My War

This article is about the Black Flag album. For the Bear Quartet album, see My War (The Bear Quartet album). For the book, see My War: Killing Time in Iraq.
My War
Studio album by Black Flag
Released March 1984
Recorded December 1983
Genre Hardcore punk
Length 40:24
Label SST
Producer Greg Ginn, Spot, Bill Stevenson
Black Flag chronology

The First Four Years
(1983)		 My War
(1984)		 Family Man
(1984)

My War is the second studio album by American band Black Flag. It was released in 1984 on SST Records and polarized fans over its B-side, on which the band slowed down to a heavy, Black Sabbath-esque trudge, despite the reputation the band had earned as leaders in fast hardcore punk on its first album, Damaged (1981).

After a long period of legal troubles during which the band was prohibited from using its own name on recordings, the band returned to the studio with a new approach to its music, incorporated a greater variety of styles resulting in a sound difficult for orthodox punks to accept. The line-up had shrunk from five members to three: vocalist Henry Rollins, drummer Bill Stevenson, and band co-founder and guitarist Greg Ginn. Ginn doubled on bass under the name "Dale Nixon" for the recording as co-founding bassist Chuck Dukowski had been pushed out of the band shortly before recording; the album still includes two tracks by him.

The six tracks on the A-side of the LP are generally high-paced, thrashy hardcore, featuring guitar solos unusual in punk. On the B-side are three tracks in a doom metal style, each breaching the six-minute mark with ponderously slow tempos and unrelentingly dark lyrics of self-hatred. The band members had grown their hair long when they toured the album in 1984, further alienating their hardcore skinhead fanbase. My War has come to be cited as being a major influence on sludge metal and grunge.

Background

Black Flag logo consisting of four vertical black bars
The Black Flag logo

In 1978 Black Flag guitarist and cofounder Greg Ginn converted his ham radio business Solid State Transmitters to SST Records to release the band's first EP Nervous Breakdown (EP). Soon SST was releasing recordings by other bands as well, beginning with Minutemen' Paranoid Time in 1980.[1]

Black Flag recorded its first album Damaged in 1981 at Unicorn Studios and arranged a deal with the studio's record label Unicorn Records, which had distribution with MCA Records. MCA label president Al Bergamo halted the release after hearing the record, calling it "anti-parent"[2]—though SST hand Joe Carducci asserts this was a pretense for MCA to sever relations with the financially troubled Unicorn. The band obtained and distributed the already-pressed 20,000 copies of Damaged, and adorned it with a label with Bergamo's "anti-parent" quote. Legal troubles erupted when SST claimed unpaid royalties from Unicorn and Unicorn successfully counter-sued, resulting in five days in jail for Ginn and bassist Chuck Dukowski and an injunction prohibiting the band from releasing material under its own name.[3] The double album Everything Went Black—a compilation of earlier, unreleased material—appeared from SST in 1982 without the band's name on it. Unicorn went bankrupt in 1983, freeing the band from the injunction.[4]

Black-and-white photograph of four long-haired men
Black Sabbath was a major influence on My War‍ '​s B-side.

Following the release of Damaged, Black Flag absorbed a wider range of influences, such as the doom metal of Saint Vitus (who released via SST) and the more experimental hardcore of Flipper, Void, and Fang.[5] The band revisited early influences such as Black Sabbath, the MC5, and the Stooges for new approaches to songwriting other than relying on the high speed that had become the Black Flag trademark.[6] In an interview in 1983 with Mark Arm the band declared its admiration for heavy metal band Dio; when asked, "Dio? What's that?" Ginn responded, "It's Italian for God."[7] Ginn jealously guarded the new material, fearing other bands would capitalize on the new approach.[6]

The band toured extensively in North American and Europe to often hostile, violent hardcore punk crowds.[8] The disciplined group rehearsed obsessively, but there was little friendship between members: Rollins was introverted and Ginn cold and demanding.[9] Dukowski felt that Rollins' vocal approach was better suited than that of the band's earlier three singers to the new material he was writing such as "I Love You" and "My War".[10] Dukowski, who also wrote poetry and fiction, encouraged Rollins to write as well, and Rollins found inspiration in Dukowksi's bleak lyrical style.[11]

The band recorded a set of ten demo tracks at Total Access studios in 1982 for a planned follow-up to Damaged on which Chuck Biscuits replaced Damaged drummer Robo.[12] The rest of the lineup consisted of Ginn and former vocalist Dez Cadena on guitars, Henry Rollins on vocals, band cofounder Chuck Dukowski on bass.[13] The band explored new sounds on these tracks, which tended to feature a riff-heavy heavy-metal edge and noisy, energetic free guitar soloing from Ginn. The album never materialized, and the heavily bootlegged demos have never been officially released; re-recordings of several of the tracks from the aborted session were to feature on My War and other later albums. The line-up did not last long—frustrated with the band's legal troubles, Biscuits left[12] in December 1982, replaced by Bill Stevenson,[14] and in 1983 Cadena left to form DC3.[12] Ginn had been frustrated with Dukowski's sense of rhythm, and in Germany during a European tour in 1983 gave Dukowski an ultimatum to quit, or he would leave himself. Dukowski left the band, but stayed on to co-run SST.[15]

With Unicorn's demise in 1983 Black Flag was able to release the material they had been writing since 1981.[16] Eager to get back in the studio but still without a bassist, Ginn took on bass duties under the pseudonym "Dale Dixon" and practiced the new material with Stevenson up to eight hours a day, teaching the drummer to slow down and let the rhythm "ooze out" at a pace Stevenson was unused to;[17] the band called this approach the "socialist groove", as all beats were equally spaced.[18] With Spot as producer[19] and $200,000 in debt, Ginn, Rollins, and Stevenson headed to the studio to record My War.[20]

Music

The music on My War is dark, without the humor or fist-pumping anthems that lightened up Damaged—no longer the snotty-nosed punk approach of the Keith Morris era, the band now focused on gloom, depression, defeatism, and aggression.[21] The LP is divided stylistically in halves—or sides on the original LP. The first features five tracks of high-powered hardcore punk and closes with a noisy freak-out, "The Swinging Man".[5] The opening title track was penned by Dukowski. Ginn's "Can't Decide" follows, a gloomy ode to frustration: "I conceal my feelings / So I don't have to explain / What I can't explain anyway". "Beat My Head Against the Wall" rails at conformity and the band's experience with a major label: "Swimming in the mainstream / Is such a lame, lame dream".[22] Dukowski's "I Love You" parodies pop ballads with lyrics of violence and dysfunction in a relationship gone wrong. Ginn and Rollins share credit on the metallic "Forever Time" and the noisy "Swinging Man".[23]
"Scream"
"Scream" typifies the Black Sabbath-like plodding of the B-side of My War.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

The second half is made up of three tracks, each clocking at over six minutes. Each is in a plodding Black Sabbath-esque sludge metal style[5] with ponderous lyrics of unrelenting self-hate. On "Three Nights" Rollins compares himself to feces stuck to his shoe: "And I've been grinding that stink into the dirt / For a long time now".[19] Against a slow, heavy, start-and-stop bass riff against a constant drum thudding,[18] Rollins closes "Scream" with a blood-curdling bellow after delivering the Ginn-penned lines: "I may be a big baby / But I'll scream in your ear / 'Til I find out / Just what it is I am doing here".[24]

Reception and legacy

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic [25]
Robert Christgau B−[26]
Stylus Magazine Very Positive[27]

Black Flag toured the My War material from March 1984, with the Nig-Heist and Meat Puppets as opening acts.[28] It had been a year since the band had toured, and Rollins, Ginn, and Stevenson had grown out their hair; long hair was associate with the hippies whom the punks loathed, and was dissonant with Rollins' accepted image as a hardcore skinhead.[29] My War polarized Black Flag fans; it alienated those who wanted the band to stay true to its simple hardcore roots[5] and who were put off by the length of the songs, the riff-heaviness, and the solos—elements widely thought of as un-punk.[30] Tim Yo disparaged the album in Maximumrocknroll, saying "it sounds like Black Flag doing an imitation of Iron Maiden imitating Black Flag on a bad day", and called the B-side "sheer torture".[31]

 Album chart success
Chart Peak
position
UK Indie Chart[32]
 5

My War was the first of four Black Flag releases in 1984, a year that also saw Family Man, Slip It In, and Live '84 appear from SST.[16] The album has been criticized for the muffled sound of its production; Stevie Chick criticizes the lack of character in Ginn's bass-playing on "My War" when compared to the 1982 demo of the same song with Dukowski on bass.[22] Michael Azerrad praised the strength of the material while denigrating the "frustrating lack of ensemble feel" as the album was recorded without a full lineup.[19] Critic Clay Jarvis praises the album, emphasizing the risks taken on it and its influence, calling it "more a test than an album ... independent music is stronger because Black Flag formulated it." [27] John Dougan at AllMusic called the A-side of the album "quite good", but described the B-side as "self-indulgence masquerading as inspiration and about as much fun as wading through a tar pit".[25] Robert Christgau considered the B-side a "waste".[26]

The album had a large influence on the hardcore-meets-Sabbath sounds of the Melvins, Mudhoney, and Nirvana.[5] Mark Arm of Mudhoney related he was moved to tears at a Black Flag concert in 1983 when he was first exposed to "Nothing Left Inside", and the experience inspired him to seek out bands such as Black Sabbath.[33] The first punk concert Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain attended was a Black Flag show during the My War tour,[11] and he listed My War on his list of top fifty albums.[34]

Track listing

Side A
No. TitleWriter(s) Length
1. "My War"  Chuck Dukowski 3:46
2. "Can't Decide"  Greg Ginn 5:22
3. "Beat My Head Against the Wall"  Ginn 2:34
4. "I Love You"  Dukowski 3:27
5. "Forever Time"  Ginn, Henry Rollins 2:30
6. "The Swinging Man"  Ginn, Rollins 3:04
Side B
No. TitleWriter(s) Length
7. "Nothing Left Inside"  Ginn, Rollins 6:44
8. "Three Nights"  Ginn, Rollins 6:03
9. "Scream"  Ginn 6:52

Personnel

Black Flag

Technical personnel

References

  1. ↑ Waksman 2009, pp. 222–223.
  2. ↑ Chick 2011, pp. 244–246.
  3. ↑ Azerrad 2001, pp. 39–40.
  4. ↑ Chick 2011, pp. 263–264.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Earles 2014, p. 41.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Earles 2014, p. 43.
  7. ↑ Cameron 2014, p. 39.
  8. ↑ Earles 2014, p. 42.
  9. ↑ Azerrad 2001, pp. 41–42.
  10. ↑ Chick 2011, p. 267.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Parker 2000, p. 122.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Chick 2011, pp. 266–267.
  13. ↑ Chick 2011, p. vi.
  14. ↑ Parker 2000, p. 106.
  15. ↑ Chick 2011, p. 284.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Chick 2011, p. 335.
  17. ↑ Azerrad 2001, pp. 46–47.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Parker 2000, p. 113.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Azerrad 2001, p. 47.
  20. ↑ Parker 2000, p. 124.
  21. ↑ Chick 2011, pp. 288–289.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Chick 2011, p. 288.
  23. ↑ Chick 2011, p. 289.
  24. ↑ Azerrad 2001, p. 47–48.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Dougan.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Christgau.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Jarvis 2003.
  28. ↑ Parker 2000, p. 151.
  29. ↑ Parker 2000, p. 153.
  30. ↑ Martin 2002, p. 91.
  31. ↑ Yo 1984.
  32. ↑ Lazell 1997, p. 23.
  33. ↑ Cameron 2014, pp. 38–39.
  34. ↑ Cross et al. Yarm, p. 32.

Works cited

Books

Other sources

External links