Entertainment!
Sunny at Pollox Niner has posted up one of the Gang of Four's finest moments.. 'Damaged Goods', which if you've not heard you should immediately investigate.
It's not my favourite track of theirs though...that title belongs to 'At Home He's A Tourist', also originally from the classic 'Entertainment!' album. It should have been a massive hit for them, however Top of The Pops wouldn't let them perform the line 'The rubbers you hide, in your pocket' and without this TV exposure it stalled just outside the Top 40. It seems incredible that such an inoffensive line could be censored as recently as 1979, but morality is a strange beast. I was reminded of Kenneth Tynan's famous honour of being the first man to say 'Fuck' on television. He was smoking a fag at the time. If that show went out now, the fact he was smoking on television would cause outrage while the expletive would go unnoticed.
(Nice quote from Tynan: "A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car")
Back to the track though, it's incredible the tension created by the jerky bass & itchy guitar stabs. The riff in the chorus sounds like a massive release of all that tension, before reaching the 15 stabs at the climax, sounding to me like the embodiment of frustration. Despite all this the track does make me want to dance, although I'm not sure it's possible without jerking around like Ian Curtis. Terrible danger of spillage on the dancefloor.
Strangely G of F didn't have a great deal of recognition in their home town of Leeds when I was a student there. The Sisters of Mercy were more likely to be mentioned as part of the city's musical heritage. I'm sure that would have changed now with the likes of Franz Ferdinand & Bloc Party paying well-publicised homage to the Gang of Four sound.
GANG OF FOUR - AT HOME HE'S A TOURIST
There are a couple of excellent articles on the Gang of Four here. Take a look.
It's not my favourite track of theirs though...that title belongs to 'At Home He's A Tourist', also originally from the classic 'Entertainment!' album. It should have been a massive hit for them, however Top of The Pops wouldn't let them perform the line 'The rubbers you hide, in your pocket' and without this TV exposure it stalled just outside the Top 40. It seems incredible that such an inoffensive line could be censored as recently as 1979, but morality is a strange beast. I was reminded of Kenneth Tynan's famous honour of being the first man to say 'Fuck' on television. He was smoking a fag at the time. If that show went out now, the fact he was smoking on television would cause outrage while the expletive would go unnoticed.
(Nice quote from Tynan: "A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car")
Back to the track though, it's incredible the tension created by the jerky bass & itchy guitar stabs. The riff in the chorus sounds like a massive release of all that tension, before reaching the 15 stabs at the climax, sounding to me like the embodiment of frustration. Despite all this the track does make me want to dance, although I'm not sure it's possible without jerking around like Ian Curtis. Terrible danger of spillage on the dancefloor.
Strangely G of F didn't have a great deal of recognition in their home town of Leeds when I was a student there. The Sisters of Mercy were more likely to be mentioned as part of the city's musical heritage. I'm sure that would have changed now with the likes of Franz Ferdinand & Bloc Party paying well-publicised homage to the Gang of Four sound.
GANG OF FOUR - AT HOME HE'S A TOURIST
There are a couple of excellent articles on the Gang of Four here. Take a look.
posted by headphonesex @ 8:49 PM
