BLACK FLAG: THE FIRST FOUR YEARS (1978-1981; 1983)
1) Nervous Breakdown; 2) Fix
Me; 3) I've Had It; 4) Wasted; 5) Jealous Again; 6) Revenge; 7) White Minority;
8) No Values; 9) You Bet We've Got Something Personal Against You!; 10) Clocked
In; 11) Six Pack; 12) I've Heard It Before; 13) American Waste; 14) Machine;
15) Louie Louie; 16) Damaged I.
I suppose that putting out three EPs with three
different singers in four years is
some sort of record, but what really makes it a unique record is that each
following singer was worse than his
predecessor. Keith Morris, handling the lead vocals on 1978's Nervous Breakdown, still sings more or
less in the «first wave punk» tradition, with a snappy, sneering attitude and
relatively understandable enunciation of the words. Sometimes he can even hit
different notes and hold them, a fairly anathemous thing to do for America's
quintessential hardcore band. His successor, Ron Reyes, also lovingly called «Chavo
Pederast» by his fellow band members, already comes across as a professional hardcore
screamer on 1980's Jealous Again,
but he still shows some understanding of pitch, may function in one of several
emotional states, and knows what sarcasm is (ʽWhite Minorityʼ). Finally, Dez
Chavena, active on the Six Pack EP
and also featured on several additional outtakes, just seems like a plain old
simple street guy with an unreliable throat (it is said that he couldn't handle
proper live shows, and eventually pleaded to be relegated to second guitar,
once Rollins came along).
What binds all these short stages together is
the music, credited mainly to the band leader and main guitarist, Greg Ginn,
and occasionally, to the bass player Chuck Dukowski. Although, due to Greg's
insistence, the band positioned itself as «professional» from the very
beginning, spending lots of time in rehearsal, these early songs do not yet
disclose the full scope of Ginn's talents or interests. For the most part, the
early EPs are more like «the Ramones taken to eleven» — ʽWhite Minorityʼ, for
instance, begins like ʽBlitzkrieg Bopʼ and then, just a few bars later, slips
into ʽBeat On The Bratʼ — but the songs are notably shorter (one to
one-and-a-half minute running length is common), and, most importantly,
notably meaner. Black Flag has its
own sense of humor, of course, but it's mostly dark, bitter humor, full of
aggressive sarcasm; and most of the time, they just sound like they want to put
their fist in your face, rather than party around.
Quality-wise, I suppose this whole disc does
not really get any better than its opening track — ʽNervous Breakdownʼ tells
you everything you ever wanted to know about early Black Flag, and, in fact,
about early hardcore in general. Poor production; Ginn's guitar as the only
properly audible instrument, sounding like a cross between the chainsaw buzz
of Johnny Ramone and the underworld rumble of Tony Iommi (Ginn is a lifelong
Black Sabbath fan, and it always shows); and a singer gradually going from
pissed-off snarl to frenetic roar, as his promise of being about to have a
nervous breakdown is swiftly realized over the course of the song's two
minutes. The next three songs basically repeat the same message — ʽWastedʼ
being a particular highlight, as it packs the required angst and anguish into a
single-breath fifty seconds. It does beg the question, though: why the past
tense? "I was so wasted" —
is that supposed to mean that things are all right now? Everything else on the
EP is in present tense, you know.
For Jealous
Again, Ginn already implements a few stylistic changes: most importantly, the
guitar playing becomes more melodic, as he adds screechy bluesy leads to the
title track and ʽRevengeʼ. More questionable is the decision to address the
band's own problems: ʽYou Bet We've Got Something Personal Against You!ʼ slams
down the freshly departed Keith Morris, who allegedly stole the band's material
for his new band, The Circle Jerks. Then again, maybe venting one's frustration
against concrete people for concrete problems might be considered a more honest
and authentic way to go than just spewing out another predictable
anti-authority rant in general.
The first signs of «classic» Black Flag,
however, only begin to appear closer to the Dez Cadena period, as the songs
become more interesting from the compositional and arrangement-based points of
view. The guitar solos on ʽClocked Inʼ become exceedingly maniacal, with
elements of atonality; ʽSix Packʼ opens with thirty seconds of suspenseful bass/drum
interplay and features several tempo changes and completely crazyass lead lines
along the way; and ʽI've Heard It Beforeʼ features Ginn in full swing, as his
guitar imitates a fire alarm siren gone off its rocker. These are no longer examples
of an «angrified Ramones» approach; this is something different.
Most divergent of the lot are the last three
songs: ʽMachineʼ is a bass-solo-gone-noise-rock experiment over which Cadena
screams that he is not a machine (so you could as well call it an
anti-Kraftwerk protest song); the cover of ʽLouie Louieʼ, with a new set of
lyrics, arguably features the most atonal guitar solo ever suggested for that
song; and the original version of ʽDamagedʼ, with a relentless four-minute
industrial punch to it, as Ginn suddenly finds himself getting closer to the
aesthetics of Einstürzende Neubauten, is one of the most aurally brutal things
they ever came up with (much heavier and uglier than what it became later with
Rollins).
«Liking» or «loving» a collection like this is
almost out of the question, I think, since it is so diverse in functionality —
I mean, if the early songs are your average teenage hormonal stuff, and should
primarily fall in line with the average 17-year old as he gets his first serious
whupping from Life, the later songs are already more suitable for the ear of
the avantgarde lover. So this whole process is interesting, even thrilling
perhaps, from an «evolutionary» point of view, but the individual parts all
have their flaws — the early stuff is too derivative and formulaic, and the
later stuff, weird as it is, feels a bit underdeveloped, and also suffers from
Cadena's lack of personality, as the man is essentially a one-note, one-vibe
character. Naturally, on the whole the collection still gets a thumbs up,
but in general curve terms, it is hard for me not to perceive it as just a gradual
build-up — a four-year training camp — for the true success still to come.
Check "The First Four Years" (CD) on Amazon
Check "The First Four Years" (MP3) on Amazon
Did you watch The Decline of Western Civilization?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082252/
I think it adds a lot of context to Black Flag's music and attitude.
Oh, Lordy, so we've finally arrived at Black Flag. Fasten your seatbelts, kids, this is going to be one hell of a bumpy ride!
ReplyDeleteAny reason you're not completely covering The Birthday Party? I know you can't cover every album from every band, but for someone who actually reviewed stuff like Asia's live and archival material you would think you could spare two days to at least review The Birthday Party's live and BBC albums. They are not exactly revelatory I suppose, but Live does raise the levels of auditory assault, for better or worse.
ReplyDeleteWell, given the choice of getting to the peak era of Black Flag or wading through archival Birthday Party releases, I'd say George has the balance just about right!
Delete"is some sort of record, but what really makes it a unique record is that each following singer was worse than his predecessor."
DeleteLong Live Rock'n'Roll 1978.
Down to Earth 1979 or 1980.
Difficult to Cure 1981.
JLT worse than Bonnet? DTC worse than DtE? I must disagree on both counts!
DeleteNow, if you want to talk Uriah Heep (and make George cringe!), the transition from Byron to Lawton (who's a great singer, just not as great as Byron in his prime) to Sloman is far worse. Goalby is not bad, just very generic - I'd take JLT any day over him or Sloman.
I am just surprised. It's not like they have tons of releases, and this is George, who has reviewed about 50 BB King albums and even, as I said, some Asia archives of all things. Obviously, I am biased, but I would rather he cover Birthday Party oddities rather than Asia's. Maybe George has realized he needs to move quicker if he is ever going to get to the letter C. I just wish he would have realized that before reviewing nearly everything from some other bands that he clearly likes less than The Birthday Party.
Deletei totally agree - if that's the case of course - i was looking forward to hearing George's opinions on 'Live 81 - 82' as it's one of my favourites, but oh well... maybe he just couldn't get hold of it... or something :-/
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