Dave Allen, founding bassist with post-punk pioneers Gang Of Four, has died at the age of 69. The news was confirmed in a Facebook post written by Gang Of Four drummer Hugo Burnham.
"It is with broken yet full hearts that we share the news that Dave Allen, our old music partner, friend, and brilliant musician, died on Saturday morning," wrote Burnham. "He was at home with his family."
"Dave had endured the early onset of mixed dementia for some years, which has been a heartbreaking time for his wife Paddy, his children, and close friends.
"Our love and thoughts are with them. Jon [Gang Of Four singer Jon King] and I went to see him and spent a lovely afternoon with him and the family. We talked and laughed for hours, sharing rich and vivid memories of good times together. Adventures, careers in music, raising families, our interwoven lives spanning half a century. We’ve been so very lucky to have had the Ace of Bass in our lives.
"We know that Dave would have wanted nothing more than to step onstage with us again in Portland on our farewell US tour. But it’s now a bridge too far. Goodbye, old friend."
Allen was born in Kendal in England's Lake District in 1955 and joined Gang Of Four in 1976 after answering a "bass player wanted" sign at Leeds University, where the other members of the band – Burnham, King and guitarist Andy Gill – were studying.
Allen's playing was inspired by jazz, funk and reggae and by players like Jaco Pastorius, Bootsy Collins, and Aston “Family Man” Barrett, which allowed Gang Of Four to incorporate the funk and dub elements in their sound that proved so influential on later artists like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Jesus Lizard, Rage Against The Machine, Helmet and Franz Ferdinand.
After playing on the first two Gang Of Four albums – the classic debut Entertainment! and its follow-up Solid Gold – Allen left the band to found art rockers Shriekback, whose music would be used by director Michael Mann in Manhunter and the television series Miami Vice.
Allen was also a member of alt-rockers The Elastic Purejoy and Low Pop Suicide, and in later life worked in the US, initially as director of Consumer Digital Audio Services for computer giant Intel. He also taught at the University of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and worked for Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre's headphone company Beats Music. He remained with the company when it was acquired by Apple Inc. in 2014.
"I have a strange relationship with that [the music industry] right now," he said in 2015. "It is a very old-fashioned model that is refusing to budge and remains bloody-minded in the face of a technological juggernaut.
"I believe the musicians’ role today is to concentrate on live performance, harnessing the organic, pulsing beats and then distributing them virally over the Internet.
"Let’s fuck with the model as in this instance it’s not a matter of 'if it ain’t broke don’t fix it' as I believe the fissures have begun to appear and it might not take much to push it over the edge."
