by Gavin Heaney
They took the stage unceremoniously, shadows in the dim smokey light. A rumbling bass dangerously starts in and its pulsing persistence quickens as primitive, pounding drums escalate the adrenaline. After an inordinately long intro, electric guitar comes scraping in with distorted, discordant swirls, chaotically adding dissonance to the deadly rhythm. Black Flag began their first set at Saint Rocke primal and sparse like their iconic logo.
In spite of his age, Greg Ginn founder, songwriter and guitarist for Black Flag remains slender and boyish, frozen in permanent adolescence as his head involuntarily circles his neck, incoherent and frantically soloing, searching for the right offset. He’s enslaved to unsettling, his fingers slide up and down the neck sporadically, performing some punk jazz sorcery. His technique is untraceable and seems self taught. No matter how hard he tries for that wild note, everything he plays is melodically perfect. He is a savage savant and a metal master, thriving on the edge of dissociation, noodling nonsensically between crunchy power riffs. He only knows one scale, his and he conjures only one raunchy rock guitar tone, his own.
Ginn’s black magic on guitar is matched by the bottled violence of Mike Vallely, skateboard legend and the band’s singer since 2014. Jugular engorged, he spat fire with eyes wide at the crowd, which responded with slam dancing and stage diving on the slick, beer soaked floor. His energy was uncontainable and his fury relentless as he belted out the band’s hardcore punk classics “Wasted”, “Gimme Gimme Gimme”, “Nervous Breakdown”, “Rise Above” and many more. “What a way to start the new year.” he said sardonically in between songs. “One of my resolutions was to be here with you tonight. It’s good to be back in Hermosa Beach at Saint Rocke!”
At set break, Ginn walked among the crowd. I asked him if he’d care to comment on the show. “Not really. I’m just having a good time,” he mumbled meekly, gently shaking my hand. I couldn’t quite reconcile his quiet demeanor with his scary songwriting and was left wondering what exactly he considered to be a good time. Black Flag is the refuge of the spurned, unlucky, unattractive and abandoned. Its vulgar honesty is its rejection of falsehoods. If British punk clashed with phony Beatle-mania, then South Bay punk is surely the antithesis of The Beach Boys and the broken, battered California dream manufactured and pedaled by Hollywood. Black Flag is the reality, the non-fiction. They sing it like it is in “Wasted”
“I was so wasted
I was a hippie, I was a burnout, I was a dropout,
I was out of my head
I was a surfer, I had a skateboard,
I was so heavy man, I lived on The strand”
At the close of the second set, the band performed “TV Party” with a lyrical update, sarcastically extolling the virtues of overdosing on social media, losing ourselves to the screen. They also retrofitted The Kingsmens’ classic “Louie Louie” with their alternative verses which are in fact far more pointed and legible than the original. At last Vallely and Ginn lead the crowd out in a reprise, chanting, “Fuck Up!” as the music moved slowly to a halt and stood silently watching. It was all left up to us in the end. ER
