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BANDS: Punk
& Ska INTERESTS: Venues ETC... About LOTD
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Radio 4 at 15th St. Tavern in Denver, CO - 7/11/02
What do you call a band that
named itself after a song from Public Image Limited's best album but
mysteriously formed twenty years after that album was released? If you don't
know by now, I'll ruin the surprise. The band is Radio 4, and along with the
Moldy Peaches and the Yeah Yeah Yeah's, they are part of the movement bringing
New York City back to the forefront of D.I.Y. music-making. Not since Sonic
Youth has a band from N.Y.C borrowed so heavily from the past and given back
ten-fold. Traveling across the U.S. in support of Gotham, their latest
LP, Radio 4 is making the kids dance spastically making makes music that seems
like it's been around forever without feeling dated. With songs like Our
Town and Save Your City, you would think that they wrote these N.Y.C.
anthems because of the September 11th tragedy, but those tracks were
actually written prior to that date. The
fact that these guys are not sitting around waiting for peace to come just shows
that these New Yorkers are as resilient as they get over d'aire. Anthony Roman (bass, vocals),
Tommy Williams (guitar, vocals) and Greg Collins (drums) are officially a
"post-post-punk" trio based in Brooklyn, NY and fortunately, they
don't try to be conscious white hip-hop MC's. During their shows, they prove to
kids that it's more than ok to listen to something other than rap. While on
tour, the two additionally featured members are P.J. 'Connor on percussion and
Gerard Garone on keyboards and their job is to reinterpret the sampling done on
the Radio 4 albums. While Garone jumps around franticly dressed in black, he
blends in fine with the other members but O'Connor fits in just fine by wearing
a Ghostbusters uniform. It shows that Radio 4 isn't concerned with their public
image; instead they worry about serious issues but manage to be nutty and fun at
the same time. They opened their show in
Denver with the last track from Gotham, titled New Disco. This song
has a purposefully misleading title that informs the crowd that what they are
about to hear is actually the most raging song Radio 4 has ever written. The
song has nothing to do with disco music but implies that you can dance to
whatever you damn well feel like dancing to. After that came Start A Fire,
a politically-charged song inspired by the dance for the solution ethos of
Gang Of Four. They then did a number from the Dance To the Underground 12"
called Sink So Low, but for some reason only performed tracks from Gotham
for the remainder of their set except for the closing song, Dance To The
Underground, which is the only Radio 4 song Ive managed to find on
Morpheus and Kazaa. Lead singer Tommy Williams actually encouraged me to rip the music from Gotham and put it on the Internet, but Radio 4 is going to burn up all the charts in the near future anyway. They don't need the help of pirates to make their music heard. If you can make it to one of their shows on the east coast during the end of July, you will encounter a band that can make you dance harder than BS2000, with lyrics as meaningful as bands like the International Noise Conspiracy. Seeing them live made me thirsty for more; and it made me realize that they're the only band today other than the Faint and the Prima Donnas that can make me dance uncontrollably. While the Faint are a little too much dark-wave for me and the Prima Donnas are unstoppably funny, Radio 4 is a perfect balance of gloom and joy. It would be like finding a middle ground for Joy Division and New Order, except that just wouldn't be as great. Just go out and see Radio 4 based on a recommendation from LOTD; we ain't got to lie.
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