Socialist Resistance

An archive of socialistresistance.org, 2002–2022

The thinking person's Radio 4

Socialist Resistance no7  |  page 22

This is scanned newsprint, not web text. The original PDFs carried no text layer at all, so every word here was read off the page by OCR. Expect dropped opening letters, run-together words and wrong characters. There was no contents page to cut the paper up by, so the articles were found from the size of their headlines: a headline may carry its kicker, and where an article ran beside a boxed panel a few lines of the neighbour can appear. The scanned issue is the authority; this text is here so the words can be found at all.

Jocie Head reviews Radio 4 at the Mean Fiddler, London, 22 April "MAN the barricades FM' might have been a more appropriate, if less snappy moniker, such is Radio 4's reputation. The media would have us believe they have taken the (surely woodworm-ridden) batten of the Clash to keep the leftist-punk genre going. Hopefully, Radio 4 won't find their records the most requested on imperialist army radio - as the Clash have.

The 4 (as no-one calls them) have the odds heavily stacked in their favour; the door has been smashed open for New York bands by the Strokes (enter Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Interpol, the Rapture) and left-wing politics are being spouted by famous musicians on a scale unheard of for a very long time.

Massive Attack and Blur have funded anti-war adverts; Radiohead's Bush-baiting 'Hail to the thief' album is set to be massive.

Another advantage Radio 4 have is the very "now' production duo DFA behind them. DA's credentials: they met on the 'set' of David Holmes' 'Bow down to the exit sign album and one of them was in Claude Ballani and Paul Wilcox UNKLE before DJ Shadow.

I've never seen a better support act than Out Hud. Also Radio 4 enter to Primal Scream's unbeatable 'Shoot/ Speed/ Kill/ Light', so expectations are sky high. Songs are kept short, playing is tight, it's a good set.

The retro-house stylings of DFA are lost, also sparse are any politics; on their most obviously political song 'Struggle' the lyrics *the ideas of the ruling class should not be the ruling ideas' are muffled in the extreme. No political comments are made between songs.

Those looking for overtly left-wing numbers might do better seeking out Saul Williams, especially his Not in our namepledge of resistance' single. Williams background is the Slam poetry scene in New York, which many would-be rappers turned to after the Mayor Giuliani-led clampdown on music in clubs.

Radio 4 finished their set with 'Dance to the underground, the anthemic call to "save dancing". In the context of continuing Republican anti-dance music laws Dance to... sounds completely relevant. This is a band definitely worth checking out, as evidenced by a packed house tonight.