Gang of Four - Entertainment!
I was a 17 year old Ventura high school student when I first heard Entertainment! By then, my musical tastes had already moved permanently from Ted Nugent and Led Zepplin to Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and all things L.A. punk. My ears were ready but I was unprepared for Gang of Four's butcher sliced staccato guitar riffs contrasted against the blistering reggae-funk basslines and syncopated, in your face drums. Against, this jagged and emaciated backdrop, stopping-starting, slowing down and speeding up, the vocals examined relationships from a point of view that my teenage self had never considered. Love compared to disease - "Love will get you like a case of Anthrax" ("Anthrax"); Love in terms of self-interest, "We all have good intentions/but with strings attached" ("Natural's Not In It").
In my bedroom, my body would be jerking dancing and I'd be singing, "Sometimes I'm think how this would ing that I love you/But I know it's only lust," probably without realizing allow me to intellectualize the punk I listened to, would listen to. Twenty years on, and I'm a New York City writer, haven't listened to Entertainment in years, and see that they are playing around. Sadly, I missed the shows. Yet, listening to the album and the songs that came out on the E.P. after have helped me realize how dynamic and structrually inventive the band was and is. Their recent shows (as well as their new release), I've read, are from Entertainment! and Solid Gold - this is both disturbing and comforting. Comforting, because there is a nostalgic part of me that seeks to find the part ofme that loved that music two decades ago. Disturbing, because like the guy in "Outside the Trains Don't Run On Time," I've become nostalgic and discipline is an obsession.
BTW, bands like Franz Ferdinand and The Futureheads get compared to GOF in almost every review. There might be some GOF there. I know that with Futureheads, the connection is Andy Gill, the producer. With Franz, it's the start-stop, fast-slow nature of their songs. The better comparison, I believe is Monochrome Set and I believe there is a direct connection there as one of the Monos produced Franz.
In my bedroom, my body would be jerking dancing and I'd be singing, "Sometimes I'm think how this would ing that I love you/But I know it's only lust," probably without realizing allow me to intellectualize the punk I listened to, would listen to. Twenty years on, and I'm a New York City writer, haven't listened to Entertainment in years, and see that they are playing around. Sadly, I missed the shows. Yet, listening to the album and the songs that came out on the E.P. after have helped me realize how dynamic and structrually inventive the band was and is. Their recent shows (as well as their new release), I've read, are from Entertainment! and Solid Gold - this is both disturbing and comforting. Comforting, because there is a nostalgic part of me that seeks to find the part ofme that loved that music two decades ago. Disturbing, because like the guy in "Outside the Trains Don't Run On Time," I've become nostalgic and discipline is an obsession.
BTW, bands like Franz Ferdinand and The Futureheads get compared to GOF in almost every review. There might be some GOF there. I know that with Futureheads, the connection is Andy Gill, the producer. With Franz, it's the start-stop, fast-slow nature of their songs. The better comparison, I believe is Monochrome Set and I believe there is a direct connection there as one of the Monos produced Franz.