Gang Of Four.

Entertainment is the album, released 1979 on EMI.

My fav track: I found that essence rare

Biography

Gang Of Four was formed in 1977 in Leeds, England, by Andy Gill, Jon King and Hugo Burnham, all graduates of Leeds University, and Dave Allen, who answered an advert for a 'bass player wanted'. After their first single in 1978, they were snapped up by EMI and released their debut album Entertainment! in 1979.

Their second single, At Home He's A Tourist, actually made the UK Top 40, and Gang Of Four had been due to appear on Top Of The Pops, but were dropped at the last minute when they refused to remove the word 'rubbers' from the lyrics. Having retained their artistic integrity but missed their chance of wider fame, they were destined to remain a cult band, and they never again reached the singles chart.

The second album Solid Gold was released in 1981, but shortly afterwards Dave Allen left to form Shriekback, and was replaced on bass by Sara Lee. A third album, Songs Of The Free followed in 1982, but by this point much of the original hard edge had been lost from the music. Hugo Burnham left after this album, and the fourth album, Hard (1983), featured Andy Gill programming the Linndrum, with Jo Galdo, Ron Albert and Howard Albert also heavily involved. Steve Goulding provided live drums until 1984, when the band broke up. A live album, At The Palace, features one of their last gigs.

For a while, that was it, but in 1990 Gang Of Four was re-formed, on a part-time basis, by Andy Gill and Jon King, with various people filling in on bass and drums. The first single from the reformed band was Money Talks, released by independent record label Scarlett Recordings, and an album Mall followed in 1991, on Polydor. The sound was rather more electronic than Gang Of Four's earlier work, and later they admitted to only being happy with about half of it.

Andy and Jon kept themselves busy with film soundtrack work, and one such film, Delinquent, provided much of the music for the sixth Gang Of Four studio album, Shrinkwrapped. The album was released by When! (part of Castle Communications) in 1995, to widespread acclaim but (presumably) the usual dismal sales. A couple of rare but triumphant gigs followed, in London and America, but Jon King has since left the music business, meaning the end of Gang Of Four.

In 1998 Andy, Hugo and Dave worked together in compiling a 2-CD compilation, 100 Flowers Bloom, which was released in the USA including a number of new remixes and previously unreleased live and demo versions of earlier songs. For the future, a live album and even a live video have been rumoured.

One of the few political bands where the sound itself was political. So rigorously ugly! So serious! So sharp! And fonky! cf "What We All Want:" whap-boom-boom ad infinitum. Guitars that sound like the rails of a train.

I also have a probably-too-high tolerance for bands that ape their sound shamelessly (Radio 4 et al).

The two-CD retrospective on Rhino from a few years ago somehow manages to make even the good stuff sound not-so-good.

Sometimes I imagine what would have happened if Go4 had only ever released one single: "I Found That Essence Rare"/"At Home He's A Tourist." I don't know if the world would have lost all _that_ much. (Well, "Love Like Anthrax"...)

Dunno what's up with the supermarket tape -- the next song was "The Lovecats" -- and I'm like, "Whoa."

*"Armalite Rifle" has that particularly good/telling bit - "I disapprove of it. And so does John." There's something endearingly vicarish about "disapprove" in the context.

Don DeLillo will steal this for the sequel to "White Noise," promise.

my band-mates saw them supporting pere ubu (on the new picnic time tour? not sure) and said they were awful, i can remember rob (our bassplayer) imitating their bassplayer, and me thinking "yes that sounds awful"

ubu rob said was the best thing he evah saw

the name "the gang of four" i think is one of greatest evah, and i am quite interested in rehearing the post-entertainment stuff again, to check how much *i* have changed

I'll get me coat.

OK, there are reasons I remember the date but there are very very few other songs I remember the date I first heard them.

Thank you people!

"You don't know how radical "I Love a Man in a Uniform" is until you're walking through a supermarket in the middle of Iowa shopping for vegetables and candy and so on and then you realize the song coming in through the speakers is "ILaMiaU." All products recontextualize themselves under such circumstances."
Don DeLillo will steal this for the sequel to "White Noise," promise.

I just found out that Gang of Four were also on the Karate Kid soundtrack (granted it was later shit-version Gang of Four, but still). Paging DeLillo.

The Yellow EP and Another Day, Another Dollar EP are also good.

HANG ON A SECOND, that's a fantastic song, you nutter. Until the end, when it just kind of forgets that it's over and keeps going.

The greatest moment of like the past year was driving around with two jackasses who'd been wearing Russian military outfits for a week straight for fun when this song came on. "Suddenly this song isn't really f unny anymore." They finally changed their frigging clothes after that. It was beautiful.

http://www.seetickets.com/xxxtickets/event.asp?e%7Cartist=GANG+OF+FOUR

yeah, that live version of "what we all want" is a real monument.

frank kogan called them "teachers' pets" somewhere on ilm, which popped the balloon for me i'm afraid.

"To Hell with Poverty" greatest fucking moment for Gang of Four? I wish I'd been in a band in college just to have played the song in the little smoky bar where all the school bands played Sublime and shit. I love the "Ow ow ow OWWWWW"s and harmonics.

A reunion tour rarely excites me, but since Gof4 was one of my all-time faves, I'm interested, but mostly cuz I've seen them 5 times, but never with Dave Allen on bass.
What's this about a new album? http://www.gangoffour.co.uk/

I wonder what their US dates will look like. I figure 5 or 6 shows apart from that Couchella (sp?) thang in CA.

Thu, 05/05/05
09:00 PM Gang of Four McMenamins Crystal Ballroom Portland, OR

Tue, 05/10/05
07:00 PM Gang of Four Quest Club Minneapolis, MN

Wed, 05/11/05
07:30 PM Gang of Four Metro Chicago, IL

Thu, 05/12/05
07:30 PM Gang of Four Metro Chicago, IL

Sat, 05/21/05
08:00 PM Gang of Four Theatre of Living Arts Philadelphia, PA

Sat, 05/14/05
06:00 PM Gang of Four The Phoenix Concert Theatre Toronto, ON

Well maybe if some of the Brits hurry up and get on here...of course it's only 7 AM there, so...

"New album to come"

Hell yeah

Kind of like an awesome supergroup. (Is Roger still retired or does he still do an occasional gig?)

FWIW, I saw some clips from tonight at Sony Hall, and besides guitar duties, Ted Leo handles secondary vocals really well too - very forceful.

Roger is touring soon, seeing him in a couple weeks

Last time I saw Mission of Burma's Roger Miller at Rhizome in DC, he did an artsy avante set first, took a break, then came back and did some Mission of Burma songs and other rock ones

I was there and can’t believe I missed that second set.

Miller kinda mumbled that he would be back after a break for a second set. You weren’t the only person who missed it. I know someone else who did also.

Gang of 4 had Lenny Kaye with them in NY. They’re apparently trying to have special guests at many of these shows

Oof Jon’s voice is in rough shape but the band sounds good

xps That YouTube Channel actually recorded that entire Somerville show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiQ8TXq3-aI

Looks fun, almost ... too fun? Is Ted affecting an accent?

Ted sounded American to me at the Washington show

Last night’s special guest was Marissa Paternoster, who I hadn’t heard of before but did a good job.

Last night’s special guest was Marissa Paternoster, who I hadn’t heard of before but did a good job.

She was in band Screaming Females. She was also at the NYC show where Lenny Kaye also joined them. I was at the Washington DC show too (scored a ticket last minute ) and at times I thought Ted sounded American, but other times I thought he was affecting a Brit accent. When they did "Armalite Rifle" for an encore, King noted that they hadn't played that live in years and then he dissed the song saying he hoped that this would be the only time they played it. He and Leo seemed to be looking at each other more carefully during that song, and after King said something about not practicing it, so maybe that was his issue with it.

It was a fun show. I was lucky enough to have seen GO4 way way back when, and sporadically later as well. I think Pajo was a better substitute than Leo, but Leo was still pretty good. Yep, King's voice was rough and scratchy last night but he was still full of energy and dancing like he always has. King was telling brief anecdotes between songs about his first visits to the US, and how he likes the country despite the current administration.

Yeah the anecdotes were nice and he can still thwack a microwave

The anecdote about the unnamed member of the Cars was hilarious.

Re: Ted Leo, I loved his shredding on Anthrax.

I also noted Jon’s voice got a little better as the show progressed.

Anyway if anyone is in the fence about seeing them, don’t be, they’re awesome.

In his memoir, King claims than an increasingly alcoholic and fame-obsessed Gill was responsible for Hard and other nasty decisions.

yeah but that's the Democrats' fault.

Lol

Foolishly bought the autobiography online when I could have bought it at the show and had Jon sign it.

Xp makes sense cause Gill’s vocals are all over Hard, more so than any other record.

Anyway Alfred would have thought you’d be a defender of Hard.

I also noted Jon’s voice got a little better as the show progressed.

I'm wondering if he's just phlegmy. There's a moment or two where he clears his throat between songs while talking to the audience and sounding much better, so maybe he needs to drink a lot of water during the show? (Down side of this strategy - really needing to pee in the middle of a set.)

King's voce sounded better in second set after the break I thought.

I go to many concerts but always kick myself for ones I skipped or missed, like the Andy Gill band show in DC shortly before he passed away right at beginning of the pandemic. Old guy me had seen Gill with GO4 at least.

In his memoir, King claims than an increasingly alcoholic and fame-obsessed Gill was responsible for Hard and other nasty decisions.

I was digging into interviews from the last 20 years and I was stunned how strained the relationships were within the band, and how nasty Gill would be to the others in print, though his moods seem to fluctuate wildly from interview to interview. The worst may be this 2015 Vice interview. It becomes very understandable why three of them chose to move forward with getting their catalog back from Warner Bros. without Gill's involvement:

“His main point is that he doesn’t think musicians should get paid,” says Andy Gill, laying into his ex-bandmate turned digital music guru Dave Allen, now an artist relations specialist at iTunes. “He thinks music should be free. And when you actually push him on that, he comes up with things like, ‘Earn some money on ringtones.’ Literally.” Sniggers ripple across Andy’s new band members. “So what better person to work for Apple, having come from Gang of Four,” he concludes of his ex-comrade, “although so briefly”...

Near the end of Paul Lester’s 2008 biography, Damaged Gods, the band descend into a cacophony of shit-stirring, mutual character assassination and petty quibbling over credits. So I take it with a pinch of salt when, asked if there’s any part of Gang of Four history he’d like to correct, Andy wants to settle some scores about that aforementioned former bassist Dave Allen...

Today, Dave pays his mortgage working for Apple, having transferred to Artist Relations when Beats, his old employer, was bought out. According to Andy, Dave’s professional leverage as a Gang of Four legend is exaggerated. “When we started the band, Jon and I were very keen to follow a kind of collective model,” says Andy. “We kind of forced the other two to take 25% of it. And we bent over backwards to try and represent ourselves as an equal creative collective, to the extent that we were actually being totally dishonest, because that wasn’t the situation at all – Dave Allen didn’t contribute a single idea at any point. And you can imagine how Apple must’ve thought when they got him on board, ‘We need someone really credible from a really credible band, so we can explain to the public that it’s cool to rip off musicians.’”

Presumably Andy considers Dave’s part in the reunion record Return the Gift a bit of a contradiction, then? “Yes,” he nods. “That regrouping of the so-called original four was probably slightly money-driven—and,” he adds, “going on the road was not the most fun I’ve ever had. Dave is a snake in the grass, a pain in the arse. Always whispering something in Hugo’s ear, saying I’d said something bad about him.” He sighs. “He was always trying to foment some sort of disharmonious situation”...

Since this article was published Dave Allen has been in contact with Noisey. He rejects the claims made by Andy Gill in this article in regard to his role with Gang of Four, and his subsequent career in the online music technology field.

FWIW, re: King, Burnham and Allen wishing to reclaim their catalog, it's no surprise after King stated this in a Slate interview in 2005:

“We have never made any money at all from record sales with EMI and still have unrecouped advances,” King wrote in an e-mail. “So we didn’t want them to benefit as they did nothing to support us.” As for their original American record company, Warner Bros., King claims that they deleted Entertainment!—easily one of the 50 most powerful and influential rock albums of all time—in 1993 and only rereleased it in 2005 in response to Gang of Four’s having become a fashionable reference point. Rerecording the songs—something that contracts typically allow artists to do after 20 years—puts Gang of Four in a strong bargaining position for negotiating a new deal with superior royalty rates. “It is our way of reasserting ownership of our own material,” says King.

At the end of the Gang of Four show the other night in DC, Hugo noted that the band was trying to raise money for Dave Allen's family to help pay off medical expenses. Allen had early onset dementia.

I think Allen was with Apple from 2014 to 2018,

Most recently, Allen co-founded DinWorkshop in 2018, a consultancy and design studio for musicians. In addition to stints in artist relations at Apple Music and as an advocacy director at Beats Music, Allen also lectured at Pacific Northwest College of Art and University of Oregon. He served as founder and president of Pampelmoose, a Portland music label and artist platform, until 2010. https://www.wweek.com/music/2025/04/09/dave-allen-gang-of-four-bassist-and-portland-music-industry-consultant-has-died/

The King memoir has Warner Bros chief executive quite excited about Entertainment, though King suggests it was the usual ooze.

I bought a remastered copy of Entertainment through Columbia House in late 1999, the one with liner notes dotted with praise from Michael Stipe, Flea, etc.

The Infinite Zero (the Rollins/Rubin reissue label) edition of Entertainment was available for awhile, although who knows what the royalties looked like. Warner kept the History of The 20th Century comp (liners by Greil Marcus) in print for a long time, and Rhino put out a two-disc full career anthology prior to their reissue of Entertainment, which was part of bigger catalogue initiative covering Punk (expanded Ramones, Stooges, and Television albums; Talking Heads box set etc.)

Oh I ❤️ Infinite Zero, bought so much of that catalogue. Trouble Funk!

Flipper!

Suicide!

I kind of remember Spin doing a contest tied into their 25th Anniversary of Punk issue in 2001, where they gave away a CD prize package of all the albums from the "50 Greatest Punk Albums" list, with the small print caveat that it didn't include the three OOP titles, which were (IIRC): Entertainment; Oi!: The Album; and Los Angeles (the London twofer w/Wild Gift had literally just gone off-catalogue as Slash changed distribution to Rhino, who reissued it a couple years later).

The Monks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8JDRQIo83U

Gang of Four Peel Sessions July 1979 discussed way upthread

^^ still not reissued, to my great annoyance

Looks fun, almost ... too fun? Is Ted affecting an accent?

Was thinking about "Damaged Goods" all day and wondered how diminished it might sound with an American accent. Then mentally tried different accents, ended up wishing Joey Ramone had covered it.

^^ Fantastic—I forgot how great that Peel Session is; thanks of posting!

Jon Langford and Sally Timms have been stranded by a train out of operation for 12 hours and counting in Spain, and Hugo just posted "Outside the Trains Don't Run ... At All."

honestly, being stranded in spain is not a bad thought in concept...but with no power that's not great. I was almost kind of hoping that I would be refused re-entry back into the US when I was in Spain in February

Saw them in Minneapolis this past weekend. I didn't detect any shakiness in King's voice, he sounded good to me throughout. Ted Leo was excellent on guitar. He did sound like he was affecting a British accent here and there on the vocals, but I'm sure I'd do the same

We saw that tickets for the Monday show out by Joshua Tree at Pappy & Harriets had dropped down to $9 on StubHub. We couldn't not go at that price. Terrific show, fantastic time. The Gail/Ted lineup revealing a 1968 Detroit alongside 1976 Leeds. Derwood from Generation X joined for a song and they easily could have played MC5 covers all night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDGprhVdtoQ

You beat the Stubhub price I paid (and I thought mine was good).

Man. Prices were nuts here. But I think resale is particularly f'ed up in Illinois.

Location is everything. I've seen Stubhub bargains at Jones Beach when stops in NYC went for far more. Makes sense - if you don't live close by, it can be a pain (and costly) to get to if you don't have a car.

They’re still touring the US? That’s a long tour for this day and age, especially old guys.

They were a blast in near Detroit. King gushed about the city.

Burnham appears to have purchased a bucket hat from the Motown Museum.

I still think "Shrinkwrapped" is pretty solid. Ironically enough it reminds me a bit of Shriekback.

it is! it’s better than Mall.

Well yeah, "Mall" is most irredeemable. "Shrinkwrapped" is their last hurrah. Apparently I'll be seeing the remnants of the band at Solid Sound this summer.

I didn't realize that's Andy's wife on track 4 (Or rather four years before they were married.)