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Further proof that punks didn’t look like punks when there was punk.
Hardcore 81 Black Flag
Published
Be My Blog 
Greg Thinn
holy cow!
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Although some of us would say punk had been dead for three years by ’81…
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people say a lot of wrong things.
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Yeah, they all looked like dirtball skater kids. The ones with the makeup and shit didn’t come until later. At least that’s what I remember from D.C.
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or American punks didn’t look like English punks. “We don’t need the English” and all that. but yeah.
my favorite are the crowd scenes in “DOA”. people pogoing in puffy down jackets!
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In this shot I was enjoying Chuck wearing dorky New Balance shoes rather than, say, chucks.
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Is this greg ginn or skinny rollins? I was using my google and everything, I promise. I see that Rollins was the singer in 81, but was he EVER this small?
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That’s Ginn. Maybe Henry was passed out, or Ginn got sick of him and decided to take the mic.
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My buddy could say some things about punks. He necked with Courtney Love twice, and even heckled Green Day before they were big. 🙂 Anyway, his idea is that there was punk and there was pretend punk, even back in the days of punk – so for example, he was treated like a freak for liking GG Allin, Crass, Throbbing Gristle and Sockeye, cos they were too punk for the punks.
Basically, there have always been pretenders. Same the whole world over.
(Please, let my post start an argument over whether Throbbing Gristle were punk!)
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Before punk was, I AM
TG and Pere Ubu and Roxy Music and the Cure and Boyd Rice and Frank Tovey and a few others all win the award for being totally insane and boundary-eating before anything you could call punk. I’m not sure what to call that subgenre except “amazing.”
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Re: Before punk was, I AM
Roxy Music? Well, maybe back when Eno was with them.
The Cure wasn’t before punk! I mean, they were after the Sex Pistols, right?
I guess you could call Iggy & the Stooges punk (ps the Ramones are fucking gay): then again, what’s the dividing line between “punk” and “drugged-out loser who’s out for pathetic attention”? I’d definitely put GG Allin in that “loser” category, and not in punk, because I’d assume it’s not punk to actually destroy your whole life and be an idiot.
Boyd Rice, I’ve heard hardly anything by him, but his first 2 interviews on the Bob Larson show are classic.
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Re: Before punk was, I AM
Boyd Rice pretty much invented industrial music with a group called “NON.”
The Cure dates into the 70s. The first version of them that was actually called the Cure was in January ’77.
I’m not quite sure how you’re defining “punk,” and as a movement it was anti-definition in most ways, so.
The line from 70s rock to punk goes through David Bowie into Roxy Music and Iggy, for sure. It’s yet another thing to thank Mr. B for.
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I dunno, I’m old and feeble, so I predate the fame of Courtney Love and the existence of Green Day. I did see Hole once. They were a rock band.
Crass was totally punk. All the punks worshipped them in the 80s. I think most of the people I knew had a Crass symbol on their jackets.
I think the band that wins the award for annoying most punks was Flipper, closely followed by the first version of Faith No More.
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I loved Hole before Courtney Love started banging what’s his name the no-talent heroin junkie. Their first album is extreme emotion. Brilliant. And anyway, Courtney admitted that Katie-Jane Garside from Daisy Chainsaw was the original riot grrl, so I can appreciate her.
Had no interest in Hole after the first album, though. Sorta like the Jesus and Mary Chain, except without the banging the no-talent heroin junkie part.
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I almost shit myself this year when one of my students listed Black Flag as her favorite band. Here in the valley, the punk/goth/emo kids are amalgamated into one group, collectively known as “The Freaks”. The hilarious thing is, that they’re usually the best students in the school- the ones who participate in Science club, for God’s sakes. I guess thar’s kind of Punk Rock, unlike Op Ivy shirts from American Eagle outfitters.
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Must be early 1981. A great shot of Black Flag in their prime (in other words pre-Rollins). That’s Dez Cadena on vocals. Dez joined Black Flag as the singer in 1980. He was their singer until Henry Rollins joined in the summer of ’81.
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Oh duh! I should have realized it was Dez. I forget the string of people who were in Black Flag but it is a long list, if I recall.
I was unaware of the band pre “Six Pack”
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SIIIIIIIIIIIIIX PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Your avatar was jerking his head in exact time to the mid-pace bit from Necrophagia‘s “Black Apparition” just then.
\m/
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