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Cigarettes lit, auspiciously sipping pints in a Manchester city centre pub whilst the locals look curiously on to a Classic FM soundtrack, Williamsburg Warehouse Cool this aint, but Anthony Roman from New York's Punk Funk's elder statesmen Radio 4 is in fine fettle. The tours going great, they were introduced to the louche pop icon, arse wiggler and all round British national treasure AKA Jarvis Cocker last week (cooly dismissive - Anthony's not too keen on the tabloid-esque reporting of such events in the UK Music Press) and with one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2002 tucked nicely under their collective belts, life's looking pretty swell for the Radio 4 its cool to listen to. Even if you're on a budget of £10 a day that barely buys you 20 fags and a couple of warm pints of ale! Ah well, the Gigwise hand has generously reached very deeply into its pre pay day pocket and with the Happy Mondays debate out of the way, its onto the altogether more serious matter of the conditions and times that spawned the politically and musically savvy "Gotham".
Depending upon your point of view or political persuasion, former Mayor of New York Rudolph Giuliani was either a saint or a sinner. The man who cleansed the streets of crime and disorder or the dictatorial head of a city where the trigger happy police force riddled an unarmed black man with bullets. Publicly redeemed post September 11th, the impact Giuliani had on the New York underground arts scene whilst in office was nothing but negative according to Roman.
"Initially I guess it was a good idea to clean up the city, with all the drug and crime problems. It was getting a little sketchy there for a while. But once he did, it just spiralled out of control until he wanted to take over everything. Anything that he saw as not part of his plan of changing the pattern, he got rid of. It started to effect nightlife, he started trying to control what art was being displayed, he started closing down venues left and right. Y'know, New York is known for its nightlife and he was kinda ridding it of that. When we were writing the record that was pretty much the peak of his fascist takeover, so we just tried to write about things that were directly affecting us from the most honest perspective possible".Tackling issues like the discussion of Aids in the media ('Start a Fire') and urging fans to care about the art community ('Save Your City') its clear that you have a real political edge to the band.
"Yeah, we thought no-one was saying anything, no-one was addressing these situations that were happening in New York so we felt compelled to write about them".
So you'd agree that "Gotham" is a real statement of intent?
"Yeah I would. We wanted to let people know what was happening in New York. When we had about eight songs written, we just went wow, these are all about New York City. Individually two people writing lyrics and coming up with the same vision - so we just carried out the rest of the record from there. Its not really a concept record but it was somewhat conceptualised".
Not quite the distant curmudgeons of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, it's perhaps not surprising - given their distinct political edge welded to a respectful amalgamation of music such as Pill, Talking Heads and Nu Yorican Soul - that the
accusation of style triumphing over substance with bands bracketed into the "New Rock Revolution" levelled by the gloomy threesome holds some credence with Roman."I think a lot of what people are getting excited about is style over substance. I don't think there's anything wrong with bands being stylish but they should be saying something at the same time, like The Clash. But now its just like ... a lot of these bands are trying to look like the Rolling Stones and are more worried about their hairdo than saying anything. I'm not saying that every band has to write about something important, I just think there should be a balance".
New York's finest export of the last two years, however, is quick to receive praise from the Radio 4 front man.
"There's a lot of bands in New York that are getting a lot of attention, and I'm not gonna mention names, they just look like The Strokes but don't have anything going on. The Strokes are just one of those rare cases where they look fantastic, like models, and they write great songs"
And its not just cardboard cut out garage rock outfits that are reserved the full on Radio 4 tongue-lashing. Of their Electroclash peers that have been developing at the same time and in the same city but on distinctly obtuse lines, Roman is equally dismissive. Although there is one issue that he'd like to set the record straight on!
"It almost feels to me like they're taking a period of music that I think is pretty important and making a joke out of it. I was misquoted in the NME, because what I actually said was that Fischerspooner writes good songs but that Electroclash is a joke. I had to get in touch with those guys a couple of weeks ago and say, 'hey, I didn't actually say that'. I think they have some pretty good songs but when they get on stage it seems to be a bit ridiculous".
With that one sorted, it's back across the Hudson from the cocaine fuelled fake Electroclash glamour to the burgeoning "punk funk" scene that built up around a record store called Somethin' Else and a couple of New York blocks. It's where Radio 4 met and The Liars, The Rapture and LCD Soundsystem resided respectively. So were they all passing a dog eared copy of Metal Box around and swopping demo's or was it just a co-incidence that these bands exploded out together with a similar kind of sound?"I don't know if it's a co-incidence. I understand why we look to that period, and I'm assuming all the other bands did for the same reasons. I don't really know and it's not something we really talk about. I can understand from an outsiders perspective how it seems a strange co-incidence but the thing is, no-one was really influenced by each other - everybody was kinda working on the same thing at the same time".
And thank fuck they all did, because from The Rapture's "House of The Jealous Lovers" through to Radio 4's defiant call to the floor of "Dance to the Underground", New York loomed large on the soundtrack to 2002! Abject proof that politics and art needn't be such uncomfortable partners, whilst Radio 4 are around, music is in very safe hands indeed.
Check out their website http://r4ny.com/.
Photos by Andy Day
