So Black Flag is back. More accurately, there are two Black
Flags running around right now. Unsurprisingly, they’re feuding already, and it’s
difficult to decide which version of the group is more promising. Original
Black Flag vocalist Keith Morris is heading up FLAG, which also features Bill
Stevenson and Chuck Dukowski, both of whom played with Black Flag during the
band’s original run. Descendants guitarist Stephen Egerton is filling in for
Black Flag’s founding and only constant member Greg Ginn, and Black Flag guitarist/third
vocalist Dez Cadena recently joined FLAG as well. Ginn, who owns the name Black
Flag, announced the band’s reformation soon after FLAG booked their first
shows, is working at a clear disadvantage. First off, Black Flag currently has
fewer original members than FLAG, with only Ginn and the band’s second vocalist
Ron Reyes returning for this endeavor. Still, Ginn has taken aim at FLAG for “currently
covering the songs of Black Flag in an embarrassingly weak 'mailing it in'
fashion”—a claim that can probably also be levied at the current incarnation of
Black Flag since there is only one 7” EP worth of material with Reyes on
vocals, so their shows are going to inevitably sound like the work of a cover
band too. [1]
There are a few more red flags with Ginn and Reyes’ group. First, nearly every
musical project Ginn has done over the last twenty years has ranged in quality
from pretty bad to terrible, and his long succession of vanity projects basically
tanked SST Records. Second, Reyes was Black Flag’s third best vocalist. He was
still good (as was Cadena, who comes in at number four out of four), but having
Morris (the band’s second best singer)[2]
on vocals clearly gives FLAG an edge. Also, having two of Black Flag’s four
vocalists gives FLAG three EPs to draw non-cover material from (the incredible Nervous Breakdown, the very good Six Pack, and the excellent “Louie,
Louie” single) to Ginn/Reyes’ one.
It is currently unclear if FLAG will be recording any new
material—Dukowski told Rolling Stone that they aren’t going to, although I
wouldn’t be surprised if that changes—but if they do I’m inclined to give them
the edge in that department as well. While Ginn’s been embarrassing himself in
most of his recent musical endeavors, Morris has been killing it as one quarter
of the punk super-group OFF! The group’s four EPs and one album only add up to
about 35 minutes of music, but its output has been almost uniformly great, disproving
the common belief that hardcore is a young man’s game. It would be interesting
to see how Morris writes with the other members of FLAG, but if the quality of
FLAG’s music could come anywhere near the heights reached by OFF! then they’ll
be able to live up to the towering legacy left behind by Black Flag.[3]
While FLAG hasn’t indicated that they’ll be making an album,
Black Flag recently announced a new album (their first since 1985) that will be
released by SST sometime this summer. The band also put out the first of
twenty-two songs that will appear on the record, “Down in the Dirt,” to
accompany their anti-FLAG press release. Contrary to what I expected from
twenty-first century Ginn, the song is pretty damn good. Reyes sounds great,
and Ginn’s guitar recaptures a distinctly Black Flag sonic identity that he’s
struggled to access since that band’s initial dissolution. The songwriting’s a
bit generic, but it sounds unmistakably like Black Flag, which means the battle’s
already halfway won. At the very least, it’s made me cautiously excited for a
new Greg Ginn album for the first time in my life.[4]
Unfortunately for Black Flag and FLAG, the original group’s
fourth and best vocalist Henry Rollins has basically retired from music and has
remained quiet on the subject of the current reunions. Put Damaged on the turntable and it’s clear by the first chorus that
Rollins is the greatest of the band’s singers. Combine all of the pre-Rollins
material, and one is left with a shorter runtime than that of just one Rollins-era
album. As such, any current iteration of Black Flag without him at center stage
will not quite feel like the Black Flag that has become so iconic. He’s keeping
busy with his activism, his acting, his radio show, his weekly L.A. Weekly column, and all manner of
stuff that isn’t related to his former career as a punk singer, and the idea of
him coming out of his decade-long retirement from music to sing a bunch of old
songs in a band that ended terribly is never going to happen. Still, while Ginn
wrote most of the band’s songs and three vocalists preceded him, Rollins in
many ways is Black Flag, and regardless of how good their shows are (Morris and
FLAG are almost certainly doing fine in this department) or how their new music
turns out, nothing here will feel right without Rollins. Maybe he’ll show up
and do a song or two at a FLAG show[5]
someday, but a “reunion” that miniscule will ultimately not make much of a dent
in Black Flag’s overall history. Ginn’s new Black Flag does have the power to
make a serious dent. FLAG is at least
openly a nostalgia act, but Black Flag will probably run into some trouble
trying to recreate the past. FLAG is just a bunch of guys having fun playing
old Black Flag songs, but the fact that most of the guys in the group used to
be in Black Flag separates them from the legions of cover bands out there. By
contrast, Ginn is playing with fire and risking damaging the group’s legacy. “Down
in the Dirt” is pretty good, but it doesn’t reach the level of Black Flag’s
most iconic output. I want to try to be optimistic about the new album, but
with Ginn at the helm, I’m not sure how optimistic I can be.
[1] I
say probably because I haven’t seen either band live so I can’t really speak on
that. Morris’ performances with OFF! over the last few years have been filled
with an energy and fury that few men half his age can muster onstage so it
seems unlikely that he’ll be mailing it in when he’s fronting Black Flag again
(in all but name). A few great examples of OFF! live can be seen here and here.
[2] My
ranking of Reyes and Cadena in the list of Black Flag singers is pretty
arbitrary, but the Jealous Again EP
is better than the Six Pack EP,
giving Reyes a slight edge. The period between Morris and Henry Rollins that was
occupied by Reyes and Cadena was a transitional one for the group as they
struggled to find their way after losing Morris, one of hardcore’s best
singers. They found their way after recruiting Rollins, the band’s defining
vocalist , in 1981. Unless you’re a completest, everything between Nervous Breakdown and Damaged isn’t terribly essential,
although it is better than the band’s post-My
War output.
[3]
This legacy is all the more impressive because nearly everything the band put
out after their 1984 sophomore album My
War was garbage.
[4] I
guess I should note that Black Flag broke up a couple of years before I was born.
Ginn’s last really great album, (full disclosure: I haven’t tried to wade
through every corner of his catalog since so much of it is exhausting to work
through) Getting Even, came out when
I was five, and I’m not even sure I understood what punk was at that age.
[5]
Morris and Dukowski have indicated in interviews that they’ve reached out to
other former Black Flag members for the FLAG project.
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