Black Flag again: Rickshaw 2025 (sorry, Ron!)

Billy Hopeless chides me on Facebook, when he sees me commenting in a post on how much I'm enjoying the Black Flag show: "Do you type about Ronfest with the same hand lol." 

Which, really, is fair enough: with Ron's wife facing down cancer and Ron Reyes -- the original vocalist on Black Flag's Jealous Again EP -- having been treated pretty shoddily by Ginn and singer Mike Vallely, I would not have paid to be at this show, even though I did pay the last time I went to see Black Flag, a year ago this week (written about here).  I had qualms that night, too, but the Reyes' were doing fine then, and the band was showcasing My War, one of the most important punk albums of my youth, so, "just this once" I figured. Then it transpired that I was posting something about the band earlier tonight, watching my Facebook friends scroll through a litany of "the sins of Greg Ginn," which range from allegations of child abuse to playing 13- minute long versions of "Louie Louie," neverminding his tendency to litigiousness (see here, re: suing FLAG, or here, about his history with Negativland, who were briefly signed to his label, SST Records). There is a whole Reddit thread devoted to the topic of why Ginn is so hated. I have not read through it all, but other bands once signed to his label have also complained about him. So, you know, I won't invite him to dinner anytime -- I'm not going to ask him to be my buddy -- and I had decided that, having made ONE EXCEPTION so I could see a Black Flag show ONE TIME, last year -- that I wouldn't do it again. 

Then Chris Walter was giving away tickets on Facebook, and people were turning them down, talking about how awful Black Flag are now (that's where I heard about the 13 minute "Louie Louie": note that the "Louie Louie" we got last night -- actually part of the band's early repertoire -- was only five minutes long at best). So the tickets were available still, and it turned out that my wife wanted to do some work on her computer anyhow, and kinda encouraged me to go out... So I called Chris, and he sent me a Stub Hub link that didn't ultimately work, because -- well, getting tickets has become a pain in the ass; he didn't have the Stub Hub app, I didn't have the Stub Hub app, so no one had actually downloaded the tickets, and it would have taken him and me half an hour, me standing at the doorway of the Rickshaw, to jump all the hoops needed to actually transfer the tickets to me. But I am confident that someone somewhere paid for these tickets. It all finally got sorted out...

So there I was, at the Rickshaw, waiting for Black Flag to suck badly, because that is what everyone seems to say about this band now, so much so that the discrepancy between what you hear and what you experience at their shows actually only makes you more intrigued. Was last year an anomaly? Would they shit the bed THIS time? Would Ginn whip out a Theremin and noodle insufferably with it for half an hour? Would he play a 13 minute long version of "Louie Louie?" Would I be forced to endure a set of Good for You, the allegedly terrible band that Ginn and Vallely are in together, so they can sometimes open for themselves under a different name? Would I leave the Rickshaw, having borne witness, going, "Ahh, so this is what everyone was talking about, they really ARE terrible?" 

Well lemme tell ya: Shit the bed they did not. I don't know what to make of Greg Ginn -- I've never seen anyone get so much shit get talked about them, really ("and you know what they said/ some of it was true," probably!) -- but I totally enjoy his guitar playing, and he and Vallely and Black Flag rock just fine, thanks. They may benefit from the fact that I never saw them in their prime, but the room packed full of 20somethings at the Rickshaw tonight were beneficiaries of that same ignorance, because I haven't seen that many young people having that much fun at a punk show since... well, the last time I saw Black Flag. 

A First Four Years show or not -- based on a compilation album that covers the period between 1978 and 1981 -- there was plenty of material in the set from later on: two songs off 1984s Slip It In, the title track (extended to a 10-minute plus opus that devolved into a blues jam) and "Black Coffee" and four songs off 1983's My War ("Can't Decide"; "Nothing Left Inside," which I shot a clip of; "Forever Time"; and the weirdest tune of the night, "Swinging Man," which started with such an off-kilter opening I turned off my phone, which I later regretted, since it was hilarious to see kids trying to mosh to such a strangely structured song and since Ginn's guitar solos were particularly and enjoyably insane). There was also one new song, which surfaced twice, from Good for You, "Fucked Up," which was actually a great tune (I am the guy in the audience who was hoping that Good for You was going to do an opening set; they're the band, I think, Ginn and Vallely would WANT to be touring, if brand recognition wasn't so much stronger with Black Flag).  

And let me tell you, there were a lot of kids moshing last night. The average age of the audience seemed like it was maybe 25 -- people too young to have had heard shitty stories about Ginn, too young to have seen the band in previous incarnations, drawn by their reputation no less. They seemed to have a great time. My favourite mosher was a blonde girl with large boobs, 75% sticking out of her dress, who stayed in the pit the whole night, mixing it up -- youthful pits are also gender-rich and inclusive, these days. I blurted at her on the stairway at one point, "You must have gotten so many elbows to those, and yet you kept moshing! You're my new hero," which she maybe didn't know how to take at first -- she started to smile at the end when it was clear there was no lechery in what I was saying -- but a dude with her on the stairs was chuckling, enjoying my jest. No lechery intended, folks: it's almost fatherly love I feel for the Kids of the Pit these days, who mosh so much more joyfully than the aggro, all-male meatheads in the pits of my youth. 

That still doesn't mean I want to be among them, and alas, that's where I found myself, when, after an eight-minute "Can't Decide" that kicked off the night, I decided that, since the band hadn't broken out the fast stuff yet, it was safe to go into the mosh zone and try to shoot the next song. This, unfortunately, turned out to be "Nervous Breakdown," and the pit went wild, which means the video suddenly gets shakey, with one person falling back into me with such force that, as you will see, I rapidly stumble backwards, trying not to flat-out fall on my back and to hold onto my fucking cellphone at the same time. It was only by the grace of the people standing behind me (sorry to anyone whose feet I stepped on) that I remained upright. Happily, I kept filming.  

Anyhow, a few more recent songs aside, most of the set (same as one they played recently at the Whiskey, I think) was, indeed, drawn from the First Four Years years. I'd seen none of it performed by any previous version of Black Flag; the closest I came was seeing Ginn and Reyes at Ron's 50th birthday. The Ron Reyes band smoked that night, and the versions of "Jealous Again" and "Revenge" that we heard last night had nothing on seeing Ron lay into them, even if Ginn was under-amplified that earlier evening (you could barely hear him then; no such problem was had last night). It's possible that my enjoyment last night benefitted greatly from having few points of comparison -- it I'd seen these songs performed by other folks, like an earlier incarnation of Black Flag, or FLAG, or so forth, I might have been less impressed last night. But for the most part I haven't, and, sorry, it seemed like a pretty fucking great punk show to me, folks, maybe even better, if you like Ginn's solos, than the one last year.   

Interestingly, at least some of the people in the show were there for Mike V., it was clear -- there is some sort of draw for skaters. I recognized a couple of Jaks, and there were several calls of "Mike V." from the audience; he seemed, to a certain segment, to be a bigger celebrity than Greg Ginn. I've heard people talk shit about Mike, as well, some of which, again, might be true, who knows? "He likes to punch people in the face," was one comment someone made, the other being that he just imitates Rollins. He does sing in a Rollins-like way, I guess, without seeming quite as jockish in appearance (no pecs were seen, and the only six pack was the song). But if you looked in his face during the evening's second set -- we got two hour-long sets, with no encore -- you could see in his eyes that he was definitely feeling the songs -- he had an evil, manic intensity that was quite convincing. 

Anyhow, I can't presume to seriously evaluate any claims that these guys (Ginn, Vallely) are arseholes. Ginn was perfectly friendly and obliging when I spoke to him last year and signed stuff for anyone who asked; I saw him handing down a signed Everything Went Black to someone in the audience last night, too. Vallely was friendly with the audience between songs, promising they'd come back. The lack of an encore was a bit surprising but we'd gotten nearly two full hours of music out of them, so it's not like anyone felt cheated. As for musicianship, I can confirm that their drummer, Charles Wiley, AKA Corn Man, is not as interesting on the kit as Bill Stevenson, another gripe I've heard, but few drummers are, and he did fine last night, albeit in a fairly straightforward way. Matt Baxter, as well -- he's at least as good a bassist as Dale Nixon, haw, haw. And while I've heard people say they can't stand how Ginn plays guitar now -- to my mind, he's always been a weird-ass guitarist, and his having gotten a bit weirder and more Greg-Ginn like is a fine thing, by me. His solos were crazy. And very enjoyable. 

Oh, and the cellphone-era update of "TV Party" was fucking hilarious: thanks for that. The wi-fi is broken, and everyone has nothing better to do than stare at their phones. A timely update! 

So Ginn may not be a very ethical dude -- he certainly hasn't done a great job of convincing the world otherwise -- but I'm sure he has a point of view there, as well. His litigiousness with FLAG was flat-out stupid, in that it made him look like a dweeb: one of the least punk rock things anyone can possibly say is "I'll see you in court!" But I'm not going to try to evaluate or investigate any of that shit. He's someone not many people have love for, but he is one fuck of a guitarist, and if you hear people making claims that this is not REALLY Black Flag, that the band is boring and not worth seeing now -- this is all false. Last night was great, like I say maybe even better than the My War anniversary gig, which turns out to not have been an anomaly at all. To loop in an analogy with someone who is allegedly even less nice a person than Greg Ginn, Roman Polanski -- you can boycott Polanski's films all you like, because of the (now multiple) allegations of underage rape against him. There might be some reason to not want him to have your money, or to sit in positions of honour and esteem -- I am all for that, punish him where he will feel it, if that's what you want to do. But there is no way in hell you can say that his movies are bad. Bad people can make good art. You might not want to collaborate in it, but you can't deny the art. Or, well, at least I can't. 

(If you want to give money to an old punk rocker, by the way, the Reyes' Gofundme is still active, though I am happy to see they reached their goal. Maybe I'll send Ron the cost of a Black Flag ticket once I get paid? Least I can do -- I never donated!).

The funniest comment of the night came later on, as I was leaving the venue: I eavesdropped on two of the 20-something girls who had been at the show. "So was that as good as you expected?" one asked the other -- having established earlier that it was her first time seeing Black Flag.

"It was better, actually. One thing I'll say for these old punks: they sure can play their instruments!"

Her friend laughed in agreement: "They've had enough practice!" 

They continued down Hastings towards the bus stop, and I whipped out my phone and texted a note to myself about their conversation.