television programme, made and broadcast by the BBC. It was originally shown each week, mostly on BBC One, from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. ... Duran Duran is an English Rock band notable for a long series of catchy, synthesiser-driven hit singles and vivid music videos. ... Combatants United Kingdom Argentina Casualties 258 killed [3] 777 wounded 59 taken prisoner 649 killed 1,068 wounded 11,313 taken prisoner The Falklands War (Spanish: ) was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. ... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

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." In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout much or all of a piece, sustained or repeated, and most often establishing a tonality upon which the rest of the piece is built. ... Audio feedback (also known as the Larsen effect) is a special kind of feedback which occurs when a loop exists between an audio input (for example, a microphone or guitar pickup) and an audio output (for example, a loudspeaker). ... Rhythm section refers to the musicians whose primary jobs in a jazz or popular music band or ensemble is to establish the rhythm of a song or musical piece, often via repeated riffs or ostinati. ... Love songs are songs about love, a subset of songs that deal with intimacy. ... Suborders Adephaga Archostemata Myxophaga Polyphaga See subgroups of the order Coleoptera Wikispecies has information related to: Coleoptera Beetles are the most diverse group of insects. ... Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection or profound oneness. ...

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. Deadpan (also known as Dry Humour) is a form of comedic delivery in which something humorous is said or done by a person, while not exhibiting a change in emotion or facial expression. ... A monograph is a scholarly book or a treatise on a single subject or a group of related subjects. ... Popular music is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and are disseminated by one or more of the mass media. ...

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" Paul Morley Paul Morley (born March 26, 1957 in Stockport, Cheshire) is an English music journalist, who wrote for the New Musical Express from 1977 to 1983, during one of its most successful and relatively notorious periods, and has since written for a wide number of publications. ... Henry Cow was an English avant-garde rock group, founded at Cambridge University in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. ...

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. Shriekback is a rock band formed in the early 1980s by Barry Andrews, formerly of XTC and League of Gentlemen (keyboards/synthesizers/vocals), Carl Marsh (guitars/vocals), and Dave Allen, formerly of the Gang of Four (bass). ... Sara Lee is an English bassist and singer-songwriter, possibly best known for replacing Dave Allen in the Gang of Four. ... Songs of the Free is the third studio album by Gang of Four. ...

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.^{[citation needed]} 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. Michael "Flea" Balzary of the Red Hot Chili Peppers has stated Gang of Four were very influential on his band's early music. Andy Kellman, writing in Allmusic, has even argued that Gang of Four's "germs of influence" can be found in many rap-rock and nu metal groups "not in touch with their ancestry enough to realize it." [2] The Velvet Underground and Nico (from left to right: John Cale, Nico, Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker) The Velvet Underground (Affectionately known as The Velvets, or V.U. for short) was an American rock and roll band of the late 1960s. ... In music, a consonance (Latin consonare, sounding together) is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance, which is considered unstable. ... Post punk generally refers to the particularly fertile and creative period following the initial punk rock explosion. During the first wave of punk, roughly spanning 1976-1983, bands such as The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones and The Damned began to challenge the current styles and conventions of rock... Mission of Burma LP cover Mission of Burma is a post-punk band from Boston, Massachusetts, USA comprising guitarist Roger Miller, bassist Clint Conley and drummer Peter Prescott, with Bob Weston (originally Martin Swope) as tape manipulator and sound engineer. ... Michael Balzary aka Flea Flea (born Michael Peter Balzary on October 16, 1962 in Burwood, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia) is the bassist for the alternative funk band Red Hot Chili Peppers. ... The Red Hot Chili Peppers are cheap skates Grammy Award-winning [2] American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1983. ... The All Music Guide (AMG) is a large, comprehensive and high quality metadata database about music. ... Rap rock is a hybrid of rap and rock music. ... Nu metal (also called aggro metal, or nü metal using the traditional heavy metal umlaut) is a musical genre that has origins in the mid 1990s. ...

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. The Minutemen were an American rock band from San Pedro, California comprising singer/guitarist D. Boon, singer/bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley. ... Fugazi are a rock band from Washington, D.C., formed in 1987. ...

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. The Rapture is an American rock band based in New York City. ... Liars is currently a three-piece band consisting of Australian-born Angus Andrew (vocals/guitar), Aaron Hemphill (percussion, guitar, synth), and Julian Gross (drums). ... Franz Ferdinand are a rock band that was formed in Glasgow and was named after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. ... Bloc Party are an English indie rock band. ... The New Musical Express (better known as the NME) is a weekly magazine about popular music published in the UK. It is unlike many other popular music magazines due to its intended focus on guitar-based music and indie rock bands, instead of mainstream pop acts. ... Entertainment! is the 1979 debut album by English post-punk band Gang of Four. ... Solid Gold, released in 1981 is the second full album by the British post-punk band Gang of Four. ...

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)

Hugo Burnham is the drummer for the British rock group Gang of Four. ... Dave Allen is the bassist for the post-punk band Gang Of Four. ... Sara Lee is an English bassist and singer-songwriter, possibly best known for replacing Dave Allen in the Gang of Four. ... Andy Gill is the guitarist for the British rock group Gang of Four. ... Jon King, born June, 1955, is a singer, musician and founder member of the Leeds based UK rock band Gang of Four. ...

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)

Entertainment! is the 1979 debut album by English post-punk band Gang of Four. ... Yellow EP is a 1980 EP released by Gang of Four. ... Solid Gold, released in 1981 is the second full album by the British post-punk band Gang of Four. ... Another Day/Another Dollar is a 1982 EP by Gang of Four. ... Songs of the Free is the third studio album by Gang of Four. ... Hard is an album by Gang of Four. ... Shrinkwrapped is an album by Gang of Four. ... KEXP (formerly KCMU) is a public radio station based in Seattle, Washington, that specializes in independent and alternative rock programmed by its disc jockeys. ...

Singles

The Modern Rock Tracks chart is a music chart that has appeared in Billboard magazine since the early 1980s. ... See also: 1991 in music (UK) Musical groups established in 1991 Record labels established in 1991 other events of 1991 list of years in music 1990s in music // 1991 was the year that grunge music made its popular breakthrough. ...

Music samples

Image File history File links GangOfFour_Tourist. ... Software development stages In computer programming, development stage terminology expresses how the development of a piece of software has progressed and how much further development it may require. ... Entertainment! is the 1979 debut album by English post-punk band Gang of Four. ... Image File history File links GangOfFour_Want. ... Software development stages In computer programming, development stage terminology expresses how the development of a piece of software has progressed and how much further development it may require. ... Located on Shepherds Bush Road, London W6, the Hammersmith Palais de Danse was opened in 1919 to host the newest jazz bands. ... March 20 is the 79th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (80th in leap years). ... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Official site
• Not Great Men (fan site)
• All Music Guide entry for Gang Of Four