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My War
My War is the second studio album by American band Black Flag. It was the first of three full-length albums the band released in 1984. The album polarized fans due to the LP's B-side, on which the band slowed down to a heavy, Black Sabbath-esque trudge after establishing expectations as a faster hardcore punk band on its first album, Damaged (1981).
After a period of legal troubles which prohibited the band from using its own name on recordings, Black Flag returned to the studio with a new approach to its music that incorporated a greater variety of styles, resulting in a sound orthodox punks found difficult to accept. The line-up had shrunk from five members to three: vocalist Henry Rollins, drummer Bill Stevenson, and co-founding guitarist Greg Ginn. Ginn doubled on bass guitar under the name "Dale Nixon" for the recording as bassist Chuck Dukowski left the band shortly before recording; the album includes two tracks Dukowski wrote.
The A-side of the LP is composed of six generally high-paced, thrashy hardcore tracks, featuring guitar solos unusual in punk music. On the B-side are three heavy tracks that each breach six-minutes with ponderously slow tempos and dark, unrelenting lyrics of self-hatred. The band members had grown their hair long when they toured the album in 1984, which along with the change in sound further alienated their hardcore skinhead fanbase. Despite mixed reception at the time of the album's release, My War has come to gain a reputation as one of Black Flag's seminal releases and had a major influence on the development of post-hardcore, sludge metal, grunge, and math rock.
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. Soon SST was releasing recordings by other bands as well, beginning with Minutemen's Paranoid Time in 1980.
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"—though SST co-owner 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 20000 copies of Damaged and adorned it with a label displaying 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 co-founding bassist Chuck Dukowski and an injunction prohibiting the band from releasing material under its own name. 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's bankruptcy in 1983 freed the band from the injunction.
Ginn had grown frustrated with the hardcore punk scene, and told the Los Angeles Times in early 1983: "[W]e've never been out to create this punk scene" they had been credited with spearheading; "We want people to listen to us as a band rather than as a stereotype ... A lot of what you call the punk scene is really backward, and it always has been." Following the release of Damaged, Black Flag absorbed a wider range of influences from the more experimental hardcore of Flipper, Void, and Fang. They listened to little contemporary punk. Ginn was drawn to Ronnie James Dio's work in Black Sabbath and Dio, as well as earlier favorites from his pre-punk days, including Ted Nugent, Black Oak Arkansas, MC5, ZZ Top, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, and others. Music journalist Andrew Earles believes the band was influenced by the tiny but growing doom metal scene led by Saint Vitus (who released via SST). Ginn jealously guarded the new material, fearing other bands would capitalize on the new approach, and bemoaned that fans were unaware of how the band had progressed since they were unable to release recordings.
The band toured extensively in North America and Europe to often hostile, violent hardcore punk crowds. The disciplined group rehearsed obsessively, but there was little friendship between members: vocalist Henry Rollins was introverted and Ginn cold and demanding. 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". Dukowski, who also wrote poetry and fiction, encouraged Rollins to write as well, and Rollins found inspiration in Dukowski's bleak lyrical style.
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. The rest of the lineup consisted of Ginn and former vocalist Dez Cadena on guitars, Rollins on vocals, and Dukowski on bass. 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 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 in December 1982, replaced by Bill Stevenson, and in 1983 Cadena left to form DC3. 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 Ginn himself would leave. Dukowski left the band, but stayed on to co-run SST.
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My War
My War is the second studio album by American band Black Flag. It was the first of three full-length albums the band released in 1984. The album polarized fans due to the LP's B-side, on which the band slowed down to a heavy, Black Sabbath-esque trudge after establishing expectations as a faster hardcore punk band on its first album, Damaged (1981).
After a period of legal troubles which prohibited the band from using its own name on recordings, Black Flag returned to the studio with a new approach to its music that incorporated a greater variety of styles, resulting in a sound orthodox punks found difficult to accept. The line-up had shrunk from five members to three: vocalist Henry Rollins, drummer Bill Stevenson, and co-founding guitarist Greg Ginn. Ginn doubled on bass guitar under the name "Dale Nixon" for the recording as bassist Chuck Dukowski left the band shortly before recording; the album includes two tracks Dukowski wrote.
The A-side of the LP is composed of six generally high-paced, thrashy hardcore tracks, featuring guitar solos unusual in punk music. On the B-side are three heavy tracks that each breach six-minutes with ponderously slow tempos and dark, unrelenting lyrics of self-hatred. The band members had grown their hair long when they toured the album in 1984, which along with the change in sound further alienated their hardcore skinhead fanbase. Despite mixed reception at the time of the album's release, My War has come to gain a reputation as one of Black Flag's seminal releases and had a major influence on the development of post-hardcore, sludge metal, grunge, and math rock.
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. Soon SST was releasing recordings by other bands as well, beginning with Minutemen's Paranoid Time in 1980.
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"—though SST co-owner 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 20000 copies of Damaged and adorned it with a label displaying 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 co-founding bassist Chuck Dukowski and an injunction prohibiting the band from releasing material under its own name. 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's bankruptcy in 1983 freed the band from the injunction.
Ginn had grown frustrated with the hardcore punk scene, and told the Los Angeles Times in early 1983: "[W]e've never been out to create this punk scene" they had been credited with spearheading; "We want people to listen to us as a band rather than as a stereotype ... A lot of what you call the punk scene is really backward, and it always has been." Following the release of Damaged, Black Flag absorbed a wider range of influences from the more experimental hardcore of Flipper, Void, and Fang. They listened to little contemporary punk. Ginn was drawn to Ronnie James Dio's work in Black Sabbath and Dio, as well as earlier favorites from his pre-punk days, including Ted Nugent, Black Oak Arkansas, MC5, ZZ Top, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, and others. Music journalist Andrew Earles believes the band was influenced by the tiny but growing doom metal scene led by Saint Vitus (who released via SST). Ginn jealously guarded the new material, fearing other bands would capitalize on the new approach, and bemoaned that fans were unaware of how the band had progressed since they were unable to release recordings.
The band toured extensively in North America and Europe to often hostile, violent hardcore punk crowds. The disciplined group rehearsed obsessively, but there was little friendship between members: vocalist Henry Rollins was introverted and Ginn cold and demanding. 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". Dukowski, who also wrote poetry and fiction, encouraged Rollins to write as well, and Rollins found inspiration in Dukowski's bleak lyrical style.
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. The rest of the lineup consisted of Ginn and former vocalist Dez Cadena on guitars, Rollins on vocals, and Dukowski on bass. 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 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 in December 1982, replaced by Bill Stevenson, and in 1983 Cadena left to form DC3. 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 Ginn himself would leave. Dukowski left the band, but stayed on to co-run SST.