Someone asked me about Black Flag a couple weeks ago, and more generally about my interest in punk and US hardcore. Back in the day, I became really fascinated with the hardcore scene, and was around in SoCal during its dying days. Loved a lot of anarchopunk too. But let’s stick with Black Flag for a moment. They are still a seminal rock band and their albums are classics in their own right. As much as I loved their early work, their later LPs and EPs were quite a ride in their own right. The band began experimenting with Rollins’ free form poetry. They also began experimenting with instrumental pieces. There was a video that I used to be able to find on YouTube showing the band playing one of their instrumentals. The instrumentalists of the band, Greg Ginn, Kira Roessler, and Bill Stevenson really got to kick out the jams while Henry Rollins sat out, and the audience in the pit had no clue whether they could mosh or not. They did release an exclusively instrumental EP, The Process of Weeding Out, which I will feature below. In many respects, this is my favorite recording of theirs. Enjoy.
I’ll have another cafe up hopefully next week. Take care.
The jukebox is set at anarchy and remembrance of days past. As always our fully stocked bar has all your favorite adult and non-alcoholic beverages. Feel free to mosh.
This week’s featured drink is Black Chaser Shots.
Any requests?
I was in Southern California during the 80s as well, but my favorite band from that scene was X. Here they are on Letterman.
Love Exene’s harmonies. They are unique to my ear, instinctive and unstudied. And the instrumentals and John’s songwriting were crackling good. Here’s one where the band wraps itself inventively around a great Bo Diddly beat that arrives on the chorus:
And here they appear amusingly clean-cut when coming on Bandstand (!) and bullshitting with Dick:
Sound Quality: D
Audience and Band Performance Quality: B+
The Parents Are Concerned.
And Lee Fang give them the piss: