The Entroporium

Tonight I will get to see some old heroes on the reunion circuit, Gang Of Four, a band I’ve been hoping to see for about 25 years. I almost saw them in ’84 (with the original line-up already tore up, natch) opening for Black Uhuru and Talking Heads, but the Heads opted to play Steve Wozniak’s Us Festival instead. How’s that for a wayback machine entry?

For regular readers, pardon the interruption while I repeat a story from my March 31 entry. When I was 13. Gang Of Four did an in-store at the punk rock record store in Berkeley where I used to “work.” (I *was* working, doing most of the used record filing, but does a 13-year old really work?). Go4 were in Berkeley to publicize the Universal Records-sponsored gig they were doing with Romeo Void and Wall Of Voodoo. It was the first in-store they’d ever done, and they were really shy at first. They didn’t bring any management, just showed up, hung out, drank beer and chatted with whomever for several hours, until one of them said (I think it was Jon), “Is it OK to leave now?”

Looking back now, it’s difficult to see what a thorn they were for their record company. With songs about the failure of capitalism and their noisy declarations of complete artistic control, Go4 were undoubtedly a pain for their relatively mainstream label, Warner. This was pre-Chomsky-innundation so all this still seemed revolutionary and fresh. Growing up in Berkeley, all the “revolutionaries” seemed tired or lost, fatigued through too many years of battle, paranoia and cult recruitment. For a bunch of normal-looking guys (like me! but English!) to come along and say this stuff was eye-opening at the least.

I’ll let y’all know tomorrow how it goes.

[Soundtrack]
Gang Of Four – If I Could Keep It For Myself.mp3