Notes From The Record Room: Black Flag’s My War at 40

“I have a prediction… lives in my brain…”

1984 saw the end of a three-year gap of recording absentia from the pioneering hardcore band, Black Flag.

The CD copy of My War I purchased as a teen.

Following the release of their 1981 debut full-length LP Damaged, a legal dispute between the band and their label agreement with Unicorn Records, who had distribution ties to MCA, left Black Flag unable to put out any material under their own name. Being a reigning force in hardcore, not to mention a controversial live band whose performances were often disrupted by the LAPD, this hold on Black Flag’s ability to record and sell records meant the band couldn’t capitalize on the momentum built by their hugely successful first album. Black Flag cofounding guitarist Greg Ginn and cofounding bassist Chuck Dukowski made a bold attempt at exposing a loophole in the injunction by releasing the Everything Went Black compilation, a double-LP that featured previously unreleased material from the band’s pre-Henry Rollins days (vocalists Keith Morris, Ron Reyes, and Dez Cadena), with only the album’s individual contributors listed on the cover. Black Flag’s name, though, dominated the front of the album. A solve was to block out the band’s name and obscure their identifying bar graphic with white paint. Despite its censored cover, the compilation’s release was deemed a violation of their injunction, which resulted in fines and five days in prison for Ginn and Dukowski.

Unicorn did eventually go bankrupt, which released Black Flag from the injunction and reinstated the band’s ability to record and release albums. By this point, three years had elapsed and Ginn’s vision for Black Flag had changed significantly. Consequently, the band would kick off a trend of heavy production and alienation with their second LP, My War.

I pulled apart the CD longbox so I could hang up the cover as fan art. Multiple tack holes stand as proof.

My War was the first studio recording I’d procured by Black Flag and I blame the cover. Still a haunting image from the mind and able hand of artist Raymond Pettibone, I purchased my copy in a CD longbox and was struck by the vivid red glove of the puppet (Maybe that’s what it is?) vibrating against the loud blue background. Its violence is present, but implicit. Yes, there’s a knife and a diabolical figure whose smile communicates delight through infliction of harm, but this is only read as abstract. As a kid whose identity centered around art, this affecting and macabre image became one of many to inform the visual aesthetics I would reference throughout my time at art school.

I was already familiar with Henry Rollins thanks to Rollins Band before I’d heard any of Black Flag’s music, which was first experienced thanks to a dubbed copy of their live release Who’s Got The 10 1/2?. At 15, I was taking illustration courses at the University of the Arts every Saturday, riding the bus into Philly with a portfolio case and a backpack heavy with art supplies. One of the students in the class was a decked-out punk fan who was generous enough to lend me some taped music. While that live album serves as my primer, My War is my full induction into Black Flag fandom. From PLAY I was hooked: the tension rising at the start of the title track leading to an immediate and repeated payoff, Rollins’ explosive vocal heightening with every utterance of, “My… WAR!!!! YOU’RE ONE OF THEM YOU SAY… THAT YOU’RE MY FRIEND BUT YOU’RE… ONE OF THEM!” I’m not sure I’d experienced the promise of a record’s cover awarded so quickly and so accurately before then.

Ginn (also acting as bassist Dale Nixon), Rollins, and Descendents drummer Bill Stevenson, built a more complex, heavily introspective, and anguish-riddled follow-up to the relentless and shrapnel-laden Damaged, mapping out some early next steps for the ensuing “post” iteration of hardcore in the process. With the exception of “I Love You”, a ditty penned by Chuck Dukowski that could be viewed now as an incel’s murder fantasy, (“You screamed, you bled, you laid on the floor / But now I know you’ll leave me no more … I love you …”), My War reads like a depressive’s diary: The violent paranoia of the aforementioned title track, detailing the anxiety of handling bottled-up emotions (“Can’t Decide”), addressing the repercussions of clouded judgment (“Beat My Head Against The Wall”), and summing up suicidal ideation and ultimate follow through (“The Swinging Man”). “Forever Time” isn’t as straightforward, but still addresses mortality to some extent (“It’s time to kiss me goodbye / One last time / It’s time…”).

Hindsight being what it is, one could listen to the unpleasant trudge of “Damaged II”, which is the guttural purge of heavy emotional baggage from Rollins that caps Damaged, as a precursor to My War’s polarizing Side 2. With no recordings to address how the band had evolved between their first two studio releases, the incorporation of Sabbath-centric trudge was deemed abrupt but also served to antagonize Black Flag’s audience who weren’t exactly receptive when it came to hardcore bands deviating from the formula. For as much as punk rock was meant to champion individuality and freedom of expression through style, art, and sound, it unfortunately birthed a subculture of alt-conformity that Black Flag were more than happy to challenge for the next couple years.

I had a difficult time processing “Nothing Left Inside”, “Three Nights”, and “Scream” the first time I heard them. Keeping in mind that I was listening to a CD of My War, this block of 6-plus minute tracks built from pure anguish and hostility begin immediately after the jazz-signature rush of “The Swinging Man”. There’s no pause to flip the LP. Of the three, “Nothing Left Inside” resonated the most. Ginn’s muted riffs and choked accents have a severity to them that are further exacerbated by the evident physicality of Rollins’s performance, his vocal fading in and out of audibility as he puts himself through an emotional wringer.

My War is one of three studio albums Black Flag released in 1984, each being more challenging (Family Man) and alienating (Slip It In) than the last. As it’s celebrated its fortieth year in the month of March and enjoyed accolades as they’ve emerged over time, (The Melvins credit My War’s Side 2 with informing their muck-riddled sound), My War also kicked off what was an especially prolific and noteworthy period for SST Records, Black Flag’s label owned and run by Ginn and Dukowski. Preceding the eventual “year punk broke,” as Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore put it, the independent rock scene made a dramatic progression in the mid-80s and SST was an ancillary component to how the tide had shifted, hardcore’s foundation sturdy enough to support the weight of melody, oddity, and incorporation of other genres.

In 1984, SST issued the following:

Saccharine Trust — Surviving You, Always

Meat Puppets — Meat Puppets II

Saint Vitus — s/t

Hüsker Dü — Zen Arcade

Minutemen — Double Nickels On The Dime

There are some heavy anniversaries coming up this year.

Sincerely,
Letters From A Tapehead