TS: Sex Pistols' "Never Mind the Bollocks" Vs. Black Flag's "Damaged"

Although I would take Static Age before all else.

Wait until the UK people wake up and find this thread, they're gonna shit a brick.

HI DERE

Nah, I have no beef with anyone picking Damaged, I'm having trouble choosing myself. I agree with you - you need both. And I also listen to Damaged more, although I haven't listened to either in quite a while, I've been more about My War lately.

they're around equal in terms of songs, but lydon >>> rollins

this, i would hope we can all agree, is true

exactly. Never mind might have the myth, but Damaged has the kick to the head and the punch to the gut. fuckin' heavy shit. Plus, the Pistols can't touch the trinity: Damaged, Slip it in, and My War. Black Flag helped to define: punk, hardcore, thrash, stoner metal, grindcore, sludge, Gravity's chaotic post-hardcore, proggy post-hardcore, etc., etc., etc. This is serious shit we're talking here.

I think it has some of the greatest, most hideously bent 'n' twisted guitar solos and downer grooves that I've ever had the pleasure to bask in. It's ugly, plodding, screaming mud and I dig it!

(And, yes, I'm in the UK)

Funny, come to think of it how the Germs were almost an exact midpoint bewtween the two.

You can say that again.

I think the Pistols are pretty hard rock - Never Mind... is closer to 70s hard rock than the second side of Damaged, which devolves into near-chaotic inhuman noise (perhaps a factor in some peeps picking one over t'other). Didn't someone once say the first Pistols singles were good but then they turned into AC/DC? Wasn't it Mark E. Smith?

And Bullocks/First Issue/Second Edition shits all over this trinity.

...but now we're talking PiL, which is an entirely different beast than the Sex Pistols. But personally, I'll still take Black Flag (who did have serious line up changes). I just dig it more. I like raw, aggressive, sloppy, unhinged hardcore rock that teeters often nosedives into noise, metal, punk, prog, and a million variants thereof. And as for their slow metal sludge, maybe a ton of folks round thes parts hate it nut man those jams just crawl right up spine and burrow itno the back of my skull. I totally dig the dreary repetition of BF's less hardcore jams. The Pistols just sound too tidy for me, not enough violent physicality. Sure they got pop hooks, but I don't really care about them. I don't believe pop makes them heavy at all. Nevermind the Bullocks sounds like a good, above average hard rock album to these ears.

Its still a hard choice though.

I like heavy better than bouncy so I will go with Damaged

NMTB might not rock as hard as Damaged, but it certainly rolls more.

With the Pistols, there's the Who, the Creation and the Faces. All pilled-up and sarcy. Filtered through the Dolls, of course, but it's there, and it's a very different thing.

Really?? Where? It sure isn't in the rhythm or the singing or the guitar riffs (or at least I've sure never heard it there.)(I actually hear more Sabbath in Flipper or in the Angry Samaons than in Black Flag.) (Or at least not on *Damaged.* Maybe they attempted a Sabbath thing later on, but I never heard them pull it off.)

I just saw a great photo of Ginn going at it with his axe as he wears a Dead t-shirt.

It boils down to: Lydon > Rollins, Ginn > Jones. And ultimately, my choice per given day depends on whether I love or hate "classic rock" an that day.

Gotta say there were as many turgid posers and lousy bands left in Flag's wake as in the Pistols'.

I think it was in a promo interview done around the time of The Infotainment Scan, '93. I'll have to dig that out to see if my memory serves.

I'm a bit surpised about the limey Flag love. Most Brits I've encountered were incapable of appreciating Black Flag and US hardcore in general (maybe viewing them as the US equivalents of the post-Pistols yabbo-thug takeover of punk?). Maybe I just talk to too many Fall fans.

Black Flag is way Sabbathoid, but mostly post-Damaged. "Damaged I" is the beginning of the slowed-down knuckle-dragging style that fully flowered on the 2nd side of My War.

I'll quote myself from an older BF thread: My War could've been the best Black Flag album ever, if it had been recorded with the two guitar lineup (Ginn / Cadena) and Chuck Biscuits on drums. But that lineup fell apart and they recorded it as a 3 piece, with Ginn doubling on bass and guitar. Not a great idea. Some of it works ("Scream", "My War") but it's all potential and little delivery. Look for the '82 demos of the My War material - much closer representation of what My War could've been.

Also search out the version of "My War" from the '84 Radio Tokyo sessions (often included on copies of the '82 demos that make the rounds) - it's flattening.

Scott, check out (or revisit) In My Head. It's the bizarro space metal album that the post-Damaged-Flag was always shooting for. It's probably too humorless + dire for Chuck but you might dig it. My 2nd favorite Flag album. I was once a heavy First 4 Years user myself, but over the years Damaged & In My Head somehow usurped it...

I was just about to ask what the difference between *First Four Years* and *Everything Went Black* was, but then I checked *Stairway to Hell* (where I rank *Damaged* #191 and *First Four Years* #327, which I guess means that just because I prefer the personnel on the latter doesn't mean I think they made a better album), and I answer the question myself. (Wish I had kept one of those comps, at least.)

>US hardcore in general (maybe viewing them as the US equivalents of the post-Pistols yabbo-thug takeover of punk?)<

Ha ha, I actually think oi! was *better* than U.S. hardcore (and I might take the 4 Skins, Business, or Anti-Nowhere League over Black Flag.) Yet I'm just about the farthest thing from an Anglophile ever.

I can see that the Flag/Sabbath comparison may be retrospective projection in terms of 'Damaged', though I still think there is a common vibe. Blue Cheer is maybe closer.

"Communication Breakdown" ----> "God Save the Queen"
"The Needle and the Spoon" ----> "Submission"

I fuckin' dig it. I think the Kira/Stevenson rhythm section was physical and quite flexiblea, always kicking the groove ahead. And Ginn, holy shit. He's going even further into fusion/metal/free jazz terrain. And I gotta admit, when I see clips of Rollins fronting Flag, I think he was truly a sweaty grunting beast wearing those short shorts. He was an exciting front man.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pxKFImER0vA&search=black%20flag%20slip%20it%20in

Then I won't send you a burn of the Process of Weeding Out EP...

wicked sweet

I will confess that I actually put *Gone II* in my top ten the year it came out (though I haven't actually played it in a million years.)

chaki you must be seein' the world through rats' eyes

sullen

rat's eyes rat's eyes rat's eyes rat's eyes

Well, this Limey appreciates a fuck load of US hardcore, it is true that it used to be really hard to actually get hold of any of it in record shops here though. Especially at the time it was all going on (apparently, too young) i.e. early 80s. Probably why the early 80s UK bands didn't seem to have heard any of the US stuff, until about '85 when the UKHC scene started really getting going (Stupids, Ripcord, etc).

When people say hard rock, I think they're referring less to the superstar prog/jam vibe of Zep/Skynard/Floyd, and more to trendy neaderthals like Blue Cheer, Alice Cooper, Nugent, Stooges, Sabbath even. A lot of the early UK punk bands overlapped with/extended from the roots rock/bar band scene (e.g. 101ers, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Pirates, Dr. Feelgood), and it shows in Jones' traditional guitar work. Can't think of which song it is off hand, but there's an opening guitar riff on Never Mind... that's straight-up ooh-baby bent notes; it sounds practically southern-fried.

One unique characteristic of US hardcore was its obliteration of the blues/R&B influences that suffused almost all earlier rock forms (including punk). Is there any whiter music than Minor Threat?

Slip It In - great production (warmest sound in the Black Flag catalog) and fantastic playing (the band has GELLED). Unfortunately the material's thin - Dukowsi's and Cadena's loss is palpable (best song on the album is a Dukowski cowrite, "The Bars"). And Henry is in post-My War freefall - he took his salt-on-the-exploding-wound-of-my-soul schtick as far as it could go, and the humorlessness is now paying diminishing returns ("Rat's Eyes", "You're Not Evil").

I find the idea of latter-day Flag (get in the van, irritate the masses, undermine audience expectations, dreams are free motherfucker) more interesting than the actuality. Rollins is a good frontman as long as I don't have to see him.

I agree! But that's probably part of why I *don't* hear much Blue Cheer or Nugent or Stooges or Cactus etc. in most US hardcore. How can you sound like boogie rock if you can't boogie? I don't get that.

Black Flag's similarity to 70s hard rock has more to do with the texture than with the rhythm or scale. The thickness of Ginn/Cadena's guitar sound is what causes hard rock associations for people, but you can't apply that generically to US hardcore. Black Flag and Bad Brains were the most "hard rock" of hardcore, bands like Minutemen and Minor Threat came from the skinny-stabbing-gtrs school. It's understandable that BF and BB went in a metal direction as time went on (though it freaked some of their original audience) - conversely it would've made less sense for Minor Threat or The Minutemen to go metal.

I don't buy your '70s hard rock dichotomy, either.

I don't buy it, either, on a musical level - an electrified blues riff is an electrified blues riff. I created an unnatural division based on extra-musical cultural perception, i.e. think of a continuum from arena rock to punk rock (the mindset of the punk rocker) - there are some hard rock acts that would be dispersed closer to one end than t'other. These battle lines really don't exist (anymore than a border between the US and Canada "exists"), but people perceive them and think about music based on them. Would anyone really be surprised to find a copy of Led Zep II in Steve Jones' record collection, even in '76?

the purging of blues influences really began with people like the slits, joy division, etc,

Yeah, the art-school side of punk started that trend (I'd go even earlier with Wire, Siouxsie, Teenage Jesus, DNA) - but the hardcore scene drew more of a rock crowd than the arty punks did.

Colonel, yeah, maybe it was a matter of "heard of" rather than "heard" for Brits + US hardcore.

But I think the Feelgoods, Hot Rods, other pub rockers were coming out of country/rockabilly/Stonesy rock tradition rather than the full-on blues-metal-rock of Led Zep etc. They were 'skinnier'.

All the fat had been taken out of the guitar sound by the time the Slits/Fall/Raincoats etc came along…but wait….those bands had been gigging since 77 anyway. Maybe the influence of reggae, the necessity of using cheap guitars (really tinny in the 70's) play a part.

Okay, I'm going to reply to myself, and say, "Yes, ya twat, of course they would be." But it's a cultural battleground issue less than an actual musical one. The hard rock borders of the 70s are mighty mushy - you can split it into hippie/prog/glam/boogie/metal encampments but there's tons of overlap there.

All the fat had been taken out of the guitar sound by the time the Slits/Fall/Raincoats etc came along…but wait….those bands had been gigging since 77 anyway. Maybe the influence of reggae, the necessity of using cheap guitars (really tinny in the 70's) play a part.

This is a good point - I'd posit that there was also a political dimension to the embrace of thinner guitar sounds by punk bands (at least in the UK).

Oddly, I hear as much Black Sabbath in Joy Division than in Black Flag - probably more. (Listen to "Interzone," for instance.)
-- xhuxk (xedd...), May 23rd, 2006.

lots of iggy in joy division.
-- scott seward (skotro...), May 23rd, 2006.

xp - or "Day of the Lords" or "Colony" - there's a whole lotta Sab in JD!
-- I am ready to kill myself and eat my dog (teenagequie...), May 23rd, 2006.

All due respect guys, but when are you going to invite me to your crack smoking party? Gonna have to ruminate over these allegations...

I've always thought Minor Threat was a pretty fuckin funky hardcore band, actually.
-- I am ready to kill myself and eat my dog (teenagequie...), May 23rd, 2006.

This is a fascinating irony of funk - a highly regimented/staccato rhythm can resemble funkiness (check out electro-funk, or the appeal of Kraftwerk for Afrika Bambaata, inhuman riddims). But there's a lack of groove/swing, or maybe too much speed in Minor Threat - yeah it's gonna get you movin' but it's likely not yr pelvis that's a-thrustin'. Or perhaps the funk was there all along, waiting to blossom on slow down (Fugazi), just as der metal was embedded in Black Flag's genetic code?

No, I agree with 'em, Ed, there's a definite Sabbath connection.

I wouldn't be surprised if Minor Threat was influenced by the funk, which could have been filtered through (in some warped fashion) Bad Brains, the post-punk from England, and/or just living in DC. (I don't really know.) Hardcore was digging the post-punk. I heard about the Pop Group in an interview with Fugazi years ago. And both the Minutemen and Sac Trust were big into post-punk. Baiza told me the Minutemen were always talking up the post-punk to him.

Joy Division = existential horror, like Sartre
Black Sabbath = fantasy horror, like Lovecraft

Both convey a sense of slimy, creepy discomfort but they're coming from completely different worldviews. And musically I don't hear the similarities.

And yeah, Joy Division is the cradle of goth, but they're better than their legions of black-mascared progeny like Bauhaus and
Christian Death in part *because* they didn't sing about vampires, fairies, or the holy ghost got ya scared to death kid boo! It's all expressionistic modernist post-death-of-god emotional turmoil. More like Antonioni than Bava.

listening to Black Sabbath doesn't generally make me think of the devil

But I do believe Black Sabbath have a few songs with supernatural elements...

So help me out guys, what specifically about Joy Division is like Black Sabbath? Vocals? Lyrics? Rhythms? Chord progressions? Guitarists missing fingers? What?

Again, play "Interzone" back to back with "Paranoid" (then throw in "Shoot Out the Lights" by Metallica-boosted NWOBHMers Diamondhead while you're at it.) The groove sounds pretty darn similar to me, and it's more of a groove than I ever heard Black Flag pull off.

Okay I'll try the "Paranoid" -> "Interzone" taste test...

Later-period Flag gets more obsessively repetitious, e.g.

sullen

rat's eyes rat's eyes rat's eyes rat's eyes

-- Thomas Tallis (tallis4...), May 22nd, 2006.

Half of In My Head is hypno-drone loops. Would you say The Fall sound like Black Sabbath?

(Careful how you answer, MES will be in NYC soon)