Customer Reviews

Spray Paint the Walls: The Story of Black Flag

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've read as much as I can find about Black Flag via interviews and articles found on the web, but this book has so much info that at times it reads like a text book. One minute you'll be reading about Black Flag gearing up for a show at a certain club, then the story will derail into giving you more info than you wanted about the club where they're playing.

There are so many different topics in this book that if you're looking for Black Flag information and only Black Flag information, you might get bored here, so bored that you may put the book down and never pick it up again. I honestly didn't start flying through the pages until Dez joined, the book staying interesting with Henry at the mic as well.

The book often paints Ginn in a negative light, and I would have never thought there was so much anger/animosity among the band members. It's kind of a bummer when reading this stuff, to think that my favorite band of all time basically hated each other, it kind of makes the music seem like a lie.

Overall this is a really great book, even if the writing is sometimes forced or full of filler. If you don't know much about Black Flag and you'd like to learn a lot, buy this book.

P.S. To the sellers who are pricing this book around $30 to $70, shame on you. It's collector/sellers like you that ruin music, books, art, ect. making it unavailable to those with less money.

This book is filled with inaccuracies, as previously mentioned below. Some of which are too big to let slide. For example: the Misfits being a California band. The author is from England and obviously is not familiar with California, but, he makes a big deal about the difference between L.A. and O.C. and how the scenes were so different, the violence and so on. The author has no idea which bands are from OC and which are from LA.For instance he says Eddie and the Subtitles were from Manhattan Beach (LA), and Wasted Youth and Circle One were from OC with "deep connections to the local punk gangs." This is in reference to them playing at The Cuckoo's Nest.

The Screws are referred to as The Skrews or The Skrewz. Chick also refers to HB as Huntingdon. This was weird because it was sometimes spelled correctly during interviews. Chick included a section about the Dogtown skaters and their influence on the Southern California punk scene. OK, but it was clearly ripped right out of a recent viewing of the Dogtown and the Legend of Z-Boys movie. The author then goes on to say Tony Alva, Jay Adams, and Steve Alba are from Orange County. WTF? Oh, and if you want to mention something about SoCal skaters influence on SoCal punk at that time, at least mention Steve Olson.

The author is completely unfamiliar with California, which got aggravating at times. But still, this is an interesting, and important book about an important band. Deducting stars for misinformation. The other most aggravating oddity in the book was when the author says something about hipsters who were too young to see BF back when they were starting like to say they prefer Keith, Ron, Dez over Henry because it is cool to say that. WTF? That is an opinion. Some of us are just old. We saw them with the earlier singers, therefore, we tend to prefer those singers. Or, perhaps a particular one. I never saw Black Flag with Henry, but now I am going to check out those later albums. The cover shot should have been of the only member who remained constant in the band from start to finish. Or better yet, Greg and Chuck.

To end on a positive note, despite the criticisms, it was definitely a worthwhile read. I really liked when Chick said Henry could never sing Nervous Breakdown as well as Keith and Keith could not sing Damaged as well as Henry, or something like that.

This book is predominantly a batch of information derived from a few books that have come before it; Henry Rollins' GET IN THE VAN, James Parker's TURNED ON, WE OWE YOU NOTHING (from the punk planet interviews), and THIS BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE by Michael Azerrad. I've read all of those books and was excited to read something historical about Black Flag. Unfortunately there wasn't much I didn't know already (from reading the aforementioned books and seeing the band). There were new interviews that almost filled in some holes in the band's history and bits of trivia, but there were also those passages that biographers that don't know a lot firsthand about their subject inject, like "Hermosa Beach, California in the late 70's was all surf and sun, Jimmy Carter was president, and Fleetwood Mac was dominating the airwaves, blah blah blah...." (not an actual quote from the book.) Sometimes that gives the reader a sense of time or context, and at other times it seems to be a method of filling up a book. One important point the author does make is the importance of Chuck Dukowski in the band versus who anyone's favorite singer was. I would recommend the books that were mentioned earlier and probably Joe Carducci's ROCK AND THE POP NARCOTIC before reading this.

I just finished this book, and found it to be readable and engaging, although certainly not prefect.

One thing to realize going in: this book is just as much about label SST as it is about Black Flag. If you cut out all of the not-Flag-specific text, the book would be probably half as long as it is. The two were pretty intertwined, so I have no problem with the inclusion of that material.

"Spray Paint..." makes heavy use of the books that came before, as Joe Franke notes, but Chick also conducted numerous interviews himself with many of the principal players in the Black Flag/SST scene. Keith Morris, Mike Watt, Joe Carducci, Tom Troccoli, Mugger and especially Chuck Dukowski really help to round the book out with interviews conducted in 2009. Brendan Mullen, Kira Roessler, Ron Reyes, Dez Cadena, and Mark Arm (among others) were also interviewed and have generally interesting and relevant things to say.

Main Flag man Greg Ginn was not interviewed, although I'm sure Chick tried. Instead, he pulls quotes and information from probably every interview Greg ever gave to a fanzine or newspaper to shed some light on his interpretation of events. As someone who has not read any of the previous Flag books besides "Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag (2nd Edition)", I found these snippets to be very useful.

Henry Rollins was also not interviewed for this book, but fortunately his take on things is well documented, and Chick draws from a number of Rollins books and spoken word performances for background and details. And Chick dutifully cites almost every direct quote in the book - many come from the interviews he conducted, but when he does take something from another source, he gives the title or a full URL. This is much appreciated.

The most interesting part of the book, for me, is the early biographical details of these folks, where they came from and how their lives intersected. Again, Rollins' story is fairly well known by this point, but I enjoyed reading about the others.

I do have some quibbles with the book, though. Besides referring to the Misfits as a California band (ha!), Chick credits Henry Rollins' first post-Flag project to "Henrietta Collins and the Wifebeaters" when it is, of course, "Henrietta Collins and the Wifebeating Childhaters". And he repeatedly refers to Huntingdon Beach instead of Huntington Beach. These may seem like minor annoyances, but getting such basic and easily-verifiable information wrong casts some doubt over the information presented in the book as a whole. There are also a few typos (where is Irag?) and what appears to be at least one errant paragraph inserted in the wrong place.

Then we have the age-old problem of "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Chick spends a lot of space describing Black Flag's music track by track, especially Ginn's guitar playing, and the descriptions get repetitive after a while. And no words can convey the emotional impact a particular song might have on you... You can hear previews of almost everything Black Flag ever released in Amazon's MP3 section, among other places.

One last piece of criticism. The front cover features a giant photo of Henry singing, but his name isn't even mentioned for the first 200 pages. Greg Ginn, the only constant member and focus of much of the book, is shown in a much smaller photo on the back cover. This was obviously done for marketing purposes, but could be a little misleading for folks who don't already know something about Black Flag.

Having said all of that, I did enjoy the book. An index would have been great, but Chick does include a full bibliography. I would recommend "Spray Paint The Walls" to someone interested in Black Flag and/or SST; even if you have read the other Flag books, the new interviews alone may be worth the trudge.

I've been a big fan of Black Flag since 1985. This book answered a lot of questions I've always had and painted a well-rounded picture of the history of the band and the scenes that it was a part of. Sure, there were some mistakes but none that I condsidered crucial (like saying the Misfits were from CA). I found myself gripped with the story and read it for hours on end. This is no brief overview, it's extremely in-depth and in the beginning it seemed TOO in-depth but all of the "too in-depth" parts made sense when I realized it was to give the band's history and broader context. I am way more than satisfied with the money I spent on this book. My biggest complaint? Greg Ginn should have been on the cover! Greg's guitar playing, not Henry's bodybuilder poses define the band.

I heard about this Book & thought: "Great! Some Tiny little Book about Black Flag..."
BUT This is One Well Researched, Interesting, & like their Music, EXCITING Biography, of these Icons of Hardcore.
They Were One of my Absolutely Favorite Bands ever since Everything Went Black. so I Eagerly Dove in! I was actually Surprised how Well it was Written, & how Great it was to Read.
All About Everyone in Black Flag & SST as well! How They Lived, Rehearsed, Toured, Survived, Back when Hardcore was actually Going on. These were real Pioneers. I was Lucky Enough to see them Once on the Loose Nut Tour & I'll Never Forget it!
The Story does end on some Bummer Notes, But The Truth can't always be as Sunny as Sunny Southern California!
Spray paint those Walls!

I love Black Flag as much as the next guy, but pretty much lost interest after the TV Party record. I thought they became really self indulgent. This book chronicles their whole career not just the Rollins era. I found it pretty interesting how all the characters knew each other and came to know each other. I wish there wasn't so much attention paid to extraneous people and bands, but I assume it will be helpful to people with well rounded lives who didn't pay such close attention. There were a few little inaccuracies (like referring to the Misfits as a California band) that make me question a couple other things, but overall seems very well researched and it made me feel more punk by knowing stuff the author didn't. I thought it went too easy on Greg Ginn who, essentially tried to make Black Flag his back up band by the end of their run. It's probably fair though and Like I said most people reading this had fuller lives than I did.

Love the band - loved the book. Well written , informative. I couldn't put it down. Lots of interviews with people who were there....especially good contributions from Keith Morris , Ron Reyes and especially Kira - her section is a great inside look at Black flag on tour

Thee most important band for a generation of angry suburban kids, I LOVE Black Flag. First Four Years changed my life. But the description says since "1878.."