Dez vocals with Ginn's guitar are a killer mix. i like all eras of the flag, but Dez has some standout moments singing six pack, gimme gimme gimme and police story.
Dez's voice on these is so gravelly, like he gargled rocks right before he got on the mic. Incredible. I'm a huge Keith Morris fan but these are really good.
jimmyjambhere Most of these have been released officially; Damaged II, Room 13, Gimme, Depression and Padded Cell are all on 'Everything Went Black'. American Waste is on the 'Six Pack' EP and 'First Four Years' comp
I could never figure out all these years why Rollins is not considered THE Black Flag vocalist per excellence . All their greatest work was done by Rollins, the energy and unbending intent he brought to the band was pretty much unrivalled, he was no pathetic drug addict or neurotic pussy whipped little girl either ... I mean, the other guys have their talent, sure, but , in comparison with Rollins they might as well have grown a poodle rock hairdo and get it on in the LA Glam scene. P.S. Sorry if this is offensive to anybody , we all have different views and this is what keeps it all interesting ( common place but true I guess ...)
I understand why people who actually grew up in the early-mid 80's hardcore scene say that the band fell apart after Damaged. The album(Damaged) is just under 35 minutes long with 15 tracks, and (in my opinion) is pure raw punk rock on par with their releases before Damaged. Jump forward three years (give or take) and they release My War which is 9 tracks at just under 41 minutes, people went to Black Flag shows in 82-84ish to see raw fast hardcore music, but what they would get instead were 6-7 minute songs, and demo's of songs not yet recorded. People who grew up after the 80's hardcore scene, and the music that came after it already knew the chronological order that this band would take and due to that would be able to interject their opinion and say "well My War influenced sludge, and doom." but at the time when My War was new fans would listen to it and think, "Well shit what's next a Black Sabbath, or Led Zeppelin album?" which is what the 80's hardcore scene was trying to pull away from as much as possible.
Well half the band left, mainly because of the prolonged legal problems they were having with Unicorn over Damaged royalties. So yes you could they 'fell apart'. But they were forever changing their line up in the earlier years. I understand that they wrote all the My War songs in 82 but didn't record and release it until 1984 because of the legal obstacle, when they made up for lost time by releasing 4 albums in one year (!) Just because a song hasn’t been released doesn’t make playing it live a ‘demo’ song. The song can sound just as tight as a released track, it’s just harder for the casual attendees to get into it if they haven’t heard it so many times. I wouldn't describe Damaged as pure raw punk rock, it is significantly more abrasive and awkward sounding than their earlier releases, and with a much more heavy metal influence. Take GGG, compare Morris to Rollins...completely differently flow...but Damaged was significantly up tempo and brutal to more than satisfy the punk/hardcore crowd who may not have noticed the increased metal influence. It's easy to be objective about a band years later having read all the interviews and write ups about the band, getting other people's perspectives, sure, but that doesn't make the mentality of most music fans very clever. Most fans in general are more narrow minded musically than the artists who create the music, and are often fixated on a band's earlier work and view everything they do thereafter in terms of that - they don't always see the progression as they are in denial and want the band to stay the same forever. I used to be like that when I was a kid. Any punk band that went softer or more metally in my eyes had 'sold out'. The interview with Rollins by that small town kid with low self-esteem paints a similar picture. Sure their sound was very different later on but they were always changing musical direction, Ginn being a restless and creative sort and never liking to stay in the same place for too long as it would get boring. This didn't do their fanbase any favours as they were likely perpetually disappointed and confused. Rollins commented on this as much in the later days. You can't really compare the Damaged era Flag to the early Nervous Breakdown period which is much more Ramonesy, cheeky and sassy. But yeah, for many fans I can see why they couldn't get into later Flag and it is widely documented that many of their older fans gave up on them. Black Sabbath I can see why you mentioned it but Led Zep?? It was more like a wierd alternating of fast jazz metal, slow metal and metal punk. Black Flag were never hardcore, they were hardcore punk (at the start). Hardcore was I would assume a different scene although overlapped. Many of the bands in the scene, esp. on the SST label had very broad musical influences and the more traditional hardcore bands out there were not that creative tbh. Hardcore was extremely formulaic and it's probably why some of the bands got their 'money's worth' and slowed down and went more tuneful or more metally. You can't just be playing the same style forever, although later fans always disagree.
I was one of them. In early '84 I saw BF in Detroit (after My War came out) and just going WTF because the atmosphere was nothing like it was seeing them 2 years earlier. In fairness though Slip it in was IMO a better album and the show I saw that Oct. in Flint MI was much better. Still, after that BF was a less essential band for me and in hindsight think the Dez era was the best one. YMMD.
it was progression. their later albums are the best honestly. they moved forward, pushed the envelope and experimented. the typical hardcore punk sound is so tired and boring comparatively imo
This is a marked improvement regarding the band's musicianship. Greg Ginn is a stickler about rehearsal/rehearsing and it paid off. Too bad Keith Morris never got this philosophy of professionals.
the demo sound with flag is always better than the end product. its not only dez but dez is more the proto modern hardcore shouter yet sounding like henry does on a hourse but good day.
+25zero1 I have to agree. Black Flag, much like Husker Du or the Replacements, evolved their sound outside the (frankly limiting) constraints of hardcore. Unlike those two bands, however, Black Flag just didn't have the songwriting chops to take their sound to the next level successfully. IMHO, pretty much everything they did after Damaged (an unassailable rock n roll classic) was sort of dull. They had one number called "The Process of Weeding Out", a long guitar piece. I think they named it this because they knew they were shedding a lot of diehard hardcore fans. You have to admire their artistic ambition though, if not its musical results.
Grunge sucks balls. Anyways, there are some good later Black Flag songs, but there are more that missed the mark. Those later albums are mostly filler.
But wait ! Dez left BF and joined Misfits (along with Robo) ...for those stating BF was not the same w/o Dez and downhill with Rollins...well think again... Rollins took BF to the next (Punk) level ! Dez and Robo evolved musically as individuals and - through the Misfits - triggered an entirely new phase / genera of Hardcore ! Black Flag was and always will be the Source and inspiration of awesome fucking music ! Ask my 17 year old child :)
Dez didn't join the misfits until 2001. According to people I know who lived in that area back then (including ex members of black flag) most of what came out of "the rollins era" was gigs full of meatheads and bickering amongst each other about Greg and his bullshit.
