“Spray Paint the Walls” by Stevie Chick

Finally – a book on Black Flag and it took an author from the UK to write the definitive story of the most important American punk band.  Actually, Black Flag was one of the most important bands of any genre.  All of the many things that indie bands do today to become successful were really developed by necessity by those early punk pioneers like Black Flag and their contemporaries.  The early punk/new wave bands were signed mostly to major record labels and did not need to develop the “DIY Infrastructure” that was later needed when punk went underground and became hardcore.

 I always had a love/hate relationship with Black Flag.  I attended nearly all their shows when they came through Detroit (and Black Flag was constantly touring).  I dutifully brought the new albums as they were released; I accepted the constant lineup changes that seemed to happen at a way too frequent pace and I always considered them to be one of the greatest live bands ever.  But there was this underlying discontent I always had with the musical direction that the band was taking.  Each tour would bring a series of new songs that were always slower and longer than the previous one and I hated that.  I didn’t want to hear longs songs with guitar solos – there were enough bands in the 1970s that managed to drag out every song into a 20-minute version.  That’s what punk rock was about – we wanted short crazy songs like the ones that Black Flag started with.  I still loved and respected Black Flag, but I couldn’t listen to any of those latter albums.  We all know the rest of the story – Black Flag broke up, Henry Rollins became a famous author as well as a star and 20 years later suburban kids were all wearing Black Flag t-shirts.  \\

 But why?  I read the Henry Rollins “Back in the Van” book that started him on the path to literary stardom, but this was more of insight into how Henry felt when he was writing in his journal.  Greg Ginn gave occasional interviews, but seemed reluctant to revisit those days in the van too much.  Along comes the book from Steve Chick to put together all these pieces and tell us what Black Flag really was.  Neither Henry Rollins or Greg Ginn participated in this project, but Mr. Chick makes good use of the many interviews and writing (from Rollins) to put together an excellent history of Black Flag.

 Many of the other members of Black Flag, like Keith Morris, Chuck Dockowski, Dez Cadena, Kira Raessler and others did contribute to this book, so a fairly complete history of the band is presented.  The obvious discord between Greg Ginn and Henry Rollins is discussed, but wthout the participation of the two main principals is obviously incomplete.  In a nutshell, Black Flag was obviously Greg Ginn’s band and band members were jettisoned when they no longer fit into what his view of what Black Flag should be.  At the end Henry Rollins was too important to replace so Black Flag was done.

 The book is a great read and covers the story of America’s “only band that matters” in great detail. At times the author seems a bit too enamored with both Greg Ginn and the band.  At various times anybody that doesn’t buy into the musical changes of the band is labeled a “lnucklehead’, ‘idiot” or “cerebrally challenged”.  I certainly disagree with those kind of comments, but do agree that this book is certainly worth reading if you are a fun of this groundbreaking band.

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