A Short History of Black Flag

Black Flag were one of the great American hardcore bands alongside Minor THreat and the Dead Kennedys. They could be credited with being the band who first witnessed mosh-pits at their shows. The band, as with many other hardcore bands, were all about energy. It was the energy of their music that mattered to the devoted. But maybe the one big legacy for Black Flag was their role in the formation of the underground gig circuit. Wherever they travelled to they left behind members of their audience who would go on and form their own bands. They toured all over America. They went and played shows at towns who had seen an underground band before. They showed other like-minded people that anyone could do it. Anyone could form a band, buy a run-down old van and just go. Just go and play gigs around the US. They slept on the floor, in the houses of fans, or in the van. They were pretty much broke all the time. So they went to the next gig and made a little money. Then they were broke, so off they went again, and so it went, paving a way for other bands, pioneering across America, just like many before them throughout US history. How very trad.

The band started life in and around Hermosa Beach. The two main band members, Chuck Dukowski and Greg Ginn, met at a party where their bands were playing. Ginn was into the Grateful Dead though he was far from being a hippy. He was attracted by their approach to music making, and the way they tried to always keep it real. And when they both heard Television they were struck by the spontaneous and raw sound the music had. Then shortly after, the Ramones confirmed Ginn and Dukowski's belief in the purity of punk. They began playing harder and faster at parties, though this was mainly to fit as many songs in before the police came and shut the party down. As 1978 came round they were starting to get some shows in LA, by which time the band name had become Black Flag. Why Black Flag? It was a brand of insecticide at the time, and it was the opposite of the white flag of surrender.

It was easy for the early Black Flag to release their debut single. Ginn was owner of SST, a record label which was a by-product of Ginn's antique radio refurbishing business which was called Solid State Tuners. He'd set the company up while a teenager. Black Flag's singer at the time was Keith Morris and the music was harsh and violent, working in parallel with the mosh pit, which was a harsh and violent place at times.

In 1979, singer Keith Morris left the band to join the Circle Jerks. Black Flag tried out a couple of vocalists and sometimes had an open-mic policy at their shows, where anyone from the crowd could get on stage and be the singer. After a while Henry Rollins joined, and was their singer until they called it quits in 1986. Rollins was an east coast hardcore punk who cut his teeth in the band S.O.A. His joining further opened up the gig circuit between west and east coast America and he drove the band towards a new direction.

Black Flag's debut album was called 'Damaged'. It has songs about society being transfixed by the media and calls for a revolution of some unspecified kind. 'Damaged I' has a soon-to-be legendary monologue by Rollins as he talks of his psychological hell. The album's release was delayed due to legal wranglings. It was finally put out in 1982. By the time they began on their second album Robo the drummer, Cadena the guitarist, and founding member Dukowski had all left the band. This was probably due to Ginn wanting to become more musically adept with the band's songs, and those three not being up to it.

However, 1984 saw the band release three new albums. 'My War' was a whole different Black Flag, Ginn believed hardcore was over, the album was slow and heavy. 'Slip It In' carried this further and further alienated their old fans. What binds it all together is Rollins' angst ridden psycho babbling. 'Family Man' has a whole side devoted to his spoken word pieces.

There was only one more album and then they quit. Rollins went on to form The Rollins Band which let him carry on his self-obsessing. Dukowski and Ginn carried on with SST, a label which released music by the likes of Dinosaur Kr., Husker Du, Meat Puppets, and Sonic Youth amongst many other not so good ones. Black Flag were important because of they helped construct and develop independent music in America, they laid the foundations of the alternative infrastructure. An infrastructure which has all but been adopted and eaten whole by the majors, but an infrastructure that was once utterly underground and utterly essential to the rise in popularity of so-called alternative music.