HENRY ROLLINS FLIPS INTERVIEW

Well this is awkward.

I wish someone would track this kid down so we could see what he thinks about this whole thing 30 years later.

NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

Another day, another story about how Greg Ginn just gets worse and worse.

The Black Flag saga has been going for about a year now, and I've been keeping up with it pretty much since the beginning. Go here and then here if you aren't aware of what's going on, but by now you probably know.

Quick rundown - two different versions of Black Flag have been touring this year. One, simply called Flag has Keith Morris, Dez Cadena, Chuck Dukowski, Stephen Egerton and Bill Stevenson. The other, called Black Flag, has Greg Ginn and some other people. For a while, Ron Reyes was the singer of this new version. He was the vocalist of Black Flack for a hot minute between Keith Morris and Henry Rollins, but that was it.

Flag has been playing shows and getting good reviews because they're trying to play solid music. Black Flag is just trying to make money and show up Flag. They're not doing a very good job. In this open letter (which, by the way, I hate open letters but this is necessary) to Greg Ginn and the Ring-Ins, it seems pretty clear that Ginn's version isn't very good.

Ron Reyes agreed. Then Ron Reyes was fired in the middle of a set and replaced by Mike Vallely.

Reyes ranted about the situation through his Facebook, but then promptly deleted it. But, since this is the Internet, lots of people were smart enough to grab it while it was up. Nothing ever goes away once it's been on the Internet. You should know that by now.

Here's a little snippet:

“So many things went wrong from the start. I was into things like having a good drummer, rehearsing and spending time on things like beginnings and endings of songs, being a little less distracted with tour life and a little more on the ball. You know things that would make our efforts worthy of the name Black Flag… Yes it is my opinion that we fell very short indeed and the diminishing ticket sales and crowds are a testament to that.”

Like I said, it was deleted pretty quickly, but you can read the whole thing over at Consequence of Sound.

We may never know who will win this epic battle, but...

Actually. We probably do. And it's not Greg Ginn.

JEALOUS AGAIN

Back in January, I wrote a little thing about the two different versions of Black Flag that were gearing up to go to battle. Then in May, I updated the story after Greg Ginn's Black Flag posted a new song and the Keith Morris version, just called Flag, posted a video of one of their shows.

Well, after a long hot summer, there's another update to fill you in on.

In August, Greg Ginn - who was already losing the battle because Keith Morris' group had all the cool people in in - decided to file a lawsuit. He was basically trying to bar Morris from using the Black Flag logo, make it hard for his group to tour and play the Black Flag songs and named Henry Rollins in the suit claiming that he and Morris went behind his back to try and copyright the logo or something. Things were said, papers were served and everyone's been fighting behind the scenes ever since.

Yesterday, it ended. For a while, at least.

A U.S. District Court judge in California determined that Ginn's lawsuit was bullshit, that people could tell the difference between the two bands and that Ginn couldn't prove that he alone owned the Black Flag name and/or logo. Bootleg merch had been on the market since 2008 and in 2009 a Japanese company registered the band name. Morris and his lawyers argued that since neither of those things prompted any legal action from Ginn or his label, SST, both had fallen into "generic use."

The judge also stated that no one could clearly determine who the last remaining member of Black Flag actually was and that since they'd filed taxes under the title "Black Flag Partnership," Morris and Rollins had every right to try and trademark the name and logo under that banner.

That last part stemmed from this little gem: "the defendants’ claim that the Black Flag assets were owned by a statutory partnership comprised of various former band members – even if these members only consisted of Henry and Ginn, based on (a) accepting Ginn’s argument that he never quit and given that there is no evidence or allegation that Henry ever quit – has merit;"

The judge basically ruled that Rollins never quit the band, so he was still technically allowed to do whatever he wanted with the name and logo - even if he's not actually in either of the new incarnations.

Here's the rest of the judge's ruling that I got from SPIN.com, who obtained it through Keith Morris' camp.

(1) the court found that SST had no rights in the trademarks;
(2) Ginn seemed to have no individual rights in the Black Flag trademarks;
(3) even if either had had any rights in those marks, they had abandoned those rights through a failure to police the mark for nearly 30 years;
(4) the defendants’ claim that the Black Flag assets were owned by a statutory partnership comprised of various former band members – even if these members only consisted of Henry and Ginn, based on (a) accepting Ginn’s argument that he never quit and given that there is no evidence or allegation that Henry ever quit – has merit;
(5) that even if the plaintiffs had some trademark claim in the marks, there was no likelihood of consumer confusion between Black Flag and Flag given the ample press coverage over the dispute; and
(6) the trademark application and registration that Henry and Keith made was done in good faith (e.g. not fraudulently) – and is thus not necessarily subject to cancellation – given that they understood their actions to have been done on the part of the Black Flag partnership (see No. 4, above).

The battle rages on.

THE ART OF PUNK - BLACK FLAG

Black Flag is one of my favorite bands of all time. I've seen Rollins do spoken word a bunch and I've been keeping a pretty close watch on that dueling Black Flag thing that's going on (which, side note, Keith Morris' version, now simply called FLAG seems to be having the most fun with it, so I declare them the winners).

The unsung hero of Black Flag has always been Raymond Pettibon, the artist responsible for the majority of the bands artwork - including the iconic four bar logo.

MocaTV has released the first in a series of videos called THE ART OF PUNK and this one focuses on Pettibon and the art her created for Black Flag. It's a great video, but what's most interesting to me is the people they interview for it.

Keith Morris is there, Dez Cadena is there, Henry Rollins is there, Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist and unofficial punk historian) is there and Pettibon himself is there.

Greg Ginn, Pettibon's brother and founding member of Black Flag, is nowhere to be found.

Anyway. Watch the video because it's amazing. I want to be in a band again just so I can have someone design all of our stuff.

*UPDATE* - MocaTV just posted the Dead Kennedy's video, too. Now your day is complete.

TWO IS NOT BETTER THAN ONE - *UPDATED*

*UPDATES*
 
Dez Cadena is now a member of the Keith Morris version, now simply called FLAG. You can see a video of that version over here.

Greg Ginn, whose version is claiming the name Black Flag said his version was "not to be confused with the 'fake' Flag band currently covering the songs of Black Flag in an embarrassingly weak 'mailing it in' fashion." also released a new song that you can listen to here.

The AV Club probably has my favorite line yet about these two: "And meanwhile, Henry Rollins remains at home waiting for the red phone of justice to ring and looking at his tattoos."

The battle lines have been drawn. Whose side are you on?

Original post continues below:

There was a conflicting news report on the Internet this morning.

Not conflicting in the way you're thinking of. It was more personally conflicting and I still don't know how I feel about it.

Greg Ginn is reforming Black Flag with the intent of writing new music and putting out a new record. He recruited Gregory Moore, who played drums on the brief Black Flag reunion in 2003, Dale Nixon, which is actually Ginn's pseudonym for when he writes and plays bass, meaning they don't actually have a bass player and Ron Reyes to provide vocals. Reyes was the second vocalist for Black Flag, but didn't last long. He quit the band mid-set in 1980 because of escalating crowd violence. The band finished their set by playing an extra long version of "Louie, Louie" and asking crowd members to take turns singing. Reyes did provide vocals on the band's EP "Jealous Again" but was credited as Chevo Pedarast—a Spanish term for "pedophile". So they split on great terms.

Reyes replaced original vocalist Keith Morris, who quit the band because he wasn't getting along with Ginn but was getting along very well with cocaine and speed.

Speaking of Keith Morris, he's also reforming Black Flag.

His version has a bunch of shows scheduled and includes Chuck Dukowski, who played bass as Black Flag was gaining a huge reputation in the early years. He's credited with being the so-called "leader" of the band, mainly because Ginn was quiet and usually avoided the spotlight. Dukowski gave the interviews, helped establish the band's sound—along with Ginn's unique guitar style, of course—and kept them working and even acted as the band's manager after he was no longer in it. They've also got Bill Stevenson on drums and Stephen Egerton playing guitar. Stevenson had filled in for Black Flag numerous times before finally joining full-time in the early 80s—pulling double duty with Descendents. Egerton (from Salt Lake City and a member of Utah's very own Massacre Guys) never played in Black Flag, but played in both Descendents and All.

Henry Rollins and Dez Cadena have yet to announce their respective versions of Black Flag, but at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.

Actually no, I would be surprised if Rollins formed a different version. He and Ginn don't get along and I don't think they've actually spoken in a long, long time. I've heard him talk about it and read things he's written and he's reached out to Ginn a few times over the years and it's never panned out. I think he's content to just let things lie where they are between them. He gets along great with pretty much everyone in Keith Morris' version, so if anything, I'd expect to see him at a few of their shows. Maybe not on vocals, but definitely hanging on the side of the stage, just watching. I feel like he'd be content with that.

I still don't know how I feel about reunion shows. I've seen a reunited Earth Crisis, which was terrible but I've also seen a reunited Descendents, which was awesome. This could really go either way. If both of these bands came through Salt Lake (which they absolutely will not, by the way) and I had to choose between them, Keith Morris' version would definitely win.

In fact, that's what they should do. Both versions of Black Flag should tour and play the same city each night. Only here's the catch: they each play a different venue. You, as the audience, have to choose which version you want to watch. Whichever band gets the least amount of people can't be Black Flag anymore. There. I settled it.

The thing that bums me out the most about this is that dueling versions of bands that existed in the 80s is something that I thought only happened with shitty glam rock bands like Poison and Ratt.

I don't want to see one of my favorite punk bands follow that path. If that's the case, shitty VH1 reality shows can't be far behind. In fact, I think I just pitched one. I'm claiming ownership of it right now.

* header image taken from Overnight Drive.