OXBOW FRONTMAN JOINS BLACK FLAG (SORTA)
Black Flag will never reunite in any form that even remotely satisfies its generations of fans. But perhaps the coolest “not-quite-a-reunion” yet has just been announced.
Chuck Dukowski, Black Flag’s original bassist, has just recruited Eugene Robinson from Oxbow/Vice contribution to front a new band called Black Face. They’ve just recorded four songs that were written around My War-era Flag but that nobody in the world apart from Chuck has ever heard before. The tracks are called “Monster,” “I Want To Kill You,” “Where Will We Run,” and “Leave Me Out to Rot.” The band, which features former Oxbow drummer Tom Dobrov and Insects vs. Robots guitarist Milo Gonzalez, are also going to start playing all the songs that Chuck wrote for Black Flag live.
As Black Flag’s sole consistent member from founding through dissolution, Greg Ginn gets a great deal of the credit for its enduring legacy. Yet glancing at the liner notes for Damaged and My War, Dukowski appears overdue for serious reappraisal, an opportunity that will at last be afforded to him in light of the historic origins of Black Face’s material.
Comparisons to former Black Flag frontman Keith Morris’ spirited hardcore revival Off! are to be expected, though by the time My War appeared, that snotty peppy punk of Morris’ day had been supplanted by the Rollins-era sturm und drang. And while Robinson promises a live setlist packed with Dukowski-penned Black Flag cuts, the aforementioned newly recorded songs are what really excites me. Oxbow’s The Narcotic Story featured the band at a creative zenith, with Robinson howling and moaning in a distinct unmatched voice that would likely suit these salvaged My War outtakes well.
Perhaps the most shocking takeaway from this Vice piece is just how fucking close we came to a Black Flag reunion in name. It’s a shame that Ginn and Dukowski were unable to sort through the Beatles-esque bullshit to make that happen, though assuredly Robinson’s presence would have been assailed by purists and inconsolable rock critics clamoring for Morris, Rollins, Ron Reyes or Dez Cadena. (See: whatever they’re passing off as Dead Kennedys.) By calling this Ginn-less project Black Face, it allows for the band to serve as a separate entity with authenticity.
Fuck, I’m stoked for this.
-GS
