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Spray Paint The Walls: The Story Of Black Flag (2009)

by Stevie Chick(Favorite Author)

3.87 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1847726208 (ISBN13: 9781847726209)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Omnibus Press

review 1: Most rock biographies disappoint. Either the writer rushes through the story without capturing the personalities, or else the whole affair comes off as too fawning. Stevie Chick does a masterful job at telling the tale of Black Flag. Though the lack of involvement of Henry Rollins and Greg Ginn make the book suffer a bit, perhaps we're better off with a collection of quotes where they DON'T know they're giving the definitive history.And it is the definitive history. Everything is here. The spray painting. Black Flag versus Hollywood. Black Flag versus the LAPD. Dez's busted vocal chords. Henry's late night trial by fire in New York. Trudging. Vibining. Kira's makeover. The dumb sexist jokes. Greg Ginn's bag of weed. All the legends and stories you've heard are true and Ste... morevie Chick fleshes them out with the participation of not just band members, but those close to the Black Flag inner circle. The historical context here is perhaps most impressive. Chick is able to take us step by step through the processes that created Black Flag and shaped their early sound. The realities of building an independent touring network for DIY-oriented rock bands is made clearer than it has been anywhere else. Whether you know nothing about Black Flag or everything about Black Flag, this is a great read because it lays all the pieces out and connects the dots for you, something that, to the best of my knowledge, has never really been done anywhere else. Sometimes Chick appears a bit worshipful, at other times too critical of the band. Though overall he presents a very even-handed appraisal of the group that puts them in their proper context in the history of rock. Forget about bands like Trash Talk, Agnostic Front or Infest -- there wouldn't be an R.E.M. without Black Flag. Chick gets this, on a very intuitive level. It's not so much the music that makes Black Flag one of (if not THE) most important bands of the last 30 years; It's that they delivered on the promise of punk rock, that anyone can do this, provided they're willing to put the work in. Definitely recommended for all Black Flag fans and anyone interested in the history of independent rock.
review 2: Okay, this has been sitting in the dock for a while (among a multitude of things/other books that I have indeed read but haven't reviewed)--but I actually read this in two days like four months ago. I took a personal day off from work to read it straight through. Here's the deal: I honestly was a little suspicious of a Limey writing about the history of one of Southern California's most important bands, but it makes sense in the fact that someone who lived here/lived through it might bring to it a multitude of biases, and that's that (plus Stevie Chick has written some killer stuff on crucial contemporary bands such as Comets on Fire and more). A bulk of the text is straight testimony from Flag members, other bands that played with them/people who were there, and it's prime juice for anyone who abused themselves on an old Santa Cruz Jesse or Grosso thrashing to 'Jealous Again' or shaved their head while listening to 'Damaged' or had some fucked late night mental breakdown while spinning 'Loose Nut' or 'Slip it In' wanting to kill themselves over a girl (or boy)--for any of us whose blood was unbelievably stirred by the Flag will devour the book. Now, that said, and my heart goes out to Chick on this one: there are typos on--literally--almost every single page, and some other heavy duty editing issues (the same metaphor used over and over to describe contradicting things, stuff like that--things the editor at Omnibus should have caught!). Somewhat to the point of distraction. Though not enough to make this a killer way to destroy your weekend! less

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