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?

...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