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Feb 02, 2020 By Matthew Berlyant Andy Gill

There are many things one can say about Andy Gill, the legendary guitarist of Gang of Four, who he founded in 1976 in Leeds. Gill passed away on Saturday in London from a short respiratory illness. He was 64. In addition to his visionary guitar work, which combined the pub-rock strum of proto-punk pioneers Dr. Feelgood’s Wilko Johnson with the slashing funk rhythm of James Brown, he also produced a wide variety of records ranging from the debut Lp by Red Hot Chili Peppers (one of many bands who owed more than a little to Gill’s playing and to Gang of Four in general) in 1984 to the great 2004 debut LP by Futureheads alongside Bis’ 1999 hidden gem Social Dancing. In addition, he produced some of his own band’s most well-loved recordings (including their landmark 1979 debut LP Entertainment!) and remained the only original member left during Gang of Four’s most recent reunion period (2004-present). At the time of his death, he was working on a new Gang of Four album.

Not just a much-imitated but never equaled guitarist, he also occasionally sang, as he did answering singer and other guitarist’s lines in “Anthrax,” Entertainment!’s last track or “Love Like Anthrax” as it was known in its earlier version which was on the Fast Product label’s compilation Mutant Pop with fellow Leeds post-punk pioneers The Mekons alongside early Human League recordings. He also wrote some of his band’s lyrics, including four songs from Entertainment!. After Gang of Four’s original lineup dissolved in 1982 after two excellent LPs (1981’s Solid Gold is still very underrated and almost the equal of Entertainment!) and several excellent EPs as well, they released two more albums (including 1982’s similarly underrated Songs of the Free, which featured “I Love a Man in a Uniform,” their most well-known song in the U.S.) before breaking up in the mid-‘80s. Several subsequent reunions included 1991’s Mall and 1995’s not-bad Shrinkwrapped, but they didn’t really get rolling again until the original lineup of Gill, vocalist Jon King, bassist Dave Allen, and drummer Hugo Burnham reunited in 2004. After a series of incredible shows and an album of re-recordings, the original lineup broke up again in 2006. 2010’s Content featured only King and Gill, as did the tour, and after King left several years later, Gill was the only remaining member.

Although they never sold many records, they influenced what seemed like almost every subsequent alternative rock band in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and particularly the post-punk revival of the early to mid-‘00s. For instance, it’s hard to imagine not only the aforementioned Red Hot Chili Peppers but Nirvana (Entertainment! was on Kurt Cobain’s list of his favorite albums), Rage Against the Machine (Gill is a known influence on Tom Morello), and others sounding the same and in the case of Rage, Gang of Four’s mix of lyrics inspired by Marxist and socialist critiques of capitalist society and British social mores was likely an inspiration as well on their own socially-conscious music. Their influence was also huge in the world of post-hardcore as well. The also socially-conscious and hugely influential DC band Fugazi was also heavily inspited by Gang of Four and Riot Grrl pioneers Bikini Kill got their name from a line in “I Found That Essence Rare.” And that’s the aspect that many of the ‘00s revivalists miss, even though many made some very good records. Gill, King, and Burnham were coming from an academic, dialectical point of view that wanted to marry Marxist thought and outrage about social ills like unemployment, sexism, and the possibility of nuclear annihilation with jagged, edgy, angular rock and roll. It’s too bad that Gill never lived to see a socialist President of the United States (a distinct possibility this year), but perhaps his bandmates (two of whom live in the U.S.) will. In the meantime, condolences go out to his family and friends.

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