Library Rock's Backpages

Gang of Four

Gang of Four

44 articles

Free articles

Gang of Four: Entertainment (EMI)

Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 6 October 1979

THE Four are ambitious; and so they accept the process. ...

List of articles in the library

By date | By writer | Most recently added

Singles: PiL, Cabaret Voltaire, X-Ray Spex, Chris Bell, The Cars et al

Review by Hugh Jarse, ZigZag, November 1978

PUBLIC IMAGE: 'Public Image' (Virgin) 'ELLO, A LOW-key re-emergence which grows on ya. I know everybody was expecting another anthem but here ya go, this ...

Gang Of Four Bang

Interview by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 11 November 1978

NOT JUSTA BUNCHA COMMIES, SEZ DAVE McCULLOUGH ...

The Human League, The Mekons, Gang Of Four: Electric Ballroom, London

Live Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 11 November 1978

AN EVENING of Fast Product at which Saturday night anticipation could be discerned in the expectant chattering of the throng outside — no slowcoaches amongst ...

The Jam, Gang of Four: Music Machine, London

Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 6 January 1979

DOZING AT the back of the lower layer of the multi-tiered Music Machine I couldn't help wondering what it is to be charming, chillingly nostalgic ...

Gang Of Four, Delta Five, A Certain Ratio: The Factory at the Russell Club, Manchester

Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, 24 February 1979

The Fast way to become intellectual ...

The Mekons/The Fall/Human League/Gang Of Four/Stiff Little Fingers: The Lyceum, London

Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 31 March 1979

AND THE STARS look very different today... For all practical rock purposes, we may as well own up that we are now living in the ...

Gang of Four: Dialectics Meet Disco

Essay by Mary Harron, Melody Maker, 26 May 1979

This is the year of the second coming of British art-rock – although the new art-rockers won't admit it. MARY HARRON strips away the modish ...

Gang of Four: The Gang's All Here

Interview by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 2 June 1979

...WELL ALMOST, AS GARRY BUSHELL DISCOVERS DURING A DRUNKEN DISCUSSION WITH THE GANG OF FOUR ...

Gang Of Four, Mekons, Specials, Delta Five: Lyceum, London

Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 9 June 1979

"ROOD BOIZE" Yeah! "ROOOOODD BOOIZZZZ" Uh huh! ...

Buzzcocks/Gang Of Four: Club 57, New York, NY

Live Review by Van Gosse, Melody Maker, 8 September 1979

THIS IS the year that the New Wave, or at least its more retrograde element, has finally hit the U.S. charts. Everybody English and short-haired, ...

The Buzzcocks, Gang of Four: Club 57, New York NY

Live Review by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 22 September 1979

THIS IS AN interesting juxtaposition: Buzzcocks work on a high energy formula, a formula that works; Gang Of Four work away from formula – they ...

Gang of Four: Entertainment! (EMI)

Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 6 October 1979

ENVELOPED AS we seem to be by such backward times, Gang Of Four could hardly have picked a more awkward moment to foist their collectivist ...

Gang of Four: Agitprop Rock

Interview by Don Snowden, L.A. Weekly, 3 January 1980

AMERICAN PUNKS strike the Gang of Four, Britain's punk agitprop band, as people who aren't quite sure what they're rebelling against. "These California surf punks ...

Gang of Four: Family Entertainment

Interview by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 12 January 1980

The Gang of Four expound a spot of dialectical materialism for PETE SILVERTON. ...

Gang of Four

Interview by Amy Linden, Damage, August 1980

I ALWAYS assumed that once "we the fans" began promoting and putting on shows, the bullshit would stop. I also held to the dream that ...

Gang Of Four Face The Capitalist Threat

Interview by Dave DiMartino, Creem, August 1980

IT SEEMS FUNNY now that I thought the Gang Of Four might be an "unpleasant" interview. The band's image as one of England's most overtly ...

Gang of Four's Great Leap Forward

Interview by Jim Green, Trouser Press, August 1980

"THE IRONY of our name," says guitarist Andy Gill of Gang of Four, "is the idea that four essentially middle-class English musicians would dare to ...

Outside the Bands Don't Toe the Line: Gang of Four Makes Music Their Way

Interview by Jon Young, Trouser Press, February 1981

WOULD YOU like your rock with politics or without? Today pop music offers a wide variety of choices: from the violent invective of stereotypic punk ...

Gang Of Four: Solid Gold (EMI)

Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 28 February 1981

FINALLY GANG Of Four agree among themselves long enough to record a set of seven new songs, add on three already-released-in-some-other-form originals, come up with ...

Gang of Four, Pere Ubu, Delta 5: Mountford Hall, Liverpool

Live Review by Penny Kiley, Melody Maker, 21 March 1981

Firing on all Four ...

Gang of Four

Interview by Deanne Pearson, The Face, April 1981

Poolswinning Yorkshire musicians syndicate, Hugo Burnham, Dave Allen, Jon King and Andy Gill, pictured with the small change from their record-breaking swoop on EMI's Treble ...

Gang of Four: Gang of Four (Warner Bros. EP); Tom Robinson: Sector 27 (IRS)

Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, April 1981

THE LAST twitches of the dying Left or the first angular thrusts of the New Right? It's your Move. The Gang of Four's solemn Marxist ...

Gang Of Four, Pere Ubu, Bush Tetras: Hammersmith Palais, London

Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 11 April 1981

FOUR BETTER OR WORSE? ...

Gang Of Four: Solid Gold

Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 29 April 1981

GANG OF FOUR called their first album Entertainment!, as if shouting from the rooftops that it wasn't. ...

Public Image Ltd.: Flowers of Romance (Warner Bros. BSK3536); The Gang of Four: Solid Gold (Warner Bros. BSK3656)

Review by Richard Harrington, The Washington Post, 20 May 1981

Rock-Bottom Rock ...

Gang of Four: Songs Of The Free (EMI)

Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 22 May 1982

AND SO the most highly-evolved piss artists in "rock" came to release their third LP. ...

Gang Of Four: Liverpool

Live Review by Penny Kiley, Smash Hits, 24 June 1982

THE GANG OF Four are one of the few groups who are almost always better on stage than on record. After a sticky patch last ...

Gang Of Four: The Revolution Lightens Up

Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, October 1982

While their political passion remains undimmed, these post-punk party comrades are now using heinous capitalist tactics like great melodies, gang vocals and good humor. ...

Letter Bomb for Ted Baxter: Gang of Four Out of Uniform

Interview by Laura Fissinger, Creem, November 1982

WHATEVER IT is that's doing a George Romero on the American Dream is finally starting to do it in such bastions of good life as ...

Gang of Four: Hard (EMI)

Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 10 September 1983

THESE DAYS the barricades are thinly manned. Back in '79 Rock was Against Everything and The Gang Of 4 provided a soundtrack of surgical firepower ...

Gang of Four: Four Get Out Their Trees

Interview by Annene Kaye, New Musical Express, 1 October 1983

ANNENE KAYE opens a branch account with the GANG OF FOUR. ...

Gang of Four = Hard Men in Good Cars

Profile and Interview by RJ Smith, Creem, March 1984

"All we have in common is the illusion of being together. And the only resistance to the illusions of the permitted painkillers come from the ...

Gang of Four: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century (Warner Bros.)

Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, February 1991

IF YOU HAPPEN to own a copy of The Trouser Press Guide to New Wave Records, you can open it to just about any page, ...

Post-Punk: Lubricate Your Living Room

Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, December 2001

FORGET ABOUT THE NOSTALGIA-MONGERING AND KITSCH REVIVALISM – THE POST-PUNK PERIOD OF 1979-81 WAS AN ASTONISHINGLY FERTILE TIME FOR BRITISH MUSIC, WHEN INDIE LABELS FLOURISHED ...

Post Punk's Not Dead!: ATTACK!

Retrospective by Mark Paytress, MOJO, January 2004

The avant-garde post-'77 post-punk sound was a revolutionary amalgam of funk, punk, disco and reggae. Mark Paytress explains the battle plan. ...

Gang Of Four: A Brief History Of The Twentieth Century

Review and Interview by David Stubbs, Uncut, February 2004

Reissued best-of follows renewed interest in scabrous post-punk politicos ...

The Gang's All Here – Again

Retrospective and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 13 January 2005

LIKE THE VELVET Underground a decade before them, Gang of Four were one of those bands who never had a proper hit but who created ...

Gang of Four: Irving Plaza, New York NY

Live Review by Jason Gross, Harp, 17 May 2005

IN 1977, A bunch of British university students formed a band, poignantly deciding to take the name of a group of disgraced communist leaders accused ...

Gang of Four: Entertainment!

Review by Alfred Soto, Stylus, 31 May 2005

A COMMAND OF MARXIAN DIALECTICS is an impressive talent when writing a term paper, but it means shit in a club. That's what Gang of ...

Gang of Four: Rare Essence

Profile and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, July 2005

TWO SPOTLIGHTS of solar-white intensity arc downward, one aiming stage left, the other to the right. A sudden jerk of the guitar from the illuminated ...

Gang Of Four play Entertainment!: Barbican, London

Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 27 September 2005

FORMED AT LEEDS University in 1977, they dragged punk's three-chord trick into a radical and subversive new direction by marrying its guitar-driven rage to funk's ...

Andy Gill meets Andy Gill

Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 17 September 2009

After 30 years of being mistaken for him, The Independent's music critic Andy Gill meets the Gang of Four's Andy Gill to discuss a shared ...

Gang of Four: Old punks, new Content

Profile and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 20 January 2011

Post-punk masterminds Gang of Four are back with their first new recorded material since their 2004 return to action. But why does it come packaged ...

see also Shriekback

RSS

back to LIBRARY

COPYRIGHT NOTICE