Not 48 hours ago I had the urge to hear Shriekback. Many of you reading this might very well say, “not very surprising, Monk.” And you’d be correct, but that evening I pulled a very specific disc to play: “The Best Of Shriekback – The Infinite.” Because I wanted to hear “Lined Up” and “My Spine Is The Bassline” with the least amount of tarrying. I went about my business then sated only to receive the terrible news yesterday on the Trouser Press forum that the genius behind those sinuous bass lines that were the foundations of the early Shriekback classics had died at the age of 69. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Dave Allen has left the building.

Of course, he first came to our attention on the crucial Gang Of Four releases. Dave Allen roared out of Leeds as the rhythmic underpinning of the first Marxist Funk band to ever manifest. But owing to an encounter with the chilly and foreboding “Anthrax” on college radio, back in the day, I was sadly at arms length to the greater glories of Gang Of Four. I didn’t start buying their material until they were no longer a going concern in the 80s. And it remained until a year ago that I finally bought the mission critical “Entertainment!” after a shameful passage of decades.

Following his foundational work on the first two GO4 album, Dave Allen left the band in 1981 to form Shriekback with the keyboardist from XTC and the League of Gentlemen, Mr. Barry Andrews. With vocalist/guitarist Carl Marsh from Out On Blue Six and drummer Martyn Barker, Shriekback quickly built a portfolio of dronetrancefunk that was second to none with gargantuan grooves. The songs flew fast and furious and by 1983, I was all in on Shriekback. Tracks like “Lined Up,” “Accretions,” “Sexthinkone,” or the defining “My Spine Is The Bassline” were a masterclass in alternately bracing or flexuous bass lines reeking of intention and dexterity as the band were building a Post-Punk answer to the needs of the dance floor. I challenge anyone to keep their sacroiliac stilled if “My Spine Is The Bassline” comes on the speakers.

For several years the original quartet built an impressive edifice of grooves, either intoxicatingly dense or spartan in their construction. Culminating in the dizzying plateau that was “Oil + Gold.” I’ll never forget playing that album the first time as I quickly realized that it just might be my favorite thing I’d hear that year in 1985. But as that was released, Carl Marsh opted out of the Shriekback mothership. Leaving Messrs. Andrews, Allen, and Barker to move forward. The resulting “Big Night Music” was a leftward lurch towards the direction of darkly intense beauty and weirdness that served as the capper on Mr. Allen’s first Shriekback tour of duty. He, and also Martyn Barker took their leave to start the band King Swamp. I had to admit that I’d never been convinced by King Swamp. In spite of all of the Shriekback refugees who eventually took shelter there.

Simultaneous to this period, Allen also started his label World Domination Recordings who had a run with Capitol Records distributing from 1989 to 1996. Also figuring on two of the bands on their roster: Elastic Purejoy and Low Pop Suicide. During all of this Shriekback seemingly exploded following their 1988 album, “Go Bang,” only for the Shrieking mothership to reconvene a few years later with the back to dark basics album “Sacred City” in 1992. Which was released with Allen back in place once more with the album appearing on on the World Dominatiobn Recordings imprint.

Allen would rejoing Shriekback one more time for the “Having A Moment” EP in 2003 but for the most part, his energies would be on being behind the scenes with a move to the Pacific Northwest coinciding with his blog and label Pampelmoose raising his profile as a non-performer. From there it was a sideways move into Tech with him accepting the Director position at Intel’s Consumer Audio Services division. He eventually joined Beats Music prior to Apple’s acquisition of that company in 2014 and Allen stayed on with the company as they launched Apple Music as an artist relations envoy. From that point onward, barring an internet dustup with David Bryne over the morality of Tech’s streaming music platforms [N.B.: I side with Byrne on this issue], he’s kept his performance profile very close to the ground as he’s been largely a businessperson.

His drumming partner in Gang Of Four, Hugo Burnham, has let us all know that for the last years of his life, Mr. Allen had suffered from early onset dementia. So his death had been a while in the coming and to his friends and family, perhaps this was not as shocking and abrupt as it was to the rest of us. While I’m sure he brought nuance and empathy to his various industry positions you and I know that at the end of the day we wanted to hear this man playing bass guitar. So tonight make sure you pull some Gang Of Four and Shriekback classics for a good bask in the profound bass frequencies that this gentlemen brought to the table. With condolences to his family, friends, and ex-bandmates in this time of their loss.

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