Dear Greg Ginn

if you like, I can get some questions from Grant Hart to ask him. Good ones.

of course, a lot of them would probably involve "where the fuck my money?!", but still.

did anyone else see ainsley being a cowboy on bbc at the weekend?

still, if/when the husker du finally comes out, oh the fun that will be shared.

Bob Mould wrote scripts for WCW for a couple of years. This is one of my favourite nuggets of punk rock trivia of all time.

I'm actually of the minority opinion that the Spot productions were the best of SST's run, and superior to subsequent slicker versions of those bands.

BTW, if there's a Husker book, I'd be curious why no one at City Pages got a call for research. The story has stayed interesting in recent years, as the Mould-Hart conflict continues its McClaren-Lydon path...

also, Nova Mob's "Last Days of Pompeii" was completely remixed and readied for release. However, Grant's label at the time, Pachyderm, didn't really see the owner's wife running off with the investor.

So much for Pachyderm.

Also, it was rumored that Bob was trying to secure the masters for their albums to be reissued on his own Granary Music, so that "somebody could finally get paid."

hmm. maybe i _should_ start a book...

Greg Ginn doesn't like YouTube

In recent months there have been a slew of takedowns under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act on YouTube affecting numerous punk bands. Once a video has a copyright infringement claim against it, it is removed from the site.

Apparently SST Records -- owned by Greg Ginn and the home of punk legends like Black Flag, the Minutemen, fIREHOSE, Lawndale and others -- has been utilizing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to claim copyright infringement on a vast number of videos that utilize brief clips of music from Black Flag, including skateboard videos made by fans. Well, gosh, that's what copyright holders can do, though it does seem sort of mean.

However, SST has also claimed multiple copyright ownership of videos featuring bands which that have nothing to do with SST, including X, Fear, Sin 34, Lower Class Brats, Puzzled Panthers, and the Adolescents. Also affected, videos made by fans under Fair Use, utilizing snippets of songs.

What a dick

Greg Ginn is kind of a selfish douchenozzle, film at 11.

... and now he's let the entire SST catalog go out of print on vinyl. seriously, fuck this guy forever, he is a disgrace to the Black Flag legacy.

punk legends....Lawndale.

(love their Take 5 take, fwiw)

Greg, you can take care of the cats, I can take care of the label. Fuck, anyone can take care of the label. Anyone but yourself.

Can't hate. He's just a big old goof with shitty business ideas is all.

yeah hard to hate ginn.
on the one hand, why is the sst catalog such a mess? would be cool if he could just hand it off to someone/some other label who could handle it properly.
on the other hand, would the sst catalog exist w/o greg ginn? if he hadn't asked the minutemen to record a single, would we have all that amazing minutemen music?

yeah totally. it'd be nice if everybody that made a profound impact on music was a standup guy with airtight business practices but that ain't the world works, would rather have a fatally flawed SST than no SST at all.

What a dick

― You're a notch, I'm a legend (Bill Magill)

^^^

At least dude put the Saint Vitus stuff back into print on vinyl for a while. That was nice, after more than a decade of people wishing it would happen.

At least dude put the Saint Vitus stuff back into print on vinyl for a while. That was nice, after more than a decade of people wishing it would happen.

Yeah but that's the problem right there, isn't it? Ginn isn't completely clueless, he surely knew that Vitus was a significant cult act with a massive following among the doom cognoscenti. But he waited 10 years before finally throwing out a few crumbs to the rabble. Didn't even remaster the stuff or repackage it in any way. He doesn't care because it's not about him.

The whole thing with him and SST leaves me dismayed that the aural history of an entire punk subculture is in the hands of one man who seems to hate that it's bigger than him.

^

and if you've read any interviews with people in the scene he wasn't just a well meaning doofus with a bad business sense, he was actually a huge selfish prick by most accounts.

Really surprised that Greg Ginn won't give his music away to a multi-national corporation like Google to slap all over with ads. What an inconsiderate prick. Who'd have thunk it?

However, SST has also claimed multiple copyright ownership of videos featuring bands which that have nothing to do with SST, including X, Fear, Sin 34, Lower Class Brats, Puzzled Panthers, and the Adolescents. Also affected, videos made by fans under Fair Use, utilizing snippets of songs.

Well I personally love the image of Greg Ginn just sitting around browsing the netz one day and getting the idea to type the names of his favourite bands into the Youtube search engine and get them taken down. In fact, I might try to get some guns n roses videos taken down. And if that Lou Reed & Metallica stuff doesn't come under 'violent or Repulsive Content'....

Really surprised that Greg Ginn won't give his music away to a multi-national corporation like Google to slap all over with ads. What an inconsiderate prick. Who'd have thunk it?

You'd have a point there, if it were the case that Ginn was making significant efforts to market the SST back catalogue. But he clearly isn't.

For such a stoner, ginn is very unchill

for a guy whose musical legacy is black flag he's about as unchill as i'd expect tbh!

I love this idea that if you are not providing the market with exactly what it wants then you should be totally fine with people giving it away to Google to make money off. Or are we talking about some other Greg Ginn? I'm discussing the tight-assed, non-compromising freak from one of the most hardline self-controlling bands ever.

its homemade skate videos!

It's Black Flag! It's Google! Fuckin hell. Were you born yesterday?

Yes can you change my diaper and do 180 gram vinyl reissue of surviving you always by saccharine trust?

I love this idea that if you are not providing the market with exactly what it wants then you should be totally fine with people giving it away to Google to make money off.

I think I would feel differently about it if, say, this were Corey Rusk we were talking about. So Google is bad for making money off other people's art - no denying that - but I doubt Ginn has paid a royalty cheque in years.

I would presume many SST artists would be happy for their music to be out there, even if they're not directly making money off it (and even if Google is profiting off their art), because it gives them a profile - one that Ginn hasn't provided since he stopped pressing records and mothballed his legacy.

youtube is very punk imo

otm

I think the larger problem with Ginn is that I do get the sense he regards all the SST music as ”his” in some way even though he didn't create it

Also he's a total dick

not keeping sst releases in print is a real crime against punk music

Buy em second hand.

like think about it, simultaneously removing punk music from the internet & withholding creation of new physical punk music--u are decreasing the amount of punk music in the universe dude wtf!

& making a crucial subset of existing punk music more expensive/scarce

Buy em second hand.

― everything, Sunday, 2 October 2011 17:59 (4 hours ago)

lol, yeah, only $300 for the sole copy of Paganicons for sale on Discogs!

I think the larger problem with Ginn is that I do get the sense he regards all the SST music as ”his” in some way even though he didn't create it

― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, October 2, 2011 1:51 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

that's like almost literally the definition of a record label

And if there's one thing punk rock was about it was adhering to the traditional definitions and models of everything.

Dude's just bitter because his garage is full of Jambang (and his other thirty projects) albums no one gives a shit about.

lol @ arguing about what is "punk" in 2011

Ginn has always been a bit of an opportunist. I mean I totally respect dudes legacy and appreciate what he made happen back in the 80s, but the shit he pulled with like St. Vitus really bums me out because a lot of that music deserves to be heard and out there, without having to have people shell out $300 for used vinyl.

Oh bullshit, touch & go and dischord have operated way different

To some dude

I'm too weird to have checked out the new Minutemen doc. Sincerely. It still hurts too much, so I sent my wife to check it out for me. She sez when Ginn hit the screen, the entire theater booed him.
Tom

― Tom Troccoli (ttrocc7007), Monday, April 18, 2005 3:53 PM

The screening was in San Pedro, so everyone was either once an SST artist, or is the relative or FRIEND of SST artists. Yup, the entire place was made up of SST bands.

― Tom Troccoli (ttrocc7007), Monday, April 18, 2005 5:00 PM

so what's the deal, did bands like sonic youth/dino jr just have the deep(er) pockets to regain control of their sst records? or did they sign better contracts back in the day? did sst bands sign contracts, or were all the deals made spiritually via toke sessions w/ greg?

Several artists formerly on the label, including Sonic Youth and the Meat Puppets, sued SST to reclaim their master recordings, claiming unpaid royalties.[27]

i believe the other bands might have included soundgarden and bad brains

also:

Several artists left SST in the late 1980s. By 1987 Sonic Youth had grown disenchanted with the label. Guitarist Thurston Moore said, "SST's accounting was a bit suspect to us", and the group's other guitarist Lee Ranaldo criticized the label's "stoner administrative quality".[24] The band was also dissatisfied with Ginn's newer signings. Unhappy that income from their records was ultimately helping fund "lame-ass records", Sonic Youth unamicably left the label and signed with Enigma Records in 1988.[25] Dinosaur Jr left SST for Blanco y Negro Records in 1990. Frontman J Mascis said, "I like Greg Ginn and stuff, but they wouldn't pay you."[26]

lol at mascis. summing it up.

all the Bad Brains' SST stuff is still on the label iirc tho

maybe they're a touch more forgiving of stoned administrative decisions

Ginn is in my top 5 all time elec gtr soloists but for christ's sake THERE IS NO CD OF DOUBLE NICKELS WITH ALL THE TRACKS INCLUDED

yeah, insane.
seems like if anybody could convince ginn, it'd be mike watt. just wear him down, watt!

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/207822_10151069074089024_1508498336_n.jpg

superstore
society
lemonheads
sst

http://www.kosmikradiation.com/blackflag_ginn.jpg

I would put that DeadFlag sticker on my Cadillac.

^^ otm

Greg is everywhere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=l1qCczGgSxw

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/l1qCczGgSxw"; frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

That's my farewell. See ya.
where did i go wrong?

Remove the s in https

Funny, I got woken up this morning by a text from a friend who auditioned with Ginn for the bass slot in Black Flag just last night.

thats henry kaiser, no?

Definitely Henry Kaiser. I loved it when he randomly popped up in Antarctica busting out a solo in that Herzog doc (I think they're friends, and Kaiser is a massive sub-aqua geek).

loved his cover of needle and the damage done on The Bridge (that was him, yeah?)

I'm just not getting the response I got to asking on the Watt list about the chance of remasters. Surely the remaster would enhance the Spot production while updating to better fit the current state of the medium? & improve the transfer on at least a couple of titles.

Instead of which I was informed that no remasters were needed because Spot's production was so great.
That might be but does the remaster actually effect the production , surely just the transfer of what is on the tape that the final mix is on. Whether things would actually need to be remixed to better suit th emedium rather than the medium they were actually recorded for is a different matter surely? Nott sure to what extent they would need that anyway.
Just got it in my head that Neubauten took th eactual medium into account when they transfered their back catalogue to cd when they set up Potomak & not sure how much that applies to the SSt stuff. Assume it must apply to some extent to any recorded sound and its replication in(through?) whatever sound medium.

Anyway would love to have cds of the material I'm aafter with best possible sound, decent volume, clarity etc etc by somebody who knows the medium and isn't simply going to over compress etc.

getting as in understanding in first line

Instead of which I was informed that no remasters were needed because Spot's production was so great.

This makes no sense

Remasters from the original tapes would certainly help, as (allegedly) a lot of the CD releases on SST were 'mastered' from vinyl as a cost-saving measure.

Whether they need a remix is a different story: I'm actually a fan of that 'shitty' Spot production sound. It doesn't work in every case, but in my mind I just can't divorce it from the songs on those records. They're all part and parcel. It'd be interesting to hear different mixes, but I don't know if it would be the same thing to me.

I don't think either of these things are going to happen, though, unless we get lucky and some first-rate musical archivists (*cough"numerogroup*cough*) do the decent thing and manage to negotiate the rights for a stellar reissue programme. I mean, every time I see raves about this or that long-lost one-shot deal on Drag City or whatever I sigh, knowing that the SST catalogue is prime for this kind of deal.

(*cough"numerogroup*cough*)

Closer than you think, apparently ...

But I would not hold your breath for "the SST catalog" to get issued on anything other than a band by band basis. And much of the prime SST stable has been reissued already, elsewhere, hasn't it? Meat Puppets, Sonic Youth, Dino Jr. (all of whom apparently had the legal wherewithal to extricate themselves from the label). Holdup with Husker Du has not been SST/Ginn. Watt's loyalty (is he loyal?) may be behind lack of Minutemen/fIREHOSE reissues. Dunno what's up with Descendants on the label, or Saint Vitus. Black Flag, obviously, is Ginn's 4 Life.

You're right; I don't really have any notions of some kind of grand-scale SST reissue campaign, and in many if not all cases it's up to the bands. A few one-shot gems have been reissued digitally (Scott Colby's 'Slide of Hand' is on iTunes; a crappy vinyl rip but better than nothing).

But you know, it's a sad thing to see great music get (seemingly) overlooked. For instance, I've heard moves towards Slovenly reissues for a few years now, but no dice so far. Seems to me like they'd make a perfect fit on Drag City, which has a pretty big name as a reissues label now. And Tom Watson has previous on that label from his time in The Red Krayola. But that's just me fantasy record label managing.

Instead of which I was informed that no remasters were needed because Spot's production was so great.

This makes no sense

― downton arby (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, February 10, 2013 1:12 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think that would probably be my response, as it was when I read it over there (which I think was only slightly paraphrased by what I wrote in my above post). Think I already said in the rest of that comment that as far as I understood it remastering & existing production were not mutually exclusive. Think the remastering would bring out the production more clearly & just make a better fit for the medium. Would think that especially if older mastering was from vinyl not the original tapes

which was in fact why I wrote the first post I added to this thread earlier, cos I couldn't understand what the response was. Nw it looks like other people here would think the same thing I would, from their responses here anyway.

actually the comment I got was this , which might be slightly different but seems that other people here feel somewhat different to what this indibvidual is saying anyway.
"We don't need remasters, maybe reissues, but Spot's engineering and the
original mastering of the SST stuff is generally great. Is it squashed
and LOUD like modern/remastered stuff? Hell no, and I'm glad for it.
Don't buy into the remastered is better game!!!!
TerryB"

^^^ joe carducci told me almost exactly the same thing when i interviewed him for my flag book and said the sst cds sounded gash and needed redoing. i see his point but still, those cds sound too damned quiet and thin.

Black Flag sounded best on cassette!

I don't think what they're saying is inherent or ineviatable is it? Seems to me that several reissue labels I know are pretty much avoiding the pitfalls that are being described.
Seems to be something that is a trend or hopefully more was a trend happening with more mainstream product. Speaking personally I'm not sure to what extent it's still happening but then again I don't know if I'd be picking up material where it would likely to be.

IN short a trend isn't an inevitability is it?

....not posting the link but if you run a Google/Google News search, you'll see WHY I won't post it.

It was posted already to the Black Flag thread.

dear Greg Ginn,
this is the worst shit I've heard in my life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvlC3M33Yss

...Have you heard October Faction?

I have not, will investigate

dON'T SMOKE WEED, KIDS

Ginn's playing in Gone (and some later Black Flag) always reminds me of the bottom left panel of this Achewood comic about the Grateful Dead:

http://achewood.com/comic.php?date=02282008

IIRC from Get in the Van, Ginn was a big Dead fan around that time

I like the Dead but I LOVE Achewood

https://external-preview.redd.it/06UBIhipIgFZbGhCbjbI1E50kNcd-QpFnmIBNAPbTkc.jpg

Dammit. Anyway, google image search for "Greg Ginn Grateful Dead shirt"

https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images3/1/0817/21/black-flag-greg-ginn-punk-rock-hippie_1_1fc35bc3a91be358a87d2caf46419183.jpg

lol. here to help!

https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0817/21/black-flag-greg-ginn-punk-rock-hippie_1_1fc35bc3a91be358a87d2caf46419183.jpg

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS IMAGE???

Not sure why the one you're trying to post doesn't work, but this one's better anyway (IMO):

https://preview.redd.it/3zaw3gwnrct61.jpg?auto=webp&s=cbef0730edbd8d3d30472427083fc60ace1d8d7e

(Bonus content:)

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GIpFcxURBog/YSyKRjwEj4I/AAAAAAAAVhQ/LbZfNdQkA_UTtYCUIPKM6BrjO-beyGFxgCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Greg%2BGinn.jpg

Just when you think the process of weeding out is complete, there's this.
https://img.evbuc.com/https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.evbuc.com%2Fimages%2F411180009%2F111723595769%2F1%2Foriginal.20221217-100045?h=2000&w=720&auto=format%2Ccompress&q=75&sharp=10&s=59555eb88e83e47bed3a4a2de3c1c871

huh, who's the lineup nowadays?

bring back FLAG is all i can say

Guys the important thing here is that the Doors are the opening act at 7 pm.

Ah yeah THE ROCK! I saw Mudhoney play there--and Danzig too.

Guys the important thing here is that the Doors are the opening act at 7 pm.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, March 7, 2023 9:42 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Jim Morrison recites "Family Man"

That skater d-bag is the singer

I can see getting by with the earlier stuff okay but My War is SO Rollins I can't imagine it without him

"I wrote 'My War' about Greg Ginn" - Chuck Dukowski

(actual quote from stevie's book iirc)

Was just rereading my Chuck interview for the book the other day - what a mentsch he is. He said Henry offered to quit BF and start a group with Chuck after Greg maneuvred Chuck out of the band, and that he turned him down but subsequently regretted it.

Is this the thread where we pine for Black Face? Eugene Robinson & Chuck's pseudo-BF project? The 7" is great, but it was too beautiful for this world.

Would I go see a Rollins-less Black Flag doing "My War" even though it is definitely terrible? Yes. Yes I would.

Holy shit Stevie

It would have been great, wouldn't it?

Greg Ginn continues to be a total piece of shit:

https://i.postimg.cc/tgHSV15h/reyes.jpg

jfc

Reyes had Ginn at his 50th birthday party in 2010 and tried to work things out with him, but Ginn doesn’t seem to care

Because Ginn is demonstrably and verifiably a total piece of shit.

I mean no one is ever going to get paid, but at least cut the guy a break and not let him be known as "Chavo Pederast" based on some bad joke you thought of 40+ years ago.

Of all the people I interviewed for my BF book Ron was the one I worried about the most. Just an incredibly sweet guy who'd had a really hard time of it, and who was still scarred and upset by the experience and by shit like "Chavo Pederast".

that makes me sad to hear.

Now to find a gift link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/arts/music/black-flag-greg-ginn.html

Through a representative, Rollins “declined with great enthusiasm” to an interview request for this article.

haha

think this works: https://archive.is/VJLJb

thanks, I hate it

I haven't seen em but the videos going around make me think these kids actually kind of shred and this is easily the least-embarrassing Ginn-run Flag since 2003

fair enough! I also heard that from a friend who saw the new lineup recently, like last week

it's more the stuff like

Ginn blamed various distributors going bankrupt as the reason for lapses in the label’s ability to pay.

that makes me irrationally angry

"LAPSES"?!?!

Maybe Ginn could just send the young 'uns out without him and stay at home making fertilizer and not paying anyone

this is easily the least-embarrassing Ginn-run Flag since 2003

I haven't seen any of the videos but this is the sense I get too tbh

bring back Flag imo

keith morris 4eva

I'll second that, I never saw them because it looks like the only time they played the UK was not a v good time for me

yeah I would 100% see Flag, mostly to watch Dukowski play bass

Black Flag as School Of (Punk) Rock seems... fine with me? Greg Ginn has had plenty of bad, BAD musical ideas over the years. Touring with a bunch of young musicians to play the only good songs he ever wrote is not one of them.

wonder if he'll still be travelling in a coffin in the back of the van that he can use to smoke weed in and avoid his bandmates