Yo, DJ.....HIT ME!!

The Black Flag situation has a resolution of sorts.
The trademark infringement lawsuit that Greg Ginn filed last year has been sorted out.
Greg and SST records are the sole owners of the Black Flag name, logo and recordings. FLAG, Chuck Dukowski's touring group, are allowed to continue to tour but are not allowed to use the 4 bars logo in any way. (which is something I'm not sure I agree with).

Henry Rollins and Keith Morris gave all interest in Black Flag back to Greg Ginn, and I can see that. I don't think Henry or Keith ever had it in for Greg. I think they just wanted to light a fire under his ass. And they did. So much so that Greg resurrected Black Flag and released a new record. (With Ron Reyes on vocals!)
I'm still kind of stunned that there even IS a new Black Flag album, let alone that they are on a North American tour this year. It's kind of surreal. And it may seem blasphemous to punk rockers, but I'm actually really digging WHAT THE... as a record. (Especially the song "Down in the Dirt"). Greg says this music is the music Black Flag fans need right now, and the more I listen to it, I get what he's saying. The next album with Mike Vallely on vocals had better blow my fucking mind.
I had to buy "WHAT THE..." and listen to it to really be critical of Greg Ginn. But he's cut me off at the knees. I actually hear the old Black Flag sound on a few songs on this new record. Blasphemy?
No. It's the Truth. If the music didn't sound how Black Flag should sound to me then I would definitely rip Ginn up. But the music stops me in my tracks. He's given us enough to make him an easy target, but the fact is, the music is where the real buck stops in the Black Flag saga. And this new album isn't as bad as the bad press makes it out to be.

I've found (at least in Ottawa Canada) that Black Flag "fans" don't listen to the records. They are more fans of the "image" of Black Flag than the actual music. No one I know plays Black Flag records at home. I'm the only one it seems. On Chez 106 classic rock radio over the weekend they said that an online poll found that over 70% of vinyl record buyers buy those records to impress their friends, to show off their record collections, not to actually LISTEN TO THEM. To me that's a bunch of stupid hipster bullshit. And a waste of time and money.
I would never buy a record that I wouldn't listen to. Why would you throw your money away like that? It's retarded. It's everything that a pure music lover should be against.

In the aftermath of 420, I'd like to let you know that Henry Rollins is on the "legalize and decriminalize" bandwagon.

Even though Henry believes marijuana is a waste of time and doesn't smoke it himself, he says on his website that if he were to be afflicted with some illness that could only be alleviated with weed, he would like to have the option of using it. Very cool of him to support the cause. He has created a very cool new t-shirt (up for sale on his website for $25). It depicts his famous "Search and Destroy" sun logo/tattoo with some pot leaves sprouting out behind it. I laughed when I saw it. I love it. Another reason why Henry is a supremely cool motherfucker.
He also did a radio show with an all-weed theme this past week- check it out. Roll up a fatty and listen to some killer tracks he put together- a wild version of "Dopesmoker" he was given, for one, (that song was in Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers). He also has a rarely played track from Ween, one of my top ten favorite bands. What can I say? Henry is so cool it hurts.

Henry will be at Montebello Quebec this June, the only tour date he has this year it seems. Support the man. He's a Teacher.

I will be in Toronto to see Black Flag. But I am only going for historical reasons.
I e-mailed Henry Rollins a couple days ago about Black Flag, and he replied, decent man that he is, and told me he has no clue what Greg Ginn is doing with that old music. He said I guess it's up to you to find out. He ended with Caveat Emptor.
So I have the Pope's blessing. Henry is on the same bill as Black Flag in Montebello the next day. He also said he only lives in the present.

I am not going to this show on June 19 to see a great band. I'm going to see what happened to that great band. To see "what Greg Ginn is doing with that old music". I'll be sure to post here and let you know what I witnessed. I read an interview with Mike Vallely, and the knives were out over Ron Reyes. Mike said he "doomed the reformation from the start". Ron says it was never a "reformation", that the drummer sucked, Greg could barely play his own music onstage, and that the What The.. LP is merely Dale Nixon and Ron Reyes' pet project, with the bars and Black Flag logo slapped on for better sales. OUCH.

So my conclusion is Black Flag does not really exist as a band in 2014. We'll see if that show at Coda will change my opinion on this.

After watching a video performance of "TV Party" at the House of Blues, I decided to say "FUCK THAT!" and not go to the Black Flag show.
That performance was pedestrian. It had no juice, no aggression, no ATTACK. KEN MODE? Fuck no. HEN MODE!

I even said so on the official Black Flag Facebook page. (they deleted the comments the same hour I posted them)
And seeing all these teeny-bopper hipster kids at that show just made me recoil in disgust.
What Greg Ginn is doing is beyond any sane punk music fans comprehension. He is Black Flag, Inc. as Henry Rollins said he was. (And is illustrated on the October Faction album cover). He's a complete sellout. He sold out his own formidable legacy for wooden nickels.

The beauty of the whole Black Flag situation is that as time marched on, the truth emerged on what that band is and means.
You can look at the individual members on their own, and see how they outshone Greg Ginn even while they were being set up for a snowjob "vibing out". I bought (and still listen to often) Black Flag records mainly for Henry and Chuck. I got into the band because of Henry. I learned of Rollins Band first, then I was hit with the absolute ANVIL of AWESOME with Black Flag. That was it after I heard them. The best L.A. band since the Doors. (And no I'm not dismissing X- they killed it too).

Black Flag is no more. It WAS no more in August 1986. Greg Ginn quit the band. He left it to Henry, with one simple phone call.
28 years later Ginn is a bitter old man, making victims out of whoever he thinks deserves to be a victim. But victim how Greg? You certainly don't play with the same intensity as you did from 1978-1986. There is no fire there. It's "Sweatin' to the Oldies", with Mike "Richard Simmons" Vallely and it's beyond pathetic. It is seriously embarassing.
Did you know Keith Morris asked Greg during the prep/rehearsal for the 2003 reunion why the songs were being rehearsed way slower than the way they were always played? Greg said "Keith, we were playing these songs way too fast." Keith was like, "OH BOY, what the fuck have I gotten myself into here?" and he refused to do the reunion.

Black Flag is nothing but a piggy bank for Greg Ginn.
Buy the original records for the members who put their souls into it and got zilch. Even though they don't get a royalty. The karma will find them.

Well Lord Almighty, you would not believe the recent events in the Black Flag saga.
It's truly astonishing what has transpired. But it also has a very VERY happy ending.

Greg Ginn's wife has filed for divorce, citing child abuse of his 2 daughters.
Apparently Ginn denies them food, orders them around like Hitler, drinks in front of them, smokes copius amounts of weed in front of them, and the most shocking part is he's made "catcalls" at them, calling them "HOT!" and shit like that.

This truly is disturbing, and it made me burn my Black Flag records in a garbage can behind my house. I only have 2 CD's now, and only because Damaged and MY WAR have Chuck Dukowski & Henry Rollins' indelible stamp on them. Black Flag is now a pariah, and Greg Ginn is nothing less than pure scum.

The happy ending to all this?

OFF!

Keith Morris, Steven MacDonald and Dimitri Coates, with Monster drummer Mario.
The LP they put out this year (WASTED YEARS) is the answer to Greg Ginn's Colossal Fuckery and Insane Behavior.
Ginn is way more than paranoid and bitter. He's a fucking child abuser. Unforgivable.

OFF! is the perfect antidote to Black Flag- both are insect repellants, but BF no longer kills. OFF! is the only hardcore punk band that still has the ferocity of the days back in that church in Hermosa Beach. And the topper of toppers is Greg Ginn's brother Raymond Pettibon did the artwork for the Wasted Years album cover. When I bought it I let out a shriek at the image. It's obviously Greg Ginn, shirtless, with dope smoke wafting from his nostrils, "wishing all boys were like his surfer boyfriend" BAM!

As soon as I played that CD I was in heaven. Keith Morris has brought the whole thing full-circle, and it is GLORIOUS.

Greg Ginn is a dead man. LONG LIVE OFF!

One of the drummers for Rollins Band passed away yesterday: Jason Mackenroth.
He was a very powerful drummer, as Sim Cain is/was for Henry.
Cancer has claimed another one.
Jason was the drummer for MOTHER SUPERIOR, a stellar band, and he played on the incredibly Awesome "Rise Above" West Memphis Three benefit album- a CD that I play all the fuckin' time. Buy it. And stand back in fuckin' AWE. It's got guest vocals by Lemmy (Goodbye you Badass Motherfucker!), Tom Araya, Iggy Pop, Hank III, Chuck D., Dean Ween, Chuck Dukowski and other galactically killer people.

Rollins Band is no more, Henry said he doesn't know if he can do anything else with music. He did it all. In my humble opinion Rollins Band is the most underrated band in history. No one I know listens to them. No one I know has a single Rollins Band album.
I guess it's just way too intense. Way too HEAVY.

Chameleon David Bowie has died. Henry Rollins said that Bowie's albums are just about the greatest records ever made.
The man was a musical genius, one of the best performers to ever take a stage. (Some think he's THE best ever).

He did a song inspired by Stanley Kubrick: "Space Oddity", and acted in some amazing films: Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, The Man Who Fell To Earth and The Hunger with Susan Sarandon, among others.

He leaves a huge void. The man had Legions of fans...