(TV) Slightly On Topic: TV On Dolls / Gang of Four & NY Dolls Interv iews

["Casey, Leo J" <Leo.J.Casey@Volpe.dot.gov>]

In the excellent mid-90s', 10-part history/rockumentary on the Public
Broadcasting System, 
(written/produced by musicologist and NY Times critic Robert Palmer, and his
book of the same)  
there's a ninety[?] minute (video) Chapter entitled "Punk", which contains a
5-minute interview 
with Verlaine' on the early NY scene. 

In discussing what the early incarnation of the band Television's persona
[or lack of it] was 
he mentions the NY Dolls' projected image in a unflattering way.  [My PC and
the 'recently' 
improved MM List archives' set-up prevent me from being able to Search the
MM archives, 
otherwise I'd find the transcript of this interview which I transcribed from
my video copy of show.]

Not sure if this link works for everybody; it has interviews with Gang of
Four's drummer Hugo 
Burnham, and Johansen (the latter says, Morrissey-- who got convinced
Johansen to "reform" 
'the band' --was the former President of the NY Dolls fan club. That means
he was President of 
their club and Blondie's!)
 
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/music/top/multi-page/documents/04663766.
asp

Fun isn't the first thing Gang of Four's 1979 debut, Entertainment!, brings
to mind, what with 
its polemics about the capitalist condition, stark, staccato rhythms, and
sharp, tangled, razor-wire 
guitars. And both the tenor of the lyrics and the tone of the music grew
only starker as Gang of Four 
moved on to 1981's ironically titled Solid Gold before embracing elements of
the disco they'd once 
derided with the polished production of 1982's Songs of the Free and its
memorable hit "I Love a 
Man in Uniform." The original Gang - guitarists Andy Gill and Jon King,
bassist Dave Allen, and 
drummer Hugo Burnham - packed so much into those first three albums that two
decades later, 
you can still hear them influencing new bands, Bloc Party and Radio 4 to
name just two. It's hard 
to think of any period since the original four parted ways when a Gang of
Four reunion wouldn't 
have been relevant. But the band's break-up, which began when Allen left and
pretty much ended 
when Burnham was let go after Solid Gold (Gill and King did keep things
afloat for one more album 
in '83 and then attempted a pallid comeback in 1991 with Mall), was a bitter
one.
So it took 20-plus years before the original four were ready to bury the
hatchet and head back into the 
studio to re-record an album's worth of material culled from their first
couple of discs. The result is being 
packaged with a full disc of remixes by the likes of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,
Ladytron, Dandy Warhols, 
and the Futureheads; it's due stateside on August 30 from V2, though "To
Hell with Poverty 2005" is 
already available as a download through iTunes. (I won't bore you with a
note-by-note, line-by-line 
comparison to the original except to say the band haven't taken any
unnecessary liberties with it.) 
Gang of Four have already done dates in Great Britain, and they just kicked
off their US tour 
with a slot at this year's Coachella festival in Indio, California.

**"It seems as authentic as it ever was to me," Burnham says from his office
at the New England Institute 
of Art, where he's spent the past several years teaching primarily English.
(He and his wife settled in the 
Boston area in 1998 and have lived here ever since.) **
"It's harder to play the songs because I'm 23 years older. And it's also a
challenge because, while the 
dynamic of our relationships is very similar, the edges have certainly
softened. We've matured. When 
we first started rehearsing, back in January, we were having to deconstruct
our own music and put it 
back together again - that's the fancy way of saying, 'How the fuck did I
play this?' But it comes 
back to you. And we're also arguing about changing this or that in order to
make the songs better. It's 
like we're still doing to each other what we did 25 years ago."
It's no accident that the lifespan for the bands that formed the core of
Britain's '77 punk explosion was 
rarely more than a few years. Burnham isn't comfortable with the punk label:
"I just didn't think of us as a 
punk band. We came out of that period, but we didn't have zips on our pants
or safety pins. I consider us 
more post-punk than punk, whatever the fuck that means. We're a
rock-and-roll band, just like Pistols, 
just like Stones, like the Clash, like the Who, like Duran Duran . . . sort
of."
Still, mixing pop and politics in the already combustible setting of a rock
band is a tricky business. Doing so 
with Gang of Four's passion and intensity was bound to create tensions. "In
every regard our break-up was 
acrimonious," Burnham confirms. "There were things that had to be worked
through before we all got 
together. But once we spent time together, we realized there really wasn't a
problem, and in many ways 
our relationships are much stronger. We still get pissed at each other, but
there are much stronger bonds 
going on. And damn right we have a connection: we made some of the best
fucking music ever together. 
We're enjoying that that means something to people now. And we're enjoying
doing it. Together."
The New York Dolls play May 12 and Gang of Four play May 16 at Avalon, 15
Lansdowne 
Street in Boston; call (617) 228-6000.
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