HARDCORE WEDNESDAY; CIRCLE JERKS's GROUP SEX/WILD IN THE STREETS

As some of you know, I wrote a book about my favorite band, Thirsty and Miserable; A Critical Analysis of the Music of Black Flag. Some have poked fun at that title as a little much, but it's supposed to be a little much. That book is the whole reason I started Hardcore Wednesday, because I had to resist multiple digressions into talking about other bands, because I was bound and determined to stay focused on just the album or albums each chapter was specifically about. So, I came out the other side of that book wanting to talk about a shit load of other bands and albums. This is where Thirsty and Miserable and Hardcore Wednesday come together.

Black Flag's debut "Nervous Breakdown" EP  (1978) was a mere four songs, about five minutes total and it changed punk rock. "Nervous Breakdown," "Fix Me," "I've Had It," and "Wasted," were short, fast, brash, kinda funny, but also heart wrenchingly sincere. It captured lightning in a bottle and, though, Black Flag would go on to get better and better with each release (fight me, dude, I don't care what some old scenester thinks about Henry Rollins or My War, haha) within the world of punk Black Flag changed things.

And then the singer left. Keith Morris was/is an explosive front man, brimming with energy and charisma. He's one of punk's great lyricists and recognizable and beloved figures. To this day you'll find people who say "Nervous Breakdown" is Black Flag's best albums. Cool, that's an opinion I can respect for sure. It was less than a year from the release of "Nervous Breakdown" that Morris left (highly recommended-go read his autobiography My Damage. Essential book) and formed The Circle Jerks with Redd Kross (and future ex-Bad Religion) guitarist Greg Hetson. The original rhythm section was Roger Rogerson on bass and Lucky Lehrer on drums, but that would change frequently through the years with a number of legendary names like Zander Schloss, Earl Liberty, Flea, Chuck Biscuits, and Charlie Quintana coming and going.

Morris took his songs he'd written during his Black Flag years to make up parts of their 1980 debut album on Frontier Records, Group Sex, which featured an iconic colored shot of a black and white pic of a Circle Jerk audience, taken by the amazing Ed Colver, who also shot the iconic cover of Black Flag's Damaged. Two notable inclusions was a version of Flag's "Wasted" and "I Don't Care" (which later appeared on Everything Went Black) that pissed off Flag guitarist/founder Greg Ginn, but what could he do other than respond with a re-write of "I Don't Care" as "You Bet We've Got Something Personal Against You," sung by bassist Chuck Dukowski on the "Jealous Again" EP (which is my second least favorite Flag song, right behind "Rat's Eyes"). "Red Tape" and "Behind the Door" were also originally Flag songs, the latter surfaced on Damaged as "Room 13."

Group Sex had a lot more going for it than just old Flag songs though. Ripping out of the gates with "Deny Everything," the album burns through fourteen tracks in a mere fifteen minutes, never belaboring the point, never tripping over filler. It's as pure a manifesto of hardcore punk as you could ask for. "I Just Want Some Skank," "Beverly Hills, " "Operation," "Back Against The Wall," "Wasted," "Behind The Door," "World Up My Ass," "Paid Vacation," "Don't Care," "Live Fast Die Young," "What's Your Problem," "Group Sex," "Red Tape," this album is as iconic as the first Ramones album and beat Black Flag by a year with a debut full length. Impassioned, aggressive, tongue in cheek, and packed with anthems. It's one of the purest punk albums ever recorded.

My first exposure to the Circle Jerks came via the Alex Cox punksploitation films Repo Man ("When the Shit Hits the Fan") and Sid and Nancy ("Love Kills") (The Jerks also briefly appear in Repo Man as a lounge act). It was Morris's vocals as much as anything else that lead me to Group Sex, which at the time, came on a super saver double length CD with their second album Wild in the Streets.

As much as I loved Group Sex, I was even more into Wild in the Streets, which opens with the title track, the theme song to a 1960s youth gone wild film of the same name written by Garland Jeffreys.
"'64 Valiant, handful of valiums
Couple of beers really do me right
You better believe us, better trust us
Teenage jive, walking wreck
Wild!"
I've never heard the original and don't even want to. Its a Circle Jerks song as far as I'm concerned and I'm as happy to drive around with it blasting out of my car today as I was over twenty-five years ago. Musically, it's a better album than Group Sex, showing a lot of growth for the band in a mere year, but it contains fewer really memorable songs, but the highs ("Stars and Stripes," "Murder the Disturbed," "Letter Bomb") are really high and the lows ("Forced Labor," "Political Stu") are simply average hardcore, still highly listenable, they just stand out. At any rate, Wild in the Streets remains my favorite Circle Jerks album, but I don't think they recorded a bad album. Critics and fans weren't as kind to Wonderful or their 1995 reunion album Oddities, Abnormalities, and Curiosities, but to me they're still as worthy a spot on your shelf as Golden Shower of Hits and VI. Hell, I generally hate live albums, but I love Gig. 

Keith Morris and Greg Hetson kept Circle Jerks alive off and on into the 2000s when they finally parted ways for what seemed like for good. Along the way Morris has remained a force in music, fronting the Red Hot Chili Peppers for one gig while Anthony Kiedis was in jail and joining fellow ex-Black Flag members Bill Stevenson (Descendants/ALL), Dez Cadena (DC3/Misfits), and Chuck Dukowski (Wurm/Chuck Dukowski Sextet) with Descendants/ALL guitarist Stephen Egerton replacing Greg Ginn for an all star Black Flag live tour as FLAG. While the material was mainly the first four years covering Morris and Dez's years as the band's singers, Morris does sing the definitive Rollins era anthem "My War," and it will give you fucking chills. But more importantly than anything, is the super group hardcore outfit, OFF!, Morris formed with Steve MacDonald of Redd Kross, Dimitri Coates of Burning Brides, and Mario Rubalcala of Rocket From the Crypt. Initially releasing four four song EPs featuring cover art by Black Flag artist Raymond Pettibon, OFF! has consistently released the best punk albums of the 21st century (fight me, dude, there's a lot of good punk out there, but OFF! is the band to beat).  Hetson, left Redd Kross and did double duty in Circle Jerks and Bad Religion for years. He left Bad Religion a few years ago, but I have no idea why. Morris and Hetson were set to reunite with Zander Schloss this year to do a 40th anniversary tour, but thanks to Covid-19 that's been postponed until next year.

To get your copy of Thirsty and Miserable; A Critical Analysis of the Music of Black Flag click HERE.

POSTS FROM THE GRAVE; REALITY 86'D

Hola, fiends! Remember that great blog BASEMENT SCREAMS? Really kick ass site and the man behind it, Ol' Dirty Murphy, is a helluva guy. Well back in 2013 he let this guy guest post for his DAMAGED; EXPLORING PUNKS ON FILM series. I took on Dave Markey's rare and hard to see Reality 86'd, which chronicled the last Black Flag tour. Basement Screams has gone away, unfortunately, but maybe one of these days J-Murph and I will get our shit together and do that Podcast we talked about!

Tour film starring Black Flag, Painted Willie, and Gone 1986

Directed by Dave Markey, completed in1991, unreleased officially

Black Flag toured like no other punk band before or after. Their tour schedules were grueling, spirit breaking affairs that took months in cargo vans and brought them to every out of the way dump in America. They were true trail blazers, opening up the US for every other punk/indie band who followed. This could be one of the reasons the band burned through fourteen different members in less than a decade.

            When Flag went out for six months in ’86 to support their In My Head album I doubt anyone knew this would be the band’s swan song. On the album, drummer Anthony Martinez had replaced Bill Stevenson (Descendents, ALL) and before the tour bassist Kira Roessler left and was replaced by Cel Revulta.  In My Head may have been Black Flag’s finest recorded moment, sonically speaking-crystal clear production, a consistency in song writing, and a cohesiveness that albums like My War and Slip It In lacked.

            Tensions were high in the band and had been for some time particularly between  founder Greg Ginn and 4th vocalist Henry Rollins. Ginn had become more interested in instrumental music while Rollins had matured and hardened into a creative force in the band and not merely a yes man for Ginn.  The all instrumental Process of Weeding Out seemed like a clear message to Rollins, but he stuck it out.

            They struck out across the country with Painted Willie (Dave Markey was the drummer/vocalist)  and Ginn’s jazz/punk three piece Gone (which featured future Rollins Band rhythm section of Sim Cain on drums and Andrew Weiss (Ween) on bass). Markey brought a Super 8 camera along and captured this odyssey. The end result of Reality 86’d is a loose, irreverent look into a LSD and weed driven journey of thirteen individuals that at different times come off as brilliant, silly and/or boring. No one seems especially self conscious, the bands sound amazing (particularly Gone). It’s an adventurous art film and captures the last recorded moments of one of America’s most influential bands (you can clearly see the roots of Grunge). But what’s missing is an emotional depth, probably due to the fact that Markey didn’t know that he was capturing the end of Black Flag, in other words, this ain’t no Last Waltz.

            I would say there are two books that are required reading to accompany Reality 86’d that give the film a gravity and an emotional punch that it lacks on it’s own. First and obviously is Rollins’ Get In The Van; On The Road With Black Flag. The last half of his book are intense reading and especially the Apocalypse Now feel of the ’86 tour. Second is Rollins’ friend Joe Cole’s book Planet Joe, which chronicled in wild detail this tour along with the first Rollins Band tour. Cole served as roadie and documented some of the most harrowing moments of those six moths. (Cole would tragically be shot dead in ’91 when he and Rollins were being mugged outside of their home).

            Reality 86’d is an important document, it has a great psychidelic/punk vibe like it’s a vision of the future from a more primitive time and should have a place on every punk or music nerd’s shelf. But sorry, sunshine, you can’t own it. Not legally anyway. Greg Ginn blocked any release of this film for reasons known only to him. Even as recently as 2011 he demanded it be taken down from Vimeo, where Markey had uploaded it for free viewing,  but the internet wins, because you can view it all over over the web (I watched it on Youtube). I hold out hope that Reality 86’d will get an official release someday along with Flag’s ’82 demos which any fan must hear.  Flag has reformed, going out on tour and releasing a new album this year, so all hope may not be lost, but then again, I’m an optimist.

3.5 Severed Thumbs Up (or 3.5 Screaming Jamies, if you like)

ESSENTIAL ALBUMS; BLACK FLAG'S IN MY HEAD

I don't even know where to begin when it comes to Black Flag! The whole reason I started publishing my own books, making the covers myself, and dedicated myself to hustling my words on my own, was because Black Flag did it with their music. My early book-zines were all an attempt to be literary Black Flag, to some extent.
Thanks, probably almost entirely, to the iconic artwork of Raymond Pettibon's (brother of guitarist/founder Greg Ginn) artwork, Flag's albums look like they need to be owned. There are plenty of great album covers, but Pettibon's work held some magic and it perfectly represented the music found within. I still find it exciting to come across Flag albums at the record store, even though I already own them.
My first two Flag albums were My War and Slip It In. I loved War, but I think Slip should've been an EP with the title track, Rat's Eyes, and Obliteration left off. I'm far less critical of the rest of the discography and can put on almost any of those albums any time. The one album though, that I find to be Flag's most consistent, well written, with the highest replay value is In My Head.
In My Head was the last studio album until the ill received What The? from a couple years ago. As a front man, Henry Rollins had really come into his own and Ginn, bassist Kira Roessler, and drummer Bill Stevenson (Descendents/ALL) had really gelled after a few years of constant touring. The previous album, Loose Nut, made a big promise that In My Head fulfilled. So it's too bad that the '86 tour to promote that album was the end.
Flag had long outgrown the narrow confines of hardcore punk and had been experimenting with slower, more metallic music since Dez Cadena (who Rollins replaced) was the band's singer, which accounts for the majority of their recorded output. By the time they were recording In My Head, Ginn had figured out the formula for mixing the Stooges, Black Sabbath, and jazz influences while still being able to sound like the same band that recorded Nervous Breakdown, which is quite an accomplishment when you consider that from beginning to end Ginn burned through like fourteen members, including four singers!
In My Head continues to influence and inspire me. It's a damn fine album for the band to end on and we're lucky to have it.  

Out Of This World

title track

Drinking and Driving

Retired At 21

King Vulture's Sound Attack

My absolute, #1 favorite band. Hugely inspirational. I can put on their music anytime, regardless of my mood...

This is a very cool song from their last album, which also happens to be my favorite, In My Head. The song is called Drinking and Driving...let's all revel in it!