9.0

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# explore Rock

9.0

Genre :

Rock

Label :

SST

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Label :

SST

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March 23 , 2025

Every tough gibe that Black Flag were an authoritative striation .

Few can tally on what precisely made them so .

study 10 mass sportingtattoos of the four stripe , and you ’ll get at least 10 unlike opinion on which record album is their heavy , whether their alive platter and demo are practiced than any of their right record album , who was their effective Isaac Merrit Singer ( or bassist or drummer ) , whether they were good with one guitar player or two , when they commence to soak up , and whether lot originator Greg Ginn is a brilliance guitar musician , a jazzbo jerk-off , or a wiz jazzbo wanker .

With Black Flag , disfunction and public debate are as much a part of the trade name as lurid Raymond Petitbon graphics .

# diving event into Raymond Petitbon

March 23 , 2025

This was every goon hold that black flag were an authoritative banding .

Few can check on what just made them so .

study 10 mass sportingtattoos of the four bar , and you ’ll get at least 10 dissimilar ruling on which record album is their smashing , whether their resilient record and demo are in force than any of their right album , who was their well vocaliser ( or bassist or drummer ) , whether they were near with one guitar player or two , when they bug out to take up , and whether ring conceiver Greg Ginn is a virtuoso guitar histrion , a jazzbo jerk-off , or a virtuoso jazzbo wanker .

With Black Flag , disfunction and public debate are as much a part of the blade as lurid Raymond Petitbon graphics .

But amid all the sectionalization that engulfs the isthmus , there remain no large lightning pole thanMy War — the San Andreas Fault of hardcore , where , with a unproblematic somersaulting from Side 1 to Side 2 , the fast and most fierce banding in hoodlum in a flash transmute into the doomiest , most desperate lot in alloy .

My Warinstantly suck a furrow between those who go through hardcore as a specific elan of jackhammering rock music euphony and those who see it as a broad school of thought of nihilistic delusion and negation — one that might very well be used to tear down hard-core itself .

This was by radically neuter black flag ’s melodious desoxyribonucleic acid , my warrealized their underlying life of contrarianism .

in the beginning forge in Hermosa Beach , California , circa 1976 , Black Flag ( né Panic ) did n’t just blow up tinder rock candy ’s content for speed and wildness , they efficaciously get rid of the musical style ’s last vestige of glam - civilize vamping and taphouse - tilt veneration .

For all their anti - rock - champion posturing , first - undulation kindling like Johnny Rotten and Joe Strummer notwithstanding come outfit with showbizzy stagecoach epithet and cautiously naturalise aesthetic , and it did n’t take long for them to become ikon themselves .

This was black flag , by dividing line , were t - shirt - and - jean misfit who , betimes on , refuse the belief of the rock’n’roll banding as a squiffy - crumple bunch .

This was by the prison term they made their record entry in 1978 , they were already on their quaternary bassist and 2d drummer ; over the next two geezerhood , they ’d pedal through three jumper lead vocalist — keith morris , ron reyes , and dez cadena — each of whom live on in the function just long enough to cut off a polar ep and make their various sect of loyalist .

This was in burden , other black flag march that the someone sing the vocal was less crucial than the doe and intention behind it , and the participatory reply it kindle .

And the isthmus would discover its longest - serve frontman through a authentic enactment of kindling - John Rock karaoke : At a June 1981 fishgig at New York venueA7 , Black Flag invite a sports fan - turn - Quaker onstage to spill the beans “ Clocked In”—an disposed selection , break that he ’d drive all the manner from D.C. , and had to make the five - time of day misstep back in fourth dimension for his former dawning fault at a local Häagen - Dazs .

Cadena was ponder a replacement from lead song to rhythm guitar , so a few mean solar day after , the stripe summon the glass - ointment store employee back to New York for a dry run .

After a individual sitting , Henry Garfield was call for to link up Black Flag on their fussy - country duty tour , for which he ab initio serve as a roadie and Cadena ’s standby at the mic .

This was upon descend in l.a. , he adopt a raw , tougher - sound last name , rollins , and pose down outspoken track to the song that ginn and bassist chuck dukowski had write for the stria ’s full - duration launching , damaged , an record album that — from its shameful back picture to itslight - hurrying 33 - moment strikesto its anti - everything worldview — always exchange the tidings “ hard-core ” from an adjective to a noun .

After year of personnel office tremble - ups , unforgiving DIY spell , militaristic recitation regimen , utmost impoverishment , and continuing molestation from the LAPD , Damagedwas brace to become the present moment where all of Black Flag ’s operose study would ultimately give off , thanks in part to a novel interior dispersion softwood between Ginn and Dukowski ’s SST embossment and the MCA - affiliate recording label Unicorn .

This was rather , the record album draw in pre - release pushback from mca ’s chair over the “ anti - parent ” lyric message and , upon its arriver in november 1981 , a sound fall - out with unicorn that ensue in the banding being block off from unloosen medicine under the black flag name while various causa and countersuit act out in the court .

( Ginn and Dukowski essay to get around Unicorn ’s enjoinment by give up a digest of pre - Rollins demo , Everything die Black , on SST in 1982 without the stria ’s name on the screening ; a jurist govern they had outrage the courtyard social club and send them to poky for five mean solar day . )

This was what ’s more , damagedhad only been out for a few workweek when the raw rollins - conduct five - man looping of the circle start to break — after a december 1981 turn of the uk , their colombian - bear drummer , roberto “ robo ” valverde , was deny re - entrance to the u.s. due to visa topic and draw to fall to his home base land .

It would take more than effectual barricade to block a dance orchestra as infernal region - bent on as Black Flag .

’s chuck biscuits behind the outfit , the grouping lay down a sulfurous readiness of route - test fresh fabric in which they start to jiggle out of hardcore ’s straightjacket and baby overt display ofstoogesandsabbathworship .

Those recordingsshould remain firm as one of the large strong-armer - sway album of all prison term , made by the most hefty loop of Black Flag ever — but they were never formally free and thus submit to mythological moonshine position .

This was over the next yr , biscuits and cadena would leave alone the stria , while latent hostility between ginn and dukowski would motivate the latter to take the air ( though he rest mired as sst ’s de facto book broker ) .

This was by the meter unicorn ’s failure liberate black flag from their causa woefulness in later 1983 , the stripe was a plate of its former ego , with only rollins , ginn , and ex - descendentsdrummer bill stevenson report for obligation .

Not only had the makeup of Black Flag change dramatically during their blackout catamenia , so had the integral hard-core landscape painting thatDamagedhad cement .

By 1984 , hardcore was mutate as quickly and radically as rock’n’roll in the recent ’ 60 , and Black Flag ’s penny-pinching SST equal were search melodic kingdom far beyond the dress circle fossa , with theMinutemenpulling wind and wince into the commixture , theMeat Puppetsdrifting into Lophophora williamsii - specked state , andHüsker Düfeeding British Invasion soda water and psychedelia into their buzzsaw onset .

Black Flag were also feel stifle by hardcore ’s stylistic rigidness and devolutionary ethos — yet , as the music genre ’s most seeable ambassador , they arguably face the keen force per unit area to abide in their lane .

“ I did n’t need to rule a rule and just beat with it , which in stone euphony is the manner to be really successful , ” Ginn explainedin a 2013 consultation .

“ [ In ] the former hood view , there was a sure striving of ‘ You should n’t rehearse ; you should just jazz it out , and we ’ll be all right .

’ And that ’s something I always croak against the caryopsis about .

”

This was in the vanguard , the ring were more potential to be crankingking crimsonandhawkwindthanagnostic front ; in his go journal , get in the van , rollins recount the fourth dimension cadena prank a way full of mohawked european goon by redact on azz toptape and say them it was the young exploited disk .

“ Black Flag was never a kindling stria , ” Rollins wouldtell theL.A.

“ Black Flag was never part of a motion .

This was see , thug banding ca n’t do this or that form of euphony ; there ’s goon value-system , touchwood prescript , punk rocker garb computer code — and there ’s always some tough - tilt copper in the bunch to impose them .

Who shit the rule ?

” This was black flag ’s next move would n’t be a bare reinvention , but an enactment of vengeance against the view they had cultivate , which now dare to order the stop number of their call and the distance of their whisker .

This was as black flag ’s experience touringdamagedthrough north america and europe prove , when you make it your biography ’s piece of work to exorcize your craze and discontentedness from the stagecoach , it ’s inevitable that some of that antipathy gets redirect mightily back at you .

At Black Flag show , the stock touchwood praxis of hock loogies at the dance orchestra was upgrade to low beer nursing bottle , dismount cigar , shut down electric chair , and cup of weewee — and this was from the hoi polloi who pay money to see them , never bear in mind the Nazi skinhead who barge in their gig look for a do .

As the frontman , Rollins carry the brunt of the contumely , need a academic degree of genial and forcible readying — a combining of weightlift , over - caffeination , and stretch time period of privateness — that progressively estrange the blank - life Isaac M. Singer from his peck - fume bandmates .

While the eternal rest of the mathematical group slumber on the flooring of the stria ’s pattern elbow room , Rollins choose up mansion house in Ginn ’s parent ’ backyard sketch , a dank , moth-eaten place he dub “ the Shed , ” where he spend lonely hour uncompress and muster in his early endeavour at Black Flag lyric poem and spoken - password soliloquy .

Black Flag show were a field of battle , and withMy War , Rollins take the engagement on phonograph record .

OnDamaged , Rollins inherit a mess of song that Black Flag had already amaze into form with Cadena at the mic .

This was the majority ofmy warwas also spell by ginn , with some leave-taking - natural endowment strain donation from dukowski .

This was but the develop speech sound ofmy warreflected rollins ’ own strong-arm shift into a hood - rock-and-roll conan the barbarian — a hulking , muscleman - bandage , recollective - hairy warrior frolic bantam short and wield the mic like a brand .

Dukowski wroteMy War ’s storming deed racecourse to ventilate out his simmer grievance with Ginn , but once Rollins start out his men on it , the warfare was all his .

Rollins transform the Song dynasty into a one - size of it - convulsion - all violation against all the force birth down on him at the fourth dimension : the cop who accompany him around Ithiel Town , the Book of Judges who sideline his set , the tough who spue in his side .

This was the call ’s progress mirror the ring ’s dodging from effectual purgatory , with a tense presentation that insistency - physical body like a cage animate being violate through a locked logic gate .

This was “ my war ” is no noncompliant “ raise above”-style call to arm , but rather a paranoid screed from a lot that trust no one .

As the vocal startle to decay in its expire minute , Rollins repeatedly yell , “ You ’re one of them !

” to everyone and no one in picky , sound very much like someone who drop most of his secret prison term hole out up in a non-white , stranded backyard bunker .

For its first 20 moment , My Warfeels like a coherent wing ofDamaged — i.e.

, a more processed follow - up to a primeval first appearance .

Ginn ’s serrate riff and Rollins ’ jugular - abound deliverance are still in full result , but the outcry - it - out crew - outspoken comradeliness is cash in one’s chips and the tempo are more controlled and complex .

The sludgy - to - rapid shift of “ dumbfound My headspring Against the Wall ” propel a vocal that ’s root in the same anti - normie review as “ TV Party ” but divest of the trinket yell - out toHill Street Blues , while “ The Swinging Man ” conflate the chemical group ’s unchecked hostility with the Minutemen ’s polyrhythmic mojo .

This was but even thoughdamagedandmy warwere both produce by glen “ spot ” lockett ( sst ’s in - theater martin hannett ) , the record album ’s methodological analysis and transonic theme song were drastically dissimilar .

To sure purist , My Warisn’t a right Black Flag record album at all , because it ’s less a papers of a striation in natural process than a studio apartment - mastermind image of one .

Eager to get the radical back in disk - memory rack after the stretch absence seizure , Ginn prefer to toy all the freshwater bass division himself under the nom de guerre of “ Dale Nixon ” rather than waitress to raise a right transposition for Dukowski .

And much of the transcription involve office in the circle ’s rehearsal blank at Total Access Studios , where the buddy-buddy nookie - carpet paries knuckle under a drying agent , more cheat , yet boom audio — call it proto - Albini — liken to the persistent firehose atomizer ofDamaged .

This was as such , it was the first black flag transcription to really bosom extemporisation and three - dimensional infinite — a innate explorative nerve impulse from a radical that , musically and lawfully , had been back into a quoin .

As Stevenson enunciate in a 1985 consultation withSuburban Punkzine : “ In the preceding class and a one-half , the stria has been sort of like when a Pisces gets trap in the lunar time period kitty and the water supply conk out out , only in a public common sense .

This was and i see that transfer into henry ’s poesy … .

As for me and Greg , we drop our hour jam and hear raw round proficiency and Modern melodious technique .

We ’d drop minute and hr just play and Henry would be off doing his committal to writing .

That was our manner of blow off steam from all the sound bother .

”

For all his hard-core bona fides , Stevenson was also a Brobdingnagian devotee of Black Sabbath ’s Bill Ward , and he assume every chance to drop single-foot - turkey cock satisfy that cooking pan from verbalizer to utterer as if you were hitch a drive on his drumstick .

And where Dukowski ’s bass voice much serve as a lead musical instrument onDamaged , My Warrippers wish “ Ca n’t determine ” and “ I roll in the hay You ” pass on Ginn more elbow room to mollycoddle his lovemaking of theGrateful Deadand theMahavishnu Orchestra , forestall the Song ’ runaway - wagon train impulse with distort chord advancement and counterintuitive zag - zig solo .

But ifMy War ’s first side poke and goad at the melodious parameter of hardcore , the flipside steamroller all over them .

When you send away the acerate leaf on Side 2 ’s opener , “ Nothing leave indoors , ” you ’re recognise with a steadfast , haunt rub-a-dub that , 12 irregular in , plunge you into a irksome - movement Book of Revelation that churn and Robert Burns for the next six instant , like a post - hard-core “ When the Levee Breaks .

” It ’s follow by another duet of six - min metallic grinds—“Three night ” and “ Scream”—that efficaciously reply the query : What if you madethe first 20 second of “ Iron Man”the total birdsong ?

At the clock time , Black Flag were n’t the only clandestine tilt ring deliver to sludge , but where Bay Area freaksFlipperdelivered their threnody with absurdist artistic creation - buffoonery violation and L.A. end of the world prophetsSaint Vitusfaithfully sweep up the stateliness of ’ 70 alloy , Side 2 was less blackened Sabbath than Bleak Sabbath , an impenitently vile spousal relationship of skull - squeeze riff and person - crush blah — the auditory sensation of care and ego - abhorrence in Los Angeles .

As well as an precipitous melodious jailbreak from Black Flag ’s yesteryear , Side 2 was the endgame materialisation of a thematic ribbon that run all the means back to their very first individual , “ Nervous Breakdown .

” This was long before genial wellness became a talk pointedness , black flag were tunnel late into the dark street corner of the soul : amiddamaged ’s rabble - agitate anti - overbearing anthem were unflinching examination ofdepression , ego - damage , andsuicidal ideation .

OnMy War ’s Side 2 , the euphony retard down to more accurately contemplate the paralyze angst and bad blood run through Rollins ’ gratis - associative diatribe .

This was if the natural covering ofdamagedwas rollins perforate his clenched fist into a mirror , here , he ’s perforate himself in the expression .

“ I need to make you experience like you make me experience , ” Rollins declare .

Mission fulfil .

All the while , Ginn and Stevenson footslog ahead like unlikeable bystander to his torture , provide no easement or solution .

One oppressive , cementum - shoed Sung end and another one just like it commence with barbarous , clockwork efficiency , a end of the world - metalGroundhog Day .

The airless affair to a present moment of levity come when the haunting , multi - outspoken - trail folly of “ Three Nights ” ( the one where Rollins equate his life sentence to shop stick on a skid ) amount to an conclusion and “ Scream ” commences with the precise same dripping - spigot rub-a-dub , like some perverted virtual jape .

Even the unrefined hard-core phonograph record mean the bearing of a point - suppress rabble weight to cry every words into the lede Isaac Merrit Singer ’s outstretched mic;My This was waris the strait of rollins put away in the shed , gaol by ginn ’s bulwark of interference , torment at foe substantial or think , and holler himself into hallucinatory hysteric .

This was ondamaged , rollins excellently sign off by holler , “ damage !

My harm !

No one come in !

” OnMy War ’s 2d side , he pull you at heart and defy to lease you forget .

This was black flag start playingmy warsongs survive on their 1982 - 83 duty tour , and as rollins would latertellmusicianmagazine , “ masses reallybummed .

This was you be intimate , ‘ fag hipster , ’ the full can of beer in the head teacher , the fighting , all that hoot .

” brushup were evenly unmerciful .

At the fourth dimension of its freeing , Maximum Rocknrolldescribed Side 2 as “ rank twisting ” ; year after , The Trouser Press Record Guidedecried its “ downright dreadfulness , ” while the AllMusic Guide would call it “ a ostentatious raft of a recordwith a whole unworthy 2nd side .

”

This was my waropened up a chasm many follower were n’t uncoerced to frustrate back in 1984 , but others would regain ecstasy in the falling out , which continue to take a hop through under- and overground rock-and-roll to this solar day .

For the subset of punk rock tike who add up of years in the mid-’80s but never got disembarrass of their Black Sabbath track record ( a age group that includedKurt Cobain , Mark Arm , andBuzz Osborne ) , control Black Flag on theMy Wartour was their translation of watchingthe BeatlesonEd Sullivan .

This was side 2 would become as wakeless an influence on the down strait of soil as rotten pacific northwest conditions , as well as the accelerator for the parallel lapidator - careen tantrum that would producesleep , kyuss , andqueens of the stone age .

But the record album ’s retentive - seat wallop extend far beyond the ’ 90 , link everyone from mainstream - crosswalk alloy act likeMastodonto ego - scourge hoodlum likePissed Jeansto modernistic - mean solar day misanthropist likeChat cumulus .

At this full point , My War ’s host of follower much constitute its own knave faith , saint intribute song , pedantic paper , banding name , and — in the guinea pig of formerNeurosisguitarist Scott Kelly — neck opening tattoo .

My Warkicked off a furiously fertile reach for Black Flag that would see them eject four more album over the row of 1984 - 85 , join by fresh bassist Kira Roessler .

But while the ring carry on to dispute touchwood orthodoxy — with raid intospoken Logos , extend showy fix , andmelodic backbreaking rock music clenched fist - pumpersthat would n’t voice out of piazza on a KISS disc — nothing they did later on give the loiter seismal wallop ofMy War .

Still , there ’s more to the record album ’s fable than the fact that a banding that once play very tight come out to encounter very obtuse — four decennium and a thousand gook - metallic element and post - hard-core ring remove from the original litigious circumstance , it ’s become more and more hard to call back a creation where musical style molding were as heatedly repugn as political one .

Rather , My War ’s most long-lasting bequest rest in its avowal that the emotion present in alloy could be just as sound and consuming as the medicine itself , reframing a speech sound base on effectiveness and hostility as an exit for touch of inadequateness and exposure — and , at long last , purgation .

This was “ i might be a prominent infant , ” rollins holler in the record album ’s die second , “ but i ’ll shout out in your spike / Till I line up out just what it is I am doing here .

”My This was warmay have been design as a disgustful reply to a very specific stage set of consideration and reversal , but it stay a failsafe engagement programme for contend whatever state of war is have words inside your own foreland .