The 1981 Listening Post - Black Flag - Damaged

 Black Flag - Damaged

#635

by Julia Talbot

Damaged

Black Flag

December 5, 1981

Genre:  Iconical Hard Core. 

Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Julia’s Rating: 8 out 5

Highlights: 

A pretty girl is like a melody. 

Rise Above (duh)

TV Party

It is so much harder to write a review about an amazing album than one I don’t like so much. Screw the historical importance, political and musical significance back story, fun facts, band gossip and intrigue, let’s party, let’s rock, let’s get a six pack and have nothing to do. 

I first encountered this album and Black Flag in high school where I did not deem myself cool or edgy enough to really engage with either my own anger and frustration with the universe or Black Flag. Of course, for those of us a certain age, TV Party is inexorably linked with (the cult classic) Repo Man, a movie that introduced me to the concept of extensional dystopia and exponentially increased my gratitude over not growing up in the suburbs…. Or southern California which seemed equally disconnected and/or random. Between Reganonomics, the end of the Cold War/threat of nuclear war, Crack and assorted other personal and political events, bands like Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys and a few minutes later Rap and Hip Hop were exactly what the doctor ordered for a kid who had spent the prior five years listening to 60’s protest folk and classical music (which I used as my own sort of protest against the stylings of Air Supply and the like). I still dressed like I had escaped from a prep school where Edward Gorey was the headmaster, but my considerable adolescent anger found a niche in hard core. When I got to college and went to shows and discovered mosh pits, a part of me was completed. My personal connections aside, this album is just as important to the rest of universe. It has been recognized as a hugely influential album – being named on any number of “best of” lists. Rolling Stone has it as the 340^th most influential album of all times and Pitchfork named it as the 25^th of 100 top albums of the 80’s, which starts to feel like a backhanded compliment of sorts. Too many qualifiers. 

All that being said, Damaged actual entry into the musical universe was fairly subdued. While the band had been around since 1976 this is their first studio album. Notably it features Black Flag’s new vocalist at the time, Henry Rollins. Prior to Damaged, the Black Flag had released a few EPs and had unsuccessfully tried at least twice to record a full-length album but to no avail. 

Here are some fun facts about the album:

 

Drummer Robo was wearing bracelets on his left wrist that rattled when he played; the rattling, whenever he hit his snare drum, especially when he hit downbeats on it, became part of the sound. 

 

The version of "Rise Above" on the album was recorded at an earlier session with Rollins and was intended purely for a single release. Another version was recorded during the album sessions but the band abandoned it and decided to include the single version instead. 

 

A 1982 European release issued by Roadrunner Records' RoadRacer imprint substitutes the later single version of "T.V. Party" for the album version on side one, and adds the Dez Cadena-led single version of "Louie Louie" to the end of side two. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dd87truWl8

 

The initial CD reissue of Damaged appended the Jealous Again EP. All subsequent versions contain the original album only. 

 

The album was recorded at Unicorn Studios, on Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood. The band was living and rehearsing in another part of the building that housed Unicorn Studios prior to the sessions. 

 

So, all of this sentimentality and rhetoric aside, why is Damaged worth listening to? There are few reasons I can recommend it:

1. It has a great beat and is an excellent example/introduction into the hard core/ punk sound as a genre. 

2. The lyrics are really strong. One of things that made me stay at the punk party was the fact that the songs (much like early rap and/or every rapper’s first songs) covered topics that were both germane and unusual to standard song lyric topics of the day. Coming off of a steady diet of Air Supply, Peter Frampton and even the New Romantic/New Wave bands, punk offered a place where dystopia, discontent, disenfranchisement and dysfunction could be and were discussed, never mind the more mundane topic of what was on tv.  These lyrics were more interesting and more inclusive as they included songs about people who didn’t fit the standard molds including not having socially acceptable feelings…and playing Malcolm to folk/folk rock’s Martin, they connected the political with the personal with anger and discontent and outrage. It was a welcome change from songs about relationships. At least it was for me. 

 

For comparison purposes, 

“Gimmie, Gimmie Gimmie” by Black Flag v.” Gimme Gimme Gimme” by ABBA

 

I know the world's got problems
I've got problems of my own
Not the kind that can't be solved
With an atom bomb

So gimmie, gimmie, gimmie
Gimmie some more

 

Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight
Won't somebody help me chase the shadows away
Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight
Take me through the darkness to the break of the day

 

For the record, I love both songs and their lyrics but you gotta admit, Black Flag might have a more important or interesting message. 

 

Their messaging is also pretty timeless as evidenced in Police Story

Fucking city is run by pigs
They take the rights away from all the kids
Understand that we're fighting a war we can't win
They hate us, we hate them

 

And when was the last time you heard a lyric use the word distort?

Jealous cowards try to control
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
They distort what we say
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
Try and stop what we do
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
When they can't do it themselves
Rise above! We're gonna rise above

 

You don’t have to love the genre but you have to admit they were on to something. 

y Julia Talbot

Damaged

Black Flag

December 5, 1981

Genre:  Iconical Hard Core. 

Julia’s Rating: 8 out 5

Allan’s Rating:

Highlights: A pretty girl is like a melody. 

Rise Above (duh)

TV Party

It is so much harder to write a review about an amazing album than one I don’t like so much. Screw the historical importance, political and musical significance back story, fun facts, band gossip and intrigue, let’s party, let’s rock, let’s get a six pack and have nothing to do. 

I first encountered this album and Black Flag in high school where I did not deem myself cool or edgy enough to really engage with either my own anger and frustration with the universe or Black Flag. Of course, for those of us a certain age, TV Party is inexorably linked with (the cult classic) Repo Man, a movie that introduced me to the concept of extensional dystopia and exponentially increased my gratitude over not growing up in the suburbs…. Or southern California which seemed equally disconnected and/or random. Between Reganonomics, the end of the Cold War/threat of nuclear war, Crack and assorted other personal and political events, bands like Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys and a few minutes later Rap and Hip Hop were exactly what the doctor ordered for a kid who had spent the prior five years listening to 60’s protest folk and classical music (which I used as my own sort of protest against the stylings of Air Supply and the like). I still dressed like I had escaped from a prep school where Edward Gorey was the headmaster, but my considerable adolescent anger found a niche in hard core. When I got to college and went to shows and discovered mosh pits, a part of me was completed. My personal connections aside, this album is just as important to the rest of universe. It has been recognized as a hugely influential album – being named on any number of “best of” lists. Rolling Stone has it as the 340^th most influential album of all times and Pitchfork named it as the 25^th of 100 top albums of the 80’s, which starts to feel like a backhanded compliment of sorts. Too many qualifiers. 

All that being said, Damaged actual entry into the musical universe was fairly subdued. While the band had been around since 1976 this is their first studio album. Notably it features Black Flag’s new vocalist at the time, Henry Rollins. Prior to Damaged, the Black Flag had released a few EPs and had unsuccessfully tried at least twice to record a full-length album but to no avail. 

Here are some fun facts about the album:

 

Drummer Robo was wearing bracelets on his left wrist that rattled when he played; the rattling, whenever he hit his snare drum, especially when he hit downbeats on it, became part of the sound. 

 

The version of "Rise Above" on the album was recorded at an earlier session with Rollins and was intended purely for a single release. Another version was recorded during the album sessions but the band abandoned it and decided to include the single version instead. 

 

A 1982 European release issued by Roadrunner Records' RoadRacer imprint substitutes the later single version of "T.V. Party" for the album version on side one, and adds the Dez Cadena-led single version of "Louie Louie" to the end of side two. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dd87truWl8

 

The initial CD reissue of Damaged appended the Jealous Again EP. All subsequent versions contain the original album only. 

 

The album was recorded at Unicorn Studios, on Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood. The band was living and rehearsing in another part of the building that housed Unicorn Studios prior to the sessions. 

 

So, all of this sentimentality and rhetoric aside, why is Damaged worth listening to? There are few reasons I can recommend it:

1. It has a great beat and is an excellent example/introduction into the hard core/ punk sound as a genre. 

2. The lyrics are really strong. One of things that made me stay at the punk party was the fact that the songs (much like early rap and/or every rapper’s first songs) covered topics that were both germane and unusual to standard song lyric topics of the day. Coming off of a steady diet of Air Supply, Peter Frampton and even the New Romantic/New Wave bands, punk offered a place where dystopia, discontent, disenfranchisement and dysfunction could be and were discussed, never mind the more mundane topic of what was on tv.  These lyrics were more interesting and more inclusive as they included songs about people who didn’t fit the standard molds including not having socially acceptable feelings…and playing Malcolm to folk/folk rock’s Martin, they connected the political with the personal with anger and discontent and outrage. It was a welcome change from songs about relationships. At least it was for me. 

 

For comparison purposes, 

“Gimmie, Gimmie Gimmie” by Black Flag v.” Gimme Gimme Gimme” by ABBA

 

I know the world's got problems
I've got problems of my own
Not the kind that can't be solved
With an atom bomb

So gimmie, gimmie, gimmie
Gimmie some more

 

Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight
Won't somebody help me chase the shadows away
Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight
Take me through the darkness to the break of the day

 

For the record, I love both songs and their lyrics but you gotta admit, Black Flag might have a more important or interesting message. 

 

Their messaging is also pretty timeless as evidenced in Police Story

Fucking city is run by pigs
They take the rights away from all the kids
Understand that we're fighting a war we can't win
They hate us, we hate them

 

And when was the last time you heard a lyric use the word distort?

Jealous cowards try to control
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
They distort what we say
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
Try and stop what we do
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
When they can't do it themselves
Rise above! We're gonna rise above

 

You don’t have to love the genre but you have to admit they were on to something. 

y Julia Talbot

Damaged

Black Flag

December 5, 1981

Genre:  Iconical Hard Core. 

Julia’s Rating: 8 out 5

Allan’s Rating:

Highlights: A pretty girl is like a melody. 

Rise Above (duh)

TV Party

It is so much harder to write a review about an amazing album than one I don’t like so much. Screw the historical importance, political and musical significance back story, fun facts, band gossip and intrigue, let’s party, let’s rock, let’s get a six pack and have nothing to do. 

I first encountered this album and Black Flag in high school where I did not deem myself cool or edgy enough to really engage with either my own anger and frustration with the universe or Black Flag. Of course, for those of us a certain age, TV Party is inexorably linked with (the cult classic) Repo Man, a movie that introduced me to the concept of extensional dystopia and exponentially increased my gratitude over not growing up in the suburbs…. Or southern California which seemed equally disconnected and/or random. Between Reganonomics, the end of the Cold War/threat of nuclear war, Crack and assorted other personal and political events, bands like Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys and a few minutes later Rap and Hip Hop were exactly what the doctor ordered for a kid who had spent the prior five years listening to 60’s protest folk and classical music (which I used as my own sort of protest against the stylings of Air Supply and the like). I still dressed like I had escaped from a prep school where Edward Gorey was the headmaster, but my considerable adolescent anger found a niche in hard core. When I got to college and went to shows and discovered mosh pits, a part of me was completed. My personal connections aside, this album is just as important to the rest of universe. It has been recognized as a hugely influential album – being named on any number of “best of” lists. Rolling Stone has it as the 340^th most influential album of all times and Pitchfork named it as the 25^th of 100 top albums of the 80’s, which starts to feel like a backhanded compliment of sorts. Too many qualifiers. 

All that being said, Damaged actual entry into the musical universe was fairly subdued. While the band had been around since 1976 this is their first studio album. Notably it features Black Flag’s new vocalist at the time, Henry Rollins. Prior to Damaged, the Black Flag had released a few EPs and had unsuccessfully tried at least twice to record a full-length album but to no avail. 

Here are some fun facts about the album:

 

Drummer Robo was wearing bracelets on his left wrist that rattled when he played; the rattling, whenever he hit his snare drum, especially when he hit downbeats on it, became part of the sound. 

 

The version of "Rise Above" on the album was recorded at an earlier session with Rollins and was intended purely for a single release. Another version was recorded during the album sessions but the band abandoned it and decided to include the single version instead. 

 

A 1982 European release issued by Roadrunner Records' RoadRacer imprint substitutes the later single version of "T.V. Party" for the album version on side one, and adds the Dez Cadena-led single version of "Louie Louie" to the end of side two. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dd87truWl8

 

The initial CD reissue of Damaged appended the Jealous Again EP. All subsequent versions contain the original album only. 

 

The album was recorded at Unicorn Studios, on Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood. The band was living and rehearsing in another part of the building that housed Unicorn Studios prior to the sessions. 

 

So, all of this sentimentality and rhetoric aside, why is Damaged worth listening to? There are few reasons I can recommend it:

1. It has a great beat and is an excellent example/introduction into the hard core/ punk sound as a genre. 

2. The lyrics are really strong. One of things that made me stay at the punk party was the fact that the songs (much like early rap and/or every rapper’s first songs) covered topics that were both germane and unusual to standard song lyric topics of the day. Coming off of a steady diet of Air Supply, Peter Frampton and even the New Romantic/New Wave bands, punk offered a place where dystopia, discontent, disenfranchisement and dysfunction could be and were discussed, never mind the more mundane topic of what was on tv.  These lyrics were more interesting and more inclusive as they included songs about people who didn’t fit the standard molds including not having socially acceptable feelings…and playing Malcolm to folk/folk rock’s Martin, they connected the political with the personal with anger and discontent and outrage. It was a welcome change from songs about relationships. At least it was for me. 

 

For comparison purposes, 

“Gimmie, Gimmie Gimmie” by Black Flag v.” Gimme Gimme Gimme” by ABBA

 

I know the world's got problems
I've got problems of my own
Not the kind that can't be solved
With an atom bomb

So gimmie, gimmie, gimmie
Gimmie some more

 

Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight
Won't somebody help me chase the shadows away
Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight
Take me through the darkness to the break of the day

 

For the record, I love both songs and their lyrics but you gotta admit, Black Flag might have a more important or interesting message. 

 

Their messaging is also pretty timeless as evidenced in Police Story

Fucking city is run by pigs
They take the rights away from all the kids
Understand that we're fighting a war we can't win
They hate us, we hate them

 

And when was the last time you heard a lyric use the word distort?

Jealous cowards try to control
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
They distort what we say
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
Try and stop what we do
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
When they can't do it themselves
Rise above! We're gonna rise above

 

You don’t have to love the genre but you have to admit they were on to something. 

https://open.spotify.com/album/34aFnrFRBlErcbU6moRZR3?si=Mvowy3yqTZSuR-4oibhF7A

The 1986 Listening Post - Gone - Gone II But Never Gone

Gone - Gone II But Never Gone

#126/1291 LISTENING POST DISCOVERY

April 1 1986     

Gone 

Gone II But Never To Gone 

Genre: Punk/Jazz

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

New Vengeance

Turned Over Stone

Adams

GTV

More Greg Ginn and his free form Punk-Metal-Jazz fusion. And, like his other post Black Flag DC 3 stuff...I like it. Which has me wondering... Was Henry Rollins the problem all along??

Gone was improvised stuff by a group of really talented guys who thrashed. This album is fantastic. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/gone-ii-but-never-too-gone/117989106

The 1985 Listening Post - Black Flag - In My Head

Black Flag - In My Head

#417/1052

October 1985

Black Flag

In My Head

Genre: ExperiMetal

3.75 out of 5

I’ve made no secret about my dislike for Greg Ginn. There was one good song in Black Flag’s repertoire as far as I am concerned, the sarcastic and obnoxiously hilarious “TV Party”. How Henry Rollins became the poet laureate of Punk is a testament to good PR and stick to it-iveness. 

That said, the sludgy opening of “Paralyzed” and how it leads into the darkly mental “The Crazy Girl” is almost a culmination of so many missed targets coming together in a cohesion that renders all the bad feelings moot. 

Those two tracks actually set the tone for the whole record and then, towards the end, it’s almost as though the guys are aiming for…listenability? (“Society’s Tease” has them proving they learned something from listening to Ramones records)

Amazing that it took getting to their swan song for them to get here. And maybe that’s what ended them. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/in-my-head/115818891

The 1985 Listening Post - Black Flag - Loose Nut

Black Flag - Loose Nut

#162

May 14 1985

Black Flag

Loose Nut

3.25 out of 5

Highlights:

Modern Man

I’m the One

Black Flag is the band that takes your criticism as a dare to see if they could actually be worse. 

And then they come out with a new one and prove it.

Here, unlike the turgid crap they put out the year before, they are actually trying to write “Songs” and, well, they aren’t absolutely horrible. They are just bad. 

I have no idea how Black Flag got the reputation they did, perhaps live they were incredible. My brother had “Damaged”. No one ever listened to it. 

This…isn’t terrible. Nor is it great. There are moments where I totally get it and then, in the next, I just want it to be over. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/loose-nut/115819569

The 1984 Listening Post - Black Flag - Slip It In

Black Flag - Slip It In

#316
December 1 1984
Black Flag
Slip It In
2.25 out of 5

Wait, forget what I said before. This is where the 90s starts. This is King Missile, right? Or a slightly more coherent Sonic Youth.

Double entendres? Sexually charged teen angst? And this sort of also sounds like Ramones.
None of that is really all that great, btw. It's just observation.

I think, looking back on this with today's ears, it sounds rudimentary but, from an archeological standpoint, maybe it's ground breaking. Surely the guitar in "Black Coffee" is electrifying (the lyrics, however...I get it, man, you're drinking Black Coffee), but is it any different from what, say, the Stooges were doing? And the MC5 before them? It also sounds so damned muddy.

Three Black Flag records in one year. Only two more in 85 and one of them is about 25 minutes long. I might put the kibosh on it.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/slip-it-in/117618553

The 1984 Listening Post - Black Flag - Family Man

Black Flag - Family Man

#225

August 1984

Black Flag

Family Man

2.75 out of 5

A long time ago I fancied myself a bit of a prosetry writer. I was filled with my post-adolescent rage and frustrations with the world and I would scribble ideas in my little notebook as I pondered my existence in a studio rathole in the heart of Hollywood, just up the street from Mann’s Chinese Theater. 

One day I met a couple who lived in the building and they asked me to come to their apartment and read some of my stuff. 

I sat on a milk crate in their living space and read while they listened. Eventually they got bored and went off to the couch to go make out. 

I let myself out.

I still think I was better than Henry Rollins. 

The 1st half of this record is all spoken word crap by a wanna-be beat poet. The second half is the same thing but with music until it’s just jazz and then my head starts to hurt. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/family-man/117618826

The 1984 Listening Post - Black Flag - My War

Black Flag - My War

#64

March

Black Flag

My War

.75 out of 5

Was this recorded in a closet? 

We’ve heard some great punk on this project. Well, I have, cuz I started this back in 78. 

Suicidal Tendencies. Minor Threat. Dead Kenndys. Circle Jerks. Hell, The Dickies. The Wipers. Fear, for god’s sake. (That album is terrific)

One thing I’ve never understood is, outside “TV Party”, which, for all intents and purposes, was a novelty song with all the tv show name checking that immediately dated the song. That’s fine. Punk is of the moment, I guess (although, let’s be honest, Plastic Surgery Disasters is timeless.), Black Flag never did much for me. I didn’t really love Damaged (Although my brother owned it so that might be the reason I didn’t care for it back in the day…why did you own that record, Jon???) 

This is nearly unlistenable trash. No one can really play their instruments, Henry can’t sing. My ears hate this. Every song sounds like it was rejected for the Repo Man soundtrack and then someone threw away the recordings and someone else retrieved them from the trash and then tried to rerecord everything but degraded the tape so much that it almost fell apart and then they gave up when they started to be able to see through it. 

Side two is nothing but sludge metal that has absolutely zero to offer and less going for it. If you listen to it, after this warning, I can’t help you. You’ve been warned. 

The (good?) news is that Black Flag released THREE albums in 1984 after settling a contract dispute that disallowed them from releasing music. This was how they decided to celebrate.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/my-war/117618702