Henry Rollins/Black Flag

"Fuck, that's Henry Rollins!" I say.

And it was. He was doing the world's most unfunny stand-up on Comedy Central. After I realized who it was, though, it became the most hilarious thing I had ever seen - I mean, why is Henry Rollins doing stand-up? Why does he do poetry readings? He's like the naughty librarian in bad films, he puts on his glasses and he goes on stage and chats and acts normal, then he takes them off and stomps around and screams like the Incredible Hulk.

I really like the song Liar and I don't know why. I remember the Rollins Band performing it on the Grammys, and me and my dad watching it. He watched it in utmost fascination, and when it was done, said, "Hmm. That was interesting". Which is the most diverse musical comment I've ever gotten out of my dad regarding a post-1977 band ever, so I was impressed. I think I like him much better in theory than I do in reality.

Oh, and he's the only person I've ever met who frightened me. Not that he wasn't a nice enough seeming guy, but he was enormous and I met him in a gym for christ's sake - "Oh, there's Henry Rollins, doing bench presses, let's go talk to him!" Uh, let's not. His neck is like twice the size of his head.

His ethos is so ultra-macho that it goes over the top and becomes silly and cartoonish. He's sort of like the butch version of Axl Rose with less interesting songs. His songs are okay, but they all take themselves so seriously that I simply can't. I like a little bit of his spoken word stuff and his publishing company has put out some good books, but for the life of me I cannot take him seriously.

His music, however, is turgid, overbearing, and not what I want to listen to. At all.

he's like a comic book superhero. his veins are silly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_3g4QPojMc

his people skills have gotten better i think

love the stevenson belch at the end lol

That poor guy probably still has nightmares about that night.

his people skills have gotten better i think
-- latebloomer, Saturday, February 23, 2008 7:12 PM (3 hours ago)

One would fucking hope.

I've not previously had much wrong with Rollins' and his schtick, Damaged was the first hardcore album I ever bought, and it's still second-best. I've never gotten on his case for much, not for the self-important spoken word crap, nor his self-contradicting coffee-generation anti-drug shit, but seeing that clip makes me think maybe he's just a fucking asshole after all.

the other thing that occurs to me is that while I don't have much issue with the Minutemen, most of the other bands from the SST roster that Henry recites just weren't very good, and the poor kid's apathy and ignorance of them was entirely justified

Keep in mind, though, that Henry was just about 22 or 23 there, and the lead singer of a pretty dogmatic punk band. I'd be disappointed if wasn't acting like an asshole.

Alright, but gets me thinking of this article I dug out a few years ago, some guy for the LA Times had interviewed Flag when they first burtst out and the LAPD was busting heads all over town at HC gigs.

Guy had contrasted American punk (read LA Hardcore) with English punk, talked about how the Flag and the Jerks were well spoken and polite, whereas the Clash and the Pistols were know for being as rude as they possibly could.

A nice dialectic, but I guess a false one, at least seeing Rollins there.

that kid's from dearborn!!! I wonder what happened to him. He mustve gone to some of those early negative approach shows.

I actually dont mind if rollins wants to be an asshole like he is in this interview, if that's what his hardkore persona was all about and the fans demanded on some level. Its this new smug "I can stand on stage and do horrible smug, obvious stand up comedy and then call it "spoken word" so its unassailable" thing that pisses me off.

but from the looks of his ebay buys and what he plays on his radio show he's got an awesome taste in music

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1_E34CTcY7k

I think Rollins has chilled out a lot. I wouldn't know personally, but the things I've read/hear seem to indicate that he's a pretty polite and nice dude these days.

I've interviewed him four or five times. He's extremely polite, nice, and a music geek like nobody you've ever talked to in your goddamn life. At the end of our last conversation, he spent like a half hour asking me about early '70s Miles.

This made me laugh a lot.

nice

That's awesome.

Classic

sweet how ginn ends end right where he started, hair-wise

A+++

bookmarked thread

Spot looks great.

Spot and Pettibon still look exactly like they did 30+ yrs ago!

These were posted on a thread i made on another board so may as well post them here
http://www.brianwalsby.com/comics/blackflagandme.jpg

http://www.brianwalsby.com/comics/life-after-black-flag-1.jpg

http://www.brianwalsby.com/comics/life-after-black-flag-two.jpg

unaccustomed as i am to self-promotion, and hoping this doesn't break ilx rules at all, can i slip a tiny plug in here for my Black Flag biography, Spray Paint The Walls, about to be released by Omnibus? you can read an extract at the Quietus here - http://thequietus.com/articles/03049-an-extract-from-stevie-chick-s-spray-paint-the-walls-the-story-of-black-flag - if yr interested...

nice, stevie! i would read this book.

thanks scott!

Hehe very cool to see this come to fruition after all the legwork you put in to getting the interviews!

i know, it feels like YEARS since we visited you in the OC...

Time to come back!

nice, stevie! i would read this book.

― scott seward, Tuesday, November 3, 2009 7:16 AM

looking forward to this!

I don't think there's any band that's more entertaining to read about than black flag

the flag stuff from that rollins biog is a hoot

lol, I grew up in Manhattan Beach, so this was great to read. I was about 6 months old when this concert took place, so I missed it sadly. This was a legendary story, though. Both Morris and Ginn went to my high school (as did most of the Descendants, I believe). I think there's like a great unwritten screenplay about late 70s punk/beach town culture clashes. Maybe I need to write it. Anyway -- I will read this book! Black Flag is totally fun to read about.

lol polliwog park

they used to have this amazing play structure called "The Sunken Galleon" there. oh man, it was so dangerous. can't believe I didn't die on that thing.

stevie i am going to buy and read yr book, exciting!

tyler have you read "enter naomi" by joe carducci? there's some good stuff in there in the vein of what you're talking about

there is stuff about the sunken galleon in Carducci's book?! kidding -- i haven't read it but I should. i talked to Ginn once for my high school newspaper ... it didn't go very well!

Dude, Stevie, that extract is amazing. You can feel the dichotomies writhing as they are forced to stare each other in the face, then you notice that one face is full of blood.

I will buy the hell out of this book.

thank you all for the kind words and promises of purchase, dudes - and tyler, i second matt's recommendation of 'enter naomi', which is a really great personal take on that whole era (buy my book 1st tho!). was a great thrill to visit polliwog while researching the book, and soak up the pleasant valley sunday vibe that the Flag doubtless shattered that afternoon...

Great stuff Stevie, I'm in. When does it come out in the UK?

should be out now, but i think there have been slight delays - its still a pre-order on amazon... i have yet to see a copy!

it is in stock on amazon! also, i'll be doing a reading/q&a at filthy mcnasty's on tuesday november 10th, as part of the Talking Music Revolutions Volume Four: The Metal Years event, alongside such awesome writers as Carol Clerk, John Robb, Joel McIver, Tommy Udo and Suzanne Moore, so come along if yr in London that night.

thus endeth my plugging...

Suzanne Moore

wait what

I am totally going to buy this book btw

yeah i'm hoping its *the suzanna moore (its not my do so i don't know fo' sho). also i was just informed joel has a parents evening that night and now can't make it, but it'll still be cool!

suzanne

This is LONG overdue and I'm giddily excited about this. Will also 'buy the hell' out of this book.

hey stevie just wanted to let you know that on another board i go to there was a thread about your book that i didn't start! the buzz is building :)

haha LINK PLS MATT!!!

google is on to you

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/spray_paint_the_walls.gif

thumbs up from carducci!!

1 guessed/predicted in Rock and the Pop Narcotic that regarding Black Flag there was never enough sales for the real publishing industry to ever write a check to get to the bottom of the band's story. Back in the late 1980s when I wrote R&TPN only Faber & Faber was even issuing original music titles, and indeed they were the only publisher to take a look at my manuscript. But the 80s/90s roll-out of Tower Books, Barnes & Noble, and Borders did spur a short golden age of the music section in book stores. That's over now. But Omnibus in the UK, which once had the only book on Black Sabbath in print, now issues the first comprehensive book about Black Flag, first in the UK, soon here. Spray Paint the Walls is very well reported and assembled by Brit music writer Stevie Chick, author of the better of the recent Sonic Youth books. Neither Greg Ginn nor Henry Rollins sat for interviews but their voices are included from earlier interviews, and more importantly Chuck Dukowski spoke to Chick - a first I believe. The story, laid out from the band's earliest practices in 1976 to its end ten years later, makes a far more dramatic book than the usual shelf-fillers with their stretch to make the empty stories of various chart-toppers sound exciting and crucial and against the odds. I read a rough draft; I'm sure most of the minor Anglocentric miscomprehensions of timelines, causalities and geography are still in it but the book is powerful because it does the story justice. And those miscomprehensions are shared by most American music writers as well so what the hell...

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/kindle/merch/global/kindle-turing-widget-photo_020509._V251249236_.jpg Tell the Publisher!
I’d like to read this book on Kindle

Finished the book this morning, have to say Stevie, nice work indeed, really, really enjoyed it, so much great info.

aw thanks mares nest... really glad you enjoyed it.

still looking forward to reading this -- soon! in the meantime, i tracked down a recording of that Polliwog Park show! http://ow.ly/Mv0M Neat ....

that show is nuts... the bootleg is essential, perhaps more for the banter between the roadies and the guy who put the show on than the music, but 'wasted' SLAYS

Yep, made me go back and dig out the albums, was rooting around in the loft yesterday looking for James Parker's book, Planet Joe and Get In The Van.

http://www.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/justin-bieber-black-flag.jpg

http://grab.by/grabs/78550b4ceb4e799f5aa4fc25ad6989c3.png

that Bieber jpeg causes my rage to hit 28 Days Later levels

if u want one so bad just buy one

*grabs a lead pipe*

lol, it's the first thing i've ever liked about JB

"performer and world travelernascent Burroughs Henry Rollins has a new favorite portable sound system"

A really good DVD of The Minutemen & Black Flag went up on D!m3ad0z3n a couple of days ago, it's from San Francisco '81 (Dez era) and it's pretty good quality.

Don't know if any of you guys saw anything about this but there was a reunion of sorts here in Vancouver a few weeks ago to celebrate local resident Chavo Pederast's 50th birthday. Greg Ginn showed up and they played some numbers. Here's an interview with Greg Ginn being his usual self. Anyway, Spray Paint The Walls is briefly discussed. Of course Greg hasn't heard of it and tries his hardest to appear disinterested. Was there ever anyone more paranoid about being pigeonholed? There's some clips from the show too.

Greg interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j3gg7XUE4s

Interview with Ron too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMHbNOEafsY&feature=related

RADDDDDD!

CHAVO and GREG sound so great (esp when he remembers the lyrics :/ ) and that is a DOPPPPPE t-shirt CP's rockin.

whoah

almost shit myself when nardwuar handed greg the book. i spent MONTHS of my life emailing and calling greg, trying to secure an interview, or at the very least to let him know i was working on the book, and in good faith, but i got no closer to contact with the man than chatting with his assistant. he knew it exists.

<3 ron reyes. that footage is awesome...

in greg's defense, there is the distinct possibility that he may have been high on pot

yeah, and i totally respect that! i may have been high when i was calling/emailing!

and in fairness all he said was that he hadn't seen the book. he comes across pretty well in my book, and not overly defensive.

oh definitely, he seemed fine.

Your book and Beefheart's Through The Eyes of Magic combined were both the kind of books I'd make excuses to go and read throughout my busy day. "Hey there's a lightbulb out in the bathroom, I'm going in to fix it." Then I'd sit and feverishly devour these books. I think I read yours in three sittings. Not trying to blow smoke, but Spray Paint the Walls is really more than any Flag fan could have wanted. Thanks for writing it.

I actually put in to do My War for the 33 1/3 series, got a "good idea!" response email, but never followed up. I think your book sorta nullifies that 'good idea,' anyway.

reyes seems like a bro of the highest caliber

wow, thanks! i sweat blood on this book, and its by no means perfect, so to see you write that means a lot. and i think there's definitely more to be written abt the flag, esp on My War. i'd read your book in a flash.

xp

ron's really great. i think my interview with him for the book was the first he'd given in years - i didn't think i had a chance in hell of speaking to him, and then joe nolte got in touch and said "i have a friend you might want to speak to for your book, if you're interested?" he's really sweet, really honest, really humble.

Oh Nardwuar, never change.

"Reality 86'd" A film by David Markey

http://vimeo.com/23499919

"Reality 86'd" A film by David Markey (c) 1991 We Got Power Films. (TRT 01:01:51) A road documentary shot from the inside of the last Black Flag tour ever (the 1986 "In My Head" US tour.) Greg Ginn along with Henry Rollins, Cel Revulta, and Anthony Martinez comprise the final line up of the band. Featuring behind the scenes proceedings and live performances from Black Flag, Painted Willie, and Gone (Ginn's side project, then featuring Sim Cain and Andrew Weiss (later of the Rollins Band) . Filmmaker / musician David Markey was along for the entire trip as the drummer / singer for Painted Willie (with Phil Newman & Vic Makauskas), documenting the six month tour as it happened. Also features roadie Joe ("Planet Joe") Cole, soundmen Davo Claasen and Dave "Ratman" Levine, and the tour manager who kept it all together, Mitch Bury. A crucial turning point in American underground rock. The end of the line for a trail blazing American band.

bump

awesome! thanks for posting.

thanks man

how long before it gets yanked or does ginn not care anymore

not sure ginn knows about the internet

his army of cat soldiers will inform him

lol painted willie is the worst band

they perfect that vibe of when you are in a band and you start dicking around jamming some riff just for kicks but you'd never actually like play like that for real people

and then they put out records and went on tour

at least they didn't waste a good band name on it

painted willie is the source of a weird in-joke with some of my high school friends. whenever we'd be in van nuys (which was strangely often) we'd shout "LIVE FROM VAN NUYS!" i'm not even sure how we knew this phrase, i've never heard the ep. but it was def a reference to it.

true story about painted willie.

I almost bought that record so many times and now I'm real curious about what it sounds like

maybe age has transformed it into some unheralded classic

If you need some background.

i must've just seen it in record stores a lot in the early 90s, and thought that "Live From Van Nuys" was a great name for a record. kind of doubt it's a classic but ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8h5xuNVuVE

was just about to post that!

man ppl were really jamming out to painted willie

guy wearing his own band's shirt NAGL

maybe if like you'd never heard...like...any hard rock band ever or something they would be good?

lol, yeah, maybe not an unheralded classic. something impressively unspectacular about them though. like kind of archetypal mid-80s socal garage band.

maybe after you've heard every hard rock band ever, and your great all-knowing mind tires, maybe that's when you turn to painted willie

we should do a poll for worst second wave SST band, DC3, painted willie, tom troccoli's dog, october faction, etc

painted willie might win and that would be something

maybe ginn made them keep all the weed in the painted willie van?

Painted Willie then embarked on a six-month national tour opening for Gone and Black Flag in 1986, which would be Black Flag's last tour. The band recorded and released the Live from Van Nuys EP during that tour live EP during the tour titled simply Live From Van Nuys. Dave filmed eight years of footage for an eventual documentary of the tour that would be called Reality 86'd but Ginn didn't want it to be released. Black Flag singer Henry Rollins tried to have it released in 1994 through a distribution deal he struck with Time Warner but Ginn still refused.[3][5]

8 years of footage! I had no idea 1986 lasted that long

lol

ginn's weed made things seem crazy long back then.

there's a good band name: Ginn's Weed

don't overlook how terrible gone sounds in that video, made my ears pinch my nose and say "p.u."

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nnxeaxhfJ5w/TYfh1RO66eI/AAAAAAAAFTI/5yjZJJzNGgM/s400/no-age.jpg
downloaded this a month or so ago thinking it'd be so rad, but it is kind of terrible! see for yourself: http://luckypsychichut.blogspot.com/2011/03/no-age-compilation-of-sst-instrumental.html

"this is awful. you've got to try it"

totally shitty. yr gonna love it.

the food is terrible, and such small portions

The Food Is Terrible, and Such Small Portions: The Best of Painted Willie

This milk's gone sour, smell it.

wnkiw these people/bands

(lol @ the punk rock drum circle though)

Sorry, ""Reality 86'd" A film by David Markey" was deleted at 1:49:29 Mon May 23, 2011. Vimeo has removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Greg Ginn claiming that this material is infringing: "Reality 86'd" A film by David Markey. We have no more information about it on our mainframe or elsewhere.

how long before it gets yanked or does ginn not care anymore

― the first rule of debate club (Edward III), Thursday, May 12, 2011 1:49 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

2 weeks apparently

I just read an interview with markey, like, last week about this, c/r where it was

oh here it is

http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2011/05/20/rettsounds-reality-86d/

that ibanez he played during that period sounded horrible

Forgive me if this has been posted elsewhere, nothing came up on search.

Black Face - Dukowski teams up with Eugene Robinson to play some unreleased Chuck-written BF material and choice Flag tunes, Ginn nearly involved at one point, I'm excited!

http://www.viceland.com/music/2011/08/chuck-dukowski-from-black-flag-has-a-new-band-with-eugene-robinson/

Eugene posted this on the Supersonic FB page yesterday. I'm hoping there's a reason why.

So Kira won an oscar for sound mixing Mad Max last night. I had no idea:

http://www.stereogum.com/1862449/former-black-flag-bassist-wins-an-oscar-for-mad-max-fury-road/news/?utm_source=sc-fb&utm_medium=ref&utm_campaign

http://i.imgur.com/hcjnZrV.jpg

I just saw that picture being used in an ad for Vans shoes the other day. Maybe this is also part of that campaign.

of course it is

Just performing my dirty duty as a consumer

anyway reason i was searching for rollins is bc i was wondering if anyone has more info on this

According to Rolling Stone magazine, after Cole's death, hundreds of hours of interviews Cole had taped with "flamboyant street characters" in Venice Beach were edited into an hour of "primo footage" that the magazine described as "an unflinching look at the American dream gone amok."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Joe_Cole

rly interested in listening to those interviews by joe cole but cldnt find anything on the web

search 'god's movie'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhGxVfh9lag

from the vid description

A few segments from Joe Cole's "God's Movie", an unfinished documentary series documenting the street people of Venice Beach. This was shot in 1990 by Joe and myself, and I help out with the some of the interviews. This was originally released in a longer form as "God's Movie Volume 1" on VHS by Henry Rollins' 2-13-61, and has been long out of print. I am more than glad to share a few moments of this work with you here. Joe was shot and killed in a robbery a little more than a year after this. I miss him to this day and it is great to hear his voice here. If you like this I suggest searching for "How Much Longer" posted on Google Video, a video documentary I did with Joe all about the Desert Storm Victory Parade in Hollywood, 1991.

Amazing anecdote on the newest Henry & Heidi podcast about Hank being pressed into service by Sharon Osbourne at the famous Sabbath reunion gigs.

She asked him to help with an EPK and interview people backstage, so he goes over to interview Brian May and after they film the segment May says to him "by the way, I just want you to know, Freddie loved Black Flag"!!!!

https://youtu.be/G1hx4Ajnhiw?t=42m4s

Bullshit

I see "Black Flag" is playing in Baltimore in August. Is this Greg Ginn and 3 to 4 others? There's a mention of "First 4 years" 1983 comp that included pre-Henry stuff , on the Ottobar website. Will that be the musical focus?

https://x.com/hearinladotcom/status/1746282064192884916?s=46&t=u2ZSlsY3trRV36IPP6jNDQ

Black Flag’s 2024 lineup consists of founding guitarist Greg Ginn, singer Mike Vallely, who first appeared with the band as a guest in 2003 and became the band’s fifth vocalist in 2014,

and a rhythm section of Harley Duggan and Charles Wiley (both from Seattle band DARKHORSE RISING).

That would be a nice subtle bit of graffiti if someone added quotation marks on the posters for that show.

I've seen some youtube footage of recent Black Flag, and I would steer pretty clear of that tbh

Gonna skip it.

EVERYONE SHOULD LSITEN TO RAY PETTIBONE'S NEW BAND ITS SO GOOD

https://surdrone.bandcamp.com/album/full-length-2

sitting at the bar at a restaurant near my neighborhood and it’s crowded on a monday. realize the music venue across the street has the Black Flag (“black flag”?) show in an hour and, outside of two tables of people obviously going to it, I am trying to puzzle out the rest of the people in here

are the dudes in their 50s waiting around in the entryway here for the band? is there another event nearby? a mystery

I wrote about why the final Black Flag albums are the best Black Flag albums. (No, I don't mean that 2013 thing.)

I really enjoyed that write-up, thanks. I agree, those are the albums I'm most drawn to (though I'd really like Ginn to fuck off so these could be properly reissued so I could have copies of my own).

SST has been doing a fairly ok job of repressing its wares of late, tbh

Yeah, I see they have some of this stuff available, but honestly not sure I want to give him money directly at this point.

Understood, and agreed!

For now I've just been scouring the used bins constantly for old SST stuff.

the new pressings are terrible, avoid at all costs

in other news BF is playing in my town soon, lol

Great article! I didn't know that Who's Got the 10 1/2 was Rollins' favorite BF album. I agree with him.

yeah even though I am definitely in the "five-piece band was best" camp, I enjoyed that

10 1/2 is great, that extended Slip It In/Gimme Gimme Gimme is a blast (though Rollins was pretty shitty to Kira back then, and had some real nasty anti-Kira spiels when they played it after she left the group).

I'm curious if anyone here ever saw the five-piece band live and then saw any of the later lineups and how they compared

I admit I’d still love to hear the 5 piece line up on the My War
-and-after material, live and studio; admittedly it would have created an even bigger divide between the pre and post-Damaged era but in terms of laying down an even bigger marker for what was happening then and after with crossover and general punk/metal hybrids, those albums could have been a huge(r) deal

xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2ZLCNZ5AGs

they look more hyper there than the later lineups I saw

I knew there was a risk of this happening when I wrote the piece, but... someone just left a pro-Mojack comment.

loooool

10 1/2 is great, that extended Slip It In/Gimme Gimme Gimme is a blast (though Rollins was pretty shitty to Kira back then, and had some real nasty anti-Kira spiels when they played it after she left the group).

― Judge Judy, executioner (stevie), Wednesday, October 30, 2024 9:27 AM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

10 1/2 was my jam in high school, I hadn't listened in a loooong time, I was a little worried it wouldn't have aged well for me (despite loving the later BF LPs), but it is still great and it answers that most mysterious musical query "what if Jim Dandy fronted King Crimson?"

The 1984 Marquee show was the one I saw and later listened to more than any other live set by anybody. I think there is a version in circulation, I saw it on Dime a few years ago. Not sure if it's the same recording I had on cassette for years. I think its great.
I always heard something in it that reminded me of Link Wray that I didn't hear as much elsewhere.

There was also a live video filmed in Leeds the night after I saw them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6uujf0csGA
Which I think was officially released.

Catches them at a stage of development I love.
Do wish SST would remaster all of their material.

I think the end of 1983 demos with the same material played by the band still containing Dukowski and Cadena were a fixture on Dime for years.

Ginn literally does not give a single shit about his legacy

I cannot think of anyone worse to be owner of much of the best of US underground music of their era.

I remember telling Joe Carducci that it was criminal that that catalogue was mouldering away, that no-one was remastering those CDs, that the archives were just disintegrating and Ginn doesn't give a shit, and Joe told me he thought the CDs sounded just fine.

Joe thinks the CDs sound fine or Joe said Greg thinks they do?

Joe thinks they sound fine, or thought, in 2009 or so, when I was doing my Flag book.

The Husker Du CDs generaly sound awful, though. And the SST CD of You're Living All Over Me had a 2-second gap between Kracked and Sludgefeast.

And there was still a market for CDs when we spoke and I was like, even if you're not interested in preserving this legacy surely Greg realises he is leaving money on the table here (that he would never share with the artists anyway) (but maybe that's the issue - if he remastered/reissued/gussied-up the rereleases, he might come under fire from artists who still want their royalties and now won't be fobbed off by being told the money is being used for the next Zoogz Rift LP).

yeah I wish I'd bought more Husker Du records when they weren't so expensive. I only have Flip Your Wig on vinyl, all their other albums I have on CD

I picked up my copy of Zen Arcade, pristine double LP, from the record shop round the corner from me in 1992 for £5 [FIVE POUNDS]. It's not so pristine now, I'll admit, but it still wipes the floor with the CD my brother bought later. Those SST HD CDs sound so tinny, in a way the vinyl really doesn't.

My Zen Arcade lp had the address of the British office on the back. Coincidentally my brother lived at the far end of the same road. It was a very long road. I think I walked down to the street number at one point and didn't see an office or anything there. May have missed its existence.

Where was the office? Was it in Bounds Green? I know Southern Distro were there back in the 90s.

208 Bravington Road in Queen’s Park.

Oh wow - what a strange bit of London to choose as their lair.

It’s possible it was only an address to receive their post and they did actual business elsewhere.

AI Overview

Henry Rollins is working on a secretive project in Nashville, Tennessee that's not a museum. The project is expected to launch in Nashville, and Rollins has invested his life savings into it.
What's the project?
Rollins has described the project as "the biggest chunk of meat that I've torn off the bone yet".
He's been working on it with his manager, Heidi May, for a couple of years.
The project won't involve live performance.
Rollins has said that the project will "make people smile until their faces hurt".
Where's the project located?
The project is likely located in Chestnut Hill, near the Nashville City Cemetery.
In August 2022, an LLC affiliated with Rollins bought a building at 1024-1026 Third Ave. S. for $2.7 million. The building previously housed an HVAC company.

the largest Planet Fitness on earth...

I remember years and years ago interviewing Dean Wareham, back when the Galaxie 500 stuff was out of print, and asking about all the rights issues and why Rough Trade was making the albums unavailable etc., and I was surprised when he told me he and the band actually already had the rights and masters and just hadn't gotten around to them yet. I have no idea what the story is with all the SST stuff, but clearly some bands have gotten their stuff back and re-released it, right? Meat Puppets, Bad Brains, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden...

Dinosaur Jr too. probably not a coincidence that these are mostly the bigger bands that probably have more money for lawyers

although Alternative Tentacles and now Superior Viaduct have managed to reissue Kill From The Heart by the Dicks in the last decade or so, so who knows

Its notable that the SST album Soundgarden reissued was remixed and had different artwork to the SST release, which I think might have been a legal workaround. With Meat Puppets - every time I've spoken to them about it, they've been vague, but I think they sorted something prior to the Ryko reissues in the 90s. With Sonic Youth I think they just dared to reissue once they had the might of Universal behind them - but I think Thurston was pretty cut up over what happened there, and there's a reference to it on that Experimental JetSet song Screaming Skull ("Sister's there") (and that song had extra lyrics by Dave Markey, who very much got screwed over by SST). But regarding Husker Du, every time I've spoken to Bob about it he's very much now at a place where those records are Greg's, and Bob doesn't have the energy or inclination for the big legal fight to reclaim them. SST are now repressing a lot of their back catalogue on vinyl, but I get the sense they're straight represses, not remastered or anything (not that I think the vinyl needs touching up or anything).

Can someone even buy a new physical SST St. Vitus record? kinda sad, if not.

Here, for eg, is the newly pressed SST vinyl currently in stock at juno, a great UK online record store, for a sense of what they're currently keeping in print: https://www.juno.co.uk/labels/SST+US/?media_type=vinyl

It ain't that cheap!

But they have the s/t Saint Vitus

Cool that they repressed the Screaming Trees LPs, I know Mark hated their SST output but I love those records

Last time I talked to Mould, some time back, before Hart died (maybe around the time some official HD merch suddenly became available?) he implied that it was still a matter of him and Hart being at an impasse, that was the biggest thing. I don't know if he meant in terms of money, getting paid or paying or what. I'm not even sure Mould's account of anything is necessarily trustworthy; he may have stubbornly been waiting to buy out Hart? That might not matter now, so it's also possible he just can't be bothered now that there's no money to be made, which may be why he is allegedly punting it over to Greg. Any case, if I learned that Bob or Greg had the rights and masters to those records and were just sitting on them, I wouldn't be shocked.

Been after that saint vitus s/t for years. Everytime i tried to buy via discogs the seller would say they couldnt find it. So even though its a tad expensive I decided I better get it. So thanks for the tip

and yes, SST trees stuff is amazing. I think Gary Lee at least still loves them.

my favourite stuff by them

If you’re so inclined, you’ll find some of the more offbeat things SST released technically back in the hands of those who made them, but they’ve only got the rights, not the masters. I’m talking about Scott Colby’s Slide of Hands (which is great, by the way, Henry Kaiser’s SST output, stuff like that. Also, it was in the press kit, if not the liner notes, for AT’s reissue of Kill from the Heart that they remastered it from a clean vinyl copy because the tapes were gone.

*Slide of Hand (and I missed a closing bracket there).

Its notable that the SST album Soundgarden reissued was remixed and had different artwork to the SST release, which I think might have been a legal workaround.

I assumed the artwork was just a case of them not having the original art files (Craig Ibarra was in the art department and might have been there at the time, someone ask him!) so deciding to recreate it with a contemporary sheen instead. As for the remix, aren’t they on record as never been completely satisfied with how the original sounded (because it was recorded with a mobile rig and not in a ‘proper’ studio by a guy who’d worked with Black Flag towards the end)? I know they edited “Flower” to fix a missed drum hit.

On a Steve Hoffman forum discussion it says --

Several artists formerly on the label, including Sonic Youth and the Meat Puppets, sued SST to reclaim their master recordings, claiming unpaid royalties.
The source for that information is cited as being from page 496 of an unidentified Michael Azerrad book, but I assume it's referring to Our Band Could Be Your Life

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/greg-ginn-sst-and-rescuing-bands-catalogs.298972/

I interviewed Steve Earle once, and he told me that when he left MCA records he did an audit and found that they owed him a million dollars in royalties, or something like that, but it would have taken 3/4 of that money and two years of his time to squeeze it out of them, so he wrote it off. Honestly, I have no idea how many copies these records have sold. I do know it took decades for the Sex Pistols record to officially go platinum. (Barely) related, I talked to Gordon Gano once, and he told me the first Violent Femmes record was, at least at the time, supposedly the only record to have ever gone platinum without having been on the top 200.

AI Overview

https://p7.hiclipart.com/preview/341/656/896/thumb-signal-smiley-emoticon-clip-art-lovely-smile.jpg

That graphic is more like AI Overlord.

tb; dnw

I've seen some guys from 3rd tier SST bands asking on the big SST facebook page asking "Hey so how much trouble would I get in if I put our albums up on spotify? SST doesn't answer emails"
Maybe Greg isn't too concerned with like Tar Babies or Always August getting 95 cents a year off streaming.

Tar Babies begat Tortoise to some degree so think they'd be of interest. They played the Mule Club the band God's Brixton venue so presumably toured Europe and the U.K. that was before my hitching days so not sure where.
I saw that gig and enjoyed it I think I got a CD later on the strength of having seen them. Seemed to do a maverick take on hard-core akin to the Meat Puppets but using funk instead of bluegrass. So would love to have access to their music.

Are Always August not on Spotify and places I think I heard a podcast on them recently possibly You Don't Know Mojack so sought out some of their music. Maybe it was just YouTube I listened on. Had heard the name and that they were referred to as psychedelic. But podcast was talking about use of improvisation throughout.

I think I might pick up s remastered cd if such a thing existed.

Those SST bands should just pretend they re-recorded it ala Taylor Swift and throw their work up on Bandcamp and streaming.

Largeness With (w)holes is up indeed

Tim Harding from Always August was with SST for ages, well into the ’90s with his jazz band Hotel X.

I do know it took decades for the Sex Pistols record to officially go platinum.

It always blows my mind that the Ramones debut didn't even go gold until 2014!

The Ramones debut wasn't available on CD by itself until 2001, having up til then in the CD era been bundled with Leave Home on the first volume of All The Stuff & More.

On a similar note, I noticed the Dead Boys have basically reissued their 2 studio albums with alt mixes and comp titles.

are those the new ones with the AI singer?

Husker Du was so dysfunctional that even their merch site that went live a few years ago shut down relatively quickly.

It stuns me that Mike Watt remains loyal to Greg Ginn. SST needs to be liquidated

Young, Loud and Snotty is done alt French released early mix done by Bob Clearmountain.

We Have Come for your Children I think is a modern mix made from original tracks.

Neither are released with their exact original title or artwork.

Bob also played bass on Young Loud and Snotty.

It stuns me that Mike Watt remains loyal to Greg Ginn.

Mike Watt is an astonishingly, heartbreakingly loyal dude, just absolutely one of the loveliest of people, and that extends to being indulgent and forgiving of a guy like Ginn. Also, a lot of the people within that circle who have grudges against Ginn also begrudgingly respect what he managed to build, no matter how dysfunctional it became (and no matter how much the credit belonged to others within the SST sphere, too).

"Black Flag" on the bill for Coachella 2026 (also Iggy Pop, Suicidal Tendencies, Justin Bieber, Sabrina Carpenter etc)