Persian Gulf

80's agitprop rock band from Philadelphia.

The three-piece group was aggressive, political, smart and danceable. In the early '80s, you could stumble into a basement party in your finer Tallahassee student ghetto and find Persian Gulf set up in the corner by the bar. Persian Gulf packed up and headed off to Philadelphia just in time to watch the police burn down a city block in an attempt to eradicate a radical group called MOVE. Persian Gulf kept moving and eventually ended up in New York City.

Persian Gulf always got raves from critics. The Village Voice and Robert Christgau spilled much ink in its praises of the band's albums ("Persian Gulf: The Movie" and "Changing the Weather") "Conscious rather than correct, without a hint of hard-cores parracidal/mysogynistic hysteria, this eight-song EP [Changing the Weather] is constricted and expansive, sour and ebullient all at once. Hal Shows understands his own anarchic/apocalyptic impulses, and his Lennonesque rhythm guitar provides the extra momentum he needs to stay on top of things." --Robert Christgau, Village Voice, 1984.