Andy Gill, RIP

Andy Gill, guitarist with post punk band Gang of Four, has died from a respiratory illness, aged only 64. I’ve loved their music since the beginning and it’s a sad day. The band were so influential and his playing was just bloody brilliant. Rest in peace.

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Andy Gill’s guitar playing and tone were unique.

Anyone into guitar players should own a copy of Entertainment!

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And give the last track “Anthrax” a spin; just wonderful. Such a sad day.

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RIP. I wore out Entertainment when I was a kid.

Very sad. I still love those first two albums.

I remember listening to John Peel on the day he received his copy of the second. Reading verbatim what he’d been sent by the record company he said something like ‘and this is from the new album from Gang of Four, Solid Glod’. Why I remember that I’ve no idea.

If anyone has not heard it, Return the Gift has some superb reworking of older songs. To Hell With Poverty is particularly brilliant. I’d have loved to see them live in their prime but they never made it to Bangor.

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Saw them live in their prime in Leeds. Not sure I enjoyed it as such but it was certainly memorable. Again, there are few albums better or more unique than Entertainment. The palette was limited but what a palette.

The first time I heard them – on Peel, inevitably – I was struck by them, and went out and bought the “Damaged Goods” EP on Fast Records. Andy Gill was a member of a very interesting young British guitarist’s club in the late 70s and early 80s (said club also included the likes of PiL’s Keith Levine and Joy Division’s Bernard Sumner), players who were more interested in angles and textures rather than speed, virtuosity or the blues. Their inspirations would have been people like Michael Karoli from Can, Steve Cropper or James Blood Ulmer rather than Chuck Berry, Clapton or Jimmy Page.

Saw them twice – once at the old Music Machine in Camden in 1978 (it was just before Xmas, and I was 16) when they supporting The Jam. They absolutely blew Weller’s mob off the stage, making them sound pretty feeble.

The second time was in 1984, when I was at Uni in London, they played at Hammersmith Palais, by which time Dave Allen on bass had been replaced by Sara Lee. I remember they did two sets of encores – including covers of the Feelgoods’ “Roxette” and the Velvets’ “Sweet Jane”.

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Good point.

Now Playing @6Music with Tom Robinson from 6 pm this evening is themed around Andy Gill

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