With thanks to the band’s website

Gang Of Four are one of the most radical, and radically important, rock groups of the last 30 years. Their music, starting with 1978's Damaged Goods EP, offered a danceable solution to the problem of where four-piece guitar bands could go next after punk. They also provided the perfect answer to the question: how to be polemical without being po-faced, ponderous, banal or doctrinaire?

Four young men in their early twenties who convened in the late '70s in Leeds, they were the first white rock group to come up with the idea that using contemporary funk and reggae rhythms might be an interesting way forward for rock'n'roll, a way out of punk's cul de sac. With Andy Gill slashing away on guitar over the Dave Allen/Hugo Burnham rhythm section while Jon King declaimed over the top about love as disease or the torture of prisoners in Northern Ireland like a deranged demagogue, Gang Of Four were like Wilko Johnson of Dr Feelgood jamming with Parliament-Funkadelic produced by Lee Perry as a Radio 4 newsreader intoned balefully in the background.  

More than anything, Gang Of Four were about visceral, high energy, maximum impact rock'n'roll. They made you dance and they made you sweat just as they made you think. That exclamation mark at the end of the title of their 1979 debut album Entertainment! – incidentally, one of the greatest debut albums ever made, in fact, one of the greatest long-playing records, period – was no accident or sleight of design. Nor were they rentagobs or rabble-rousers. They managed to inveigle complex ideas into powerful songs that were provocative yet simply thrilling. The music on that debut long-player was born out of a specific time in history, the result of a series of very specific circumstances and conditions – social, economic, emotional, political, musical – and yet it remains as true, as resonant, as relevant, as universally applicable three decades on as it was the day it was released.

The same could be said for the next Gang Of Four music and lyrics contained on such albums as Solid Gold (1981), Songs Of The Free (1982), Hard (1983), Mall (1991) and Shrinkwrapped (1995). But Gang Of Four have never been about nostalgia, about becoming a dusty relic in the great museum of rock'n'roll. They are urgent, they are angry, and they are happening now! Gang Of Four have always operated in a permanent, continuous present tense, or rather tense present. This is why people enticed by the notion of an intelligent but electrifying funk-rock outfit – and by "people" you can include such GOF acolytes as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M, Bono, Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party, some of the biggest acts on the planet, old and new – were enthralled by the announcement, back in 2005, that Gang Of Four were coming back.

Over the last two years, Gang Of Four has played some exhilarating live shows around the world that have been as visionary, relevant and exciting as ever. Their classic songs have connected with a new generation of fans, many of whom have discovered the band through finding the source that has inspired many of the best current guitar outfits. In 2005 Gang Of Four re-recorded a selection of their favourite tunes on Return The Gift, featuring Mark Heaney on drums while Hugo Burnham played live shows with the band until late 2006, when he left to focus on his successful academic career in the USA. Heaney then took over as drummer for live appearances and has played across Europe with the band ever since.  In April 08 Dave Allen left to be replaced by Thomas McNiece.

Andy Gill is Gang of Four’s guitarist, founding member, producer and co-writer. One of the most radical, and radically important groups of the last 30 years, Gang of Four sealed its reputation with albums such as Entertainment! (1979) and Solid Gold (1980) and hit singles such as "At Home He's a Tourist," "Damaged Goods," "Anthrax," "What We All Want" and "I Love a Man in Uniform."
Here’s The Independent on Gang of Four: “Bands occasionally get described as being ‘ahead of their time’. Usually it means nothing; mere hack hyperbole employed to describe the latest fledgling bunch of chancers. In Gang Of Four’s case, it’s a stone-cold, empirical fact.” Gang of Four tracks have featured on many movie soundtracks including Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette and Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11.
Gill is currently writing and producing a new Gang of Four album and will be playing many festivals in the UK and throughout the world this summer. In September EMI will release a box set to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the band's seminal first album Entertainment! There will be a UK tour and big London shows tied into this.
He has been responsible for production on much of Gang of Four's output, and has produced albums for many other artists including the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Jesus Lizard, The Stranglers, The Futureheads, Michael Hutchence and Bono, Killing Joke, Therapy? and The Young Knives.
He has also written songs for many of these artists and more, and has composed music for film and television, including ‘The Karate Kid’, a BBC film , ‘Requiem Apache’, directed by David Jones, the double bafta award winning ‘Pandoras Box’ : a six part BBC series directed by Adam Curtis, a labour party political broadcast, ‘The Last of England’ directed by Derek Jarman and the cult film ‘Dogs in Space’
He was asked by John Peel’s family, as a favourite of the late DJ’s, to produce the tribute single released in his memory; the Buzzcocks hit, ‘ever fallen in love’. Featured artists included Roger Daltrey, Elton John and Robert Plant.
Between performing, composing and producing, Gill also gives occasional lectures and master classes. In March 2009, Gill was invited as a leading member of Britain’s creative and digital industries to attend the inaugural meeting in Downing Street of New Deal of the Mind, an initiative that aims to update elements of Roosevelt’s New Deal, particularly in relation to the creative arts, to tackle the recession.

Ph.D. in Philosophy, University of California, Davis (1984).
His doctoral dissertation focused on Kant's aesthetic theory. This work led to a number of publications on eighteenth century aesthetics in such journals as The British Journal of Aesthetics, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, and The Monist. Strong personal interest in the philosophy of music led to work in that field; his first publication in that area, "Adorno, Jazz, and the Aesthetics of Popular Music," appeared in The Musical Quarterly in 1992. The majority of his subsequent published work explores issues concerning the aesthetics of popular music. Some of this work appears in three books, 1996's Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock (Duke University Press), 2001's I Wanna Be Me: Rock Music and the Politics of Identity (Temple University Press), and 2007's Listening to Popular Music (The University of Michigan Press). I Wanna Be Me was named co-winner (with Gary Giddins) of the 2002 Woody Guthrie Award (the U.S. Branch book award of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music). He has been a member of the Board of Trustees for the American Society for Aesthetics and was program chair for their 2007 national meeting. He is on the editorial board of JMM: The Journal of Music and Meaning. He is currently co-editing The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music

Clinton Heylin is a prolific biographer and respected historian of rock culture. He attended Manchester Grammar School prior to Bedford College, University of London, 1978-81, attaining BA Hons in History, BA Hons and the University of Sussex, History, 1982-3, gaining an MA, for his thesis on the connections between the Irish Literary Renaissance and the Irish Revolutionary Movement 1870-1916.

His publications include:
Revolution In The Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan vol. 1 (1957-73). (Constable-Robinson [UK] Acappella [US], forthcoming 2009)
So Long As Men Can Breathe: The Secret History of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Perseus [US], forthcoming 2009).
Still On The Road: The Songs of Bob Dylan vol. 2 (1974-2006). (Constable-Robinson [UK] Acappella [US], forthcoming 2010)
The Act You’ve Known For All These Years: A Year In The Life of Sgt Pepper & Friends (Canongate-Grove, 2006).
Babylon’s Burning: From Punk to Grunge (Penguin/ Canongate-Grove, 2006).
All Yesterdays’ Parties: The Velvet Underground in Print 1966-71 [editor] (Da Capo Press, 2005)
Despite The System: Orson Welles versus The Hollywood Studios (Canongate/ Chicago Review Press, 2005)
Bootleg - The Rise & Fall of the Secret Recording Industry (Omnibus Press, 2004) [revised + updated ed. of The Great White Wonders (Viking, 1994)]
Can You Feel The Silence? - Van Morrison: A New Biography (Viking-Penguin, 2002).
No More Sad Refrains: The Life & Times of Sandy Denny (Helter Skelter, 2001).
Bob Dylan Behind The Shades - Take Two (Penguin, 2000)
[2001 US title: Behind The Shades Revisited (Harper-Collins)]
Dylan’s Daemon Lover: The Story of a 450-Year Old Pop Ballad (Helter Skelter, 1998).
Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols (Schirmer Books, 1996)
[also editor of the series of books entitled Classic Rock Albums - eight volumes]
Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions 1960-94 (Penguin/ St Martin’s Press, 1995)
The Great White Wonders: A History of Rock Bootlegs (Penguin, 1994)
[1995 US title: Bootleg - The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry (St Martin’s Press)]
From The Velvets To The Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History For a Post-Punk World (Penguin, 1993 - US+UK; also Japanese ed.)
[Spring 2005: revised ed. (Helter Skelter/ Chicago Review Press)]
The Penguin Book of Rock & Roll Writing [editor] (Penguin US+UK - republished in US as The Da Capo Book of Rock & Roll Writing)
Dylan Behind the Shades (Penguin, 1991)
Rise/Fall: The Story of Public Image Limited (Omnibus Press, 1988)
[revised 2006: as part of Stories of Johnny (Chrome Dreams)]
Dylan Day By Day: A Life In Stolen Moments (Music Sales/ Schirmer, 1987). [also Japan (Sony)] [revised ed. 1996]
Joy Division: Form & Substance (Sound Publishing, 1987) [with Craig Wood]

Periodicals:
UK: The Observer, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Mojo, Q, Record Collector.
Germany: Rolling Stone.
Australia: Rolling Stone.
USA: Goldmine. [also a contributor to Rolling Stone’s Alt-Rock-A Rama].

CD compilation/sleeve-notes include:
Various Artists: Babylon’s Burning 4-CD (Sanctuary)
Various Artists: Punk Legends: The American Roots (Jungle)
Sandy Denny: Where The Time Goes (Castle Music)
Sandy Denny: No More Sad Refrains: The Anthology (2CD – Universal)
Richard & Linda Thompson: The Island Record Years (Universal)
The Only Ones: In Concert (BBC/Windsong)
Peter Laughner: Take The Guitar Player For A Ride (T.K.)
Tom Verlaine: A Miller’s Tale (2CD – Virgin)

Regular TV & Radio appearances on BBC-2’s Late Show, Radio 2, Radio 4, Five Live, GLR and ABC (Australia) – TV/radio.

Jon King was founder of Gang of Four and, with Andy Gill, co-wrote and co-produced four studio albums and a live recording between 1979-1984, including the influential Entertainment!.
His music, co-written with Andy Gill as Gang of Four, has been widely used in TV and film, most notably title music for BBC TV’s double BAFTA winning Pandora’s Box but also Westminster Daily and Westminster Live and Scrutiny, and featured in The Karate Kid (USA, 1985), Dogs in Space (Aus, 1986), The Manchurian Candidate (USA, 2006), The OC (USA, 2006) and provided the title music for Marie Antoinette (USA, 2007).
King, with Gang of Four , won Mojo magazine’s prestigious “Inspiration for Music” Award in 2005 and Diesel/U’s “Inspiration to Music Award” 2005.
Gang of Four headline the “All Tomorrow’s Parties” at Minehead May 16th, 2009. Also this year, King will be a guest speaker at ‘The Aesthetics of Post Punk at the Purcell Room, London South Bank and at “Sensoria” in Sheffield, on March 30th.
Jon King is now MD of Story Worldwide, a global post–advertising age marketing services agency; before this he was the CEO of World Television Group, an international broadcast news production company; founder and European Business Head for ScreenRed, a new technology systems design consultancy; MD & senior consultant with Convergent Technology, an internet & web consultancy; and was a Director of Clever Media, a specialist communications division of WPP.
Before that he worked as a freelance event producer, production manager and sound designer for a wide range of rock tours and major large-scale marketing communications events. He worked with bands including Aswad, Blancmange, Propaganda and Working Week; was house producer at the dance label Gee Street Records; was FOH sound engineer for major events such the London Jazz Festival, performances by the London Philharmonia Orchestra at the RFH & Summer Pops Barbican; and was sound engineer for Channel 4 TV’s groundbreaking Club X.
Vist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Four_(band) & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_King_(musician)
An interview with Jon King appears at: http://www.toazted.com/interview/693/Gang-Of-Four.html

Martin King is a Principal Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he manages an undergraduate programme area-BA (Hons) Social Change, which encompasses named awards and routes in health and social care, community and society, policy and management and communication.
He came to the field of the social sciences via a convoluted route which included training as a journalist, a stint as Manchester City Council's first male day nursery assistant, a series of 'manly' jobs on building sites in warehouses and factories, and public health posts in NHS and Local Government settings.
Initially going to MMU to teach public health, he developed a research interest in media and health and is co-author of an edited collection –Representing Health: Discourses of health and illness in the media - which was published in 2005. He has written a number of articles and book chapters in this subject area and writes a regular column – ‘Media Maladies’ - for a public health journal.
An interest in men, masculinities and representation developed within this work and he has recently submitted a PhD thesis to the University of Huddersfield. The thesis, "'Running like big daft girls': a multi method study of representations of and reflections on masculinities through 'The Beatles'", uses the Beatles as a text through which to examine changing representations of masculinities in the Sixties.
Located within the fields of media and cultural studies, gender studies, social history and music, the study also explores the impact of representation on identity and combines documentary research on the Beatles' live action films with a series of interviews with a number of men aged between 18 and 74.
Some of the ideas that emerged from the research have been applied to the new wave scene of the late 1970s and feature in his paper for this conference. A music fan from an early age, King actually ended up in Manchester because Jilted John and the Buzzcocks were from there and it seemed like a good idea to go there in 1978.
On arrival he soon found himself a regular at Tony Wilson's Factory club and he was at the opening night of the Hacienda (but does not claim to have been at the Sex Pistols' Free Trade Hall gig!) and spent most of the 1980s expecting to be snapped up by EMI at any moment (see http://www.myspace.com/thedesertwolves).
He continues to dabble in jangly English pop (see www.thevermontsugarhouse.co.uk) with the release of a collection of songs, Carlton Gardens, on Berlin's uber-indie Firestation records in 2008.
Having said that, he does not see the point of modern guitar bands as it has all been done before - much better and far more convincingly - and welcomes the opportunity to participate in a conference on an often-ignored and underrated period in UK and US musical history.

Philip Kiszely is a cultural historian and teaches on the Theatre and Performance degree programme at the University of Leeds. Focusing primarily on iconography and performativity, he has lectured on the cultural impact and legacy of The Rolling Stones and The Sex Pistols. He previously taught Film History at the University of Manchester, and is author of the award-nominated monograph on American film of the classic era, Hollywood Through Private Eyes (2006). A key interest is the influence of rock ‘n’ roll on the film industry from the 1950s through the 1970s. Philip has hosted taught courses and seasons of films on the subject at the National Media Museum, Sheffield Showroom and Nottingham Broadway, and recently contributed to the Radio 4 retrospective, Peter Bogdanovich’s Saturday Morning Pictures. Philip’s work on The Fleshtones and The Cramps seeks to consider musical exchange and acceptance on the British and American new wave live circuits, as well as explore specific aspects of musical heritage embedded within the transatlantic post-punk scene. Related further activities include co-convening (along with Alice Bayliss and Michael Rose) the forthcoming international conference and performance event, ‘Post-Punk Performance: the alternative eighties’. Hosted by Paul Morley and featuring ex-Hacienda DJ and cultural commentator Dave Haslam, the event will be held at Leeds University’s School of Performance and Cultural Industries on September 9th 2009. Alongside Michael Rose, Philip was involved in alternative music scene in Manchester during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Aaron Meskin joined the Department of Philosophy in the fall of 2005. Before his move to Leeds, Meskin taught at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. His current interests include the imagination, the nature of artistic style, and the aesthetic issues raised by comics and graphic novels. He is aesthetics editor for Philosophy Compass, and he serves on the executive committee of the British Society of Aesthetics. He is also a Trustee of the American Society for Aesthetics.

Michael Rose was a musician and DJ, whose band The Loved Ones featured on Manchester Unsigned in 1996. His various musical collaborators include flamboyant Count Bishops and Cannibals front man Mike Spenser. An independent researcher, Michael’s interests include mapping the US garage punk explosion of the mid-1960s and contextualising the work of the hugely influential New York Dolls. Michael’s work on The Fleshtones and The Cramps seeks to consider musical exchange and acceptance on the British and American new wave live circuits, as well as explore specific aspects of musical heritage embedded within the transatlantic post-punk scene. Related further activities include co-convening (along with Alice Bayliss and Philip Kiszely) the forthcoming international conference and performance event, ‘Post-Punk Performance: the alternative eighties’. Hosted by Paul Morley and featuring ex-Hacienda DJ and cultural commentator Dave Haslam, the event will be held at Leeds University’s School of Performance and Cultural Industries on September 9th 2009. Alongside Philip Kiszely, Michael was involved in alternative music scene in Manchester during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Dr. David Sanjek has been the Professor of Music and the Director of the Popular Music Research Centre since 2007. Before then, he served as the Director of Archives at Broadcast Music Inc. from 1991-2007. He is currently preparing two volumes for publication: Always On My Mind: Music, Memory and Money and Stories We Could Tell: Putting Words to American Popular Music. He has two essays in forthcoming collections: “What’s Syd Got To Do With It? Syd Nathan, Henry Glover and the Complicated Politics of Crossover” in Hidden In The Mix: African American Country Music Traditions (edited by Diane Pecknold) and “Putting It Together: The Institutional Structure of American Musical Theatre” in Keywords for American Musical Theatre on Stage and Screen (edited by Raymond Knapp, Mitchell Morris and Stacy Wolf). Among the numerous positions he has held are the U.S. President of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music; member of the Board of Directors of the Blues Foundation; and advisor to the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Experience Music Project.

David Uskovich is a PhD candidate in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. He is currently working on his dissertation, which examines the politics and practices of U.S. college radio in the 1980s. He juggles his academic work with playing guitar in the noise/punk band Red X Red M, who are hard at work finishing their album for Austin's Australian Cattle God Records.

Simon Warner is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster who teaches popular music at the University of Leeds. He has been director of PopuLUs, the Centre for the Study of the World’s Popular Musics, and has organised or co-organised a number of conferences: ‘The Sounds of the Guitar: A Global Crossroads’ (2004), ‘A Day in the Life: Sgt. Pepper at 40’ (2007) and ‘Kerouac’s On the Road: The Beats and Post-Beats’ (2008). He is a Committee member of the Popular Cultures Research Network at Leeds University, a member of the BRITs Voting Academy and has been a judge in the US Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ annual Music Criticism awards since 2004. His publications include Rockspeak: The Language of Rock and Pop (1996), Howl for Now: A Celebration of Allen Ginsberg’s epic protest poem (2005) (as editor) and The Summer of Love: The Beatles, Art and Culture in the Sixties (2008) (as co-editor with Joerg Helbig). He has contributed chapters to Remembering Woodstock (2004), edited by Andy Bennett, and Centre of the Creative Universe: Liverpool and the Avant Garde (2007), edited by Christoph Grunenberg and Robert Knifton, and Stéréo: Sociologie comparée des musiques populaires: France/G-B (2008), edited by Hugh Dauncey and Philippe LeGuern. A rock reviewer with The Guardian from 1992-95, he penned the "Anglo Visions" column for the webzine Pop Matters from 2001-2006. He also makes frequent contributions to BBC radio and online.

Peter Webb is a lecturer and researcher in Media and Culture in the department of Sociology at the University of Birmingham. He has a background of working in the Music Industry and has developed a strong research/ethnography led academic career. He specialises in work on Popular Music and music communities, globalisation and social and cultural theory.
He has written and published work on the internet and the music and fashion industries, music scenes or milieu, notions of independence in the music industry, globalisation and music and theories of music cultures. He also is a musician who has released several albums, singles and EPs under the name `Statik Sound System'. His work has also been extensively remixed. Peter also has worked on diverse projects involving documenting the Bristol music scene, writing for music magazines, looking at young people and their use of new technology and interrogating understandings of political involvement through popular music.