 |
In March 1984, Black Flag put out My War. After a long dispute with their record label that prevented them from releasing music, they had plenty stored up. Over the next 18 months, they put out four studio full-lengths, one live album, and one EP. Before they broke up in 1986, they changed the face of not only punk, but also metal.
Side A of My War bridged early (terse, punky) and later (torturous, cathartic) Black Flag. Song lengths rose past three minutes, as Greg Ginn’s guitar got skronkier, but the band could still write singalongs. The biggest one was the title track. Henry Rollins’ vocals obliterate 99% of what passes for “punk” now. He’d jump out the speakers and throttle you if he could. Given such misanthropy, it’s no surprise that black metal would take on Black Flag. Kult ov Azazel recently gave “My War” a nasty, blackened spin. You can hear it here.
Side B was the dealmaker/breaker. Sick and slow, its three dirges repelled critics but attracted countless converts. Googling “my war” “side b” influence yields hundreds of hits. One guy’s MySpace handle is “my war side b”. It’s a touchstone for Scott Kelly of Neurosis. Brian Patton of Eyehategod/Soilent Green told me, “We were just into slower bands, like the Melvins and side two of My War – downtuned, noisy crap”. In a Guitar World interview with Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil and the Melvins’ Buzz Osborne, Thayil recalls when he first heard the Melvins in late ‘84:
KIM: Everyone kept yelling, “Kim, did you hear that?” It was like, “The fuckin’ Melvins are slow as hell!” I was blown away – the Melvins went from being the fastest band in town to the slowest band in town. It was a pretty amazing and courageous move. Everyone was trying to be punk rock, a kind of art-damage thing, and the Melvins decided to be the heaviest band in the world.
BUZZ: It was the Black Flag thing.
Those three songs weren’t metal per se. Ginn spent too much time fighting Rollins’ vocals with noodly solos. Bill Stevenson was no metal drummer. But the weight was there. Sludge had entered the world – howling, unwanted, and nursing a permanent grudge.
my war bums out a lot of people, but i tend to think it’s f’n brilliant. side two is brutal. i’ve seen a photo of someone with a my war tattoo that says side two under the arm.
Cosmo-
How could Black Flag have had a “long dispute” with their record label? The founding member, guitarist of Black Flag, Greg Ginnn founded/owns SST, Black Flag’s label.
That’s what I like about MW: The Bummer.
The end of “My War” is brilliant. Stevenson slashing. Rollins screaming, howling, droning, belligerent. Ginn’s guitar scrabbling. Bass bleating. Dum. Dum. Dum. Dum. They sound like they are in four separate shitty apartments, watching the paint dry on their fuckin ennui. I’m all about it.
the problem was from a distribution deal with another company.
I tried to get together a HoF piece for Decibel on this one and everyone but Rollins was up for it. Rollins wouldn’t budge. He still must have a beef with Ginn (although he didn’t say why he didn’t want to do the interview).
Stew – that’s a great description.
Anon – you can read more about Black Flag’s dispute with Unicorn, a label, over distribution here:
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~cch223/usa/blackflag_main.html
and here (item 8):
http://www.breakmyface.com/bands/blackflag2.html
Adem – a My War HOF would have been amazing. Too bad it wasn’t to be.
That Kult of Azazel cover is, in a word, atrocious. The last interlude “I have a prediction” is stilted and stupid sounding. BMers can listen to punk, punkers can listen to BM, but that’s where it should end.
AT, coincidentally I started reading Rollins’ book “A Dull Roar” on vacation last week and in it there’s one journal entry where he gets into his feelings about Ginn and Black Flag and it would probably shed a little light on this topic. He doesn’t badmouth Ginn at all, but it seems that he harbors some issues surrounding that band. He was basically insinuating that certain events/behaviors over the years surrounding the band have made him feel like he can’t be properly proud of what he/they did; and that anytime a fan approaches him and brings up Black Flag he just kind of has to politely accept their praise, but then feels compelled to escape the conversation as soon as possible. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but it was by far one of the most interesting passages of the book so far, because I didn’t know he felt that way about it.
It’s always such a shame when strange tensions between utterly classic bands can linger over time and disrupt future opportunities…
Pretty much the ragingest record ever released in the history of mankind and a milestone stapled to a milestone on top of a milestone as far as aggressive and alienated music goes. The Flag were always great but on this record they were fucking untouchable. Their deadpan sincerity and ultra-ham-fisted execution (note how Ginn instructs Stevenson to play like a drum machine) really shines on this one.
I have a My war tattoo too, though it does not specify which side. I like both.
You put it perfectly, Cosmo, re: Rollins’ performance. Dig this record substantially, but also have trouble getting through it, I must admit. Some of the songs just plod.
And yeah, Kult of Azazel’s cover was absolute tripe.
Oh man – Side 2 of Black Flag’s MY WAR is some of the greatest, heaviest music ever put to vinyl.
First time I saw Black Flag live was April 5, 1984 — My War was burned into my punky little skull, never to be erased.
To this day, Side Two remains the heaviest fucking thing in the Universe. Uranium? Osmium? Plutonium? They've got nothing on Side Two of My War.