Music

Through The Flames

Gang Gang Dance Rise Up

By June Sprig


Photo by Jason Nocito


New York's Gang Gang Dance are a bird as rare and special as a phoenix—they're an avant-garde band that isn't boring, over-thought, or ugly.

Gang Gang Dance sound like music of the world—like, they aren't influenced by Ethiopian drummers or muezzin calls, they are those things (when they're playing, at least). They are also artists and American people with punk-rock lineages. And they have come through some fucked-up shit, including singer Lizzi having a potentially fatal accident with pyrotechnics onstage with her old band-thing Actress, and the tragic and untimely loss of original Gang Gang member Nate Maddox, who was lost to lightning on a New York rooftop three years ago.

VICE: What's a Gang Gang Dance?

Brian Degraw: It's the name of the worst record I ever bought. It was by an all-white "African" music ensemble called Mikada. I've since come to understand that it's also an African dance and that a Gang Gang is also an Australian bird that never stops singing.

Have you ever had a really crazy fan?

In Maine there was this kid who was tripping so hard. He came to the merch table and tried to decipher the text on our record covers into numerological patterns. He pointed at the letter "G," then slowly said, "Nnnniiiiiiiiinnnnne..."

Have you had one of those transporting experiences playing?

Once there were these descending bass notes, and with each separate note a 6-foot finger belonging to a 12-foot hand would come down from the ceiling. Then all five fingers formed the full hand, reaching to grab me. I ran out of the space.

JUNE SPRIG
God's Money is out this month on Social Registry Records.

By June Sprig 6 years ago More from this issue

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