I'm about to make a statement that might shock/disturb/freak out anyone who grew up on a healthy diet of punk rock/hardcore. Some might even consider what I am about to say to be sacrilegious, but I urge you to put down your torches and allow me this much, okay?
There are bands within the construct of punk rock/hardcore that are completely untouchable. Bands that, no matter what anyone says, will always - make up part of some punk's Musical Mount Rushmore, a foundation upon the likes of which all other bands will be judged. This is a natural occurrence, really. We're all guilty of doing this, especially when it comes to our own feelings about artistic things - subjectivity be damned, we all have our Sacred Cows.
It took me a while to get into Black Flag.
As much as I love and appreciate Black Flag now, another band altogether helped me to understand them more back in the day. Black Flag really fucked up my perception of music, most notably Greg Ginn's often grinding and off-kilter guitar murdering and rhythmic beatdowns - the shit was just off-time and caused my internal metronome problems. Lyrically - I was down from the get-go. I grokked what they were on to. But it took a little nudge from some other cats from California to turn the lights on in my head...
The Power Of Expression, released by the mighty BL'AST! in 1986(originally released on Wishingwell Records - SST Records reissued it in 1987 ), might possibly be the most complete and definitive California hardcore album, from the opening note/intro to the closing silence.
The first time I ever heard The Power Of Expression, not only was my mind fucking blown clean, but I finally understood Black Flag. Unfairly tagged as nothing more than "Black Flag Jr.*" - this band just fucking lays waste to everything. I had read about them in Thrasher(partly to blame for the label), and I'm pretty sure my friend Brian Engel had told me he had heard them, and that they were right up my alley.
Sure as shit - he wasn't lying. BL'AST! sounded like a violent car crash - all twisting metal and heaving chunks of machinery. BL'AST! connected the dots immediately, as if they were a hybrid form of early Corrosion of Conformity, Black Flag, & Black Sabbath. The guitar sound was murderous - Mike Neider(great interview with him over at Double Cross Webzine) was using a similar set-up to Greg Ginn's, but instead of single line-style riffs, he was pumping out huge-sounding overdriven chords, which totally spoke to me as a fledgling guitar player.
The guys in my band at the time(Grave Mistake) were bugging out on me, because I totally started aping BL'AST! when we would try and jam on new material. We were just kids, so thinking they would be able to follow along in that vicious, herky-jerky manner ended up being really disappointing for me. The Power Of Expression was totally one of those badass albums that flipped a gang of switches in my musical brain. Even now - 20 years later - when I throw the fucker on, it just juices me up.
STIMULI
BL'AST! - 1987-2001(from a documentary that I have yet to track down or see...)
Look Into Myself - Live @ Fender's, CA 1987
*A claim even Henry Rollins made in his book about his years on the road with Black Flag, Get In The Van.
1 comment:
You hit the nail on the head with this one, my brother. Bl'ast was one of those seminal hardcore bands that didn't shy away from exhibitionist tendencies. Clifford Dinsmore was the very notion of punk-rock frontage, and sonically, both live and in the studio,the rhythm section blew doors off of many of their earlier influences.
That hybridism you pegged immediately and justly with allusions to Black Sabbath and COC was a product of the band's ability to incorporate the "diminished fifth" in its repertoire. These guys brought an uncanny darkness to the genre, but did it in such a way that they weren't grasping at stylistic straws.
It was a natural progression that most hardcore-punk historians and (gulp) music journalists glossed over for fear of drawing too-close a connection between the heyday of hardcore and the genesis of California metal.
The University of California Press has just released a book by Steve Wacksman titled, THIS AIN'T THE SUMMER OF LOVE: CONFLICT AND CROSSOVER IN HEAVY METAL AND PUNK. Where Greil Marcus connected the dots between punk and the Dadaist movement in LIPSTICK TRACES, Wacksman makes a compelling argument in his new tome for the symbiotic relationship between punk and metal. Sadly, Bl'ast doesn't make its pages, but it's still a compelling read. Interestingly, Wacksman is also the author of INSTRUMENTS OF DESIRE: THE ELECTRIC GUITAR AND THE SHAPING OF MUSICAL EXPERIENCE.
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