Black flag biography book

Black Flag were the pioneers of American Hardcore, and this is their blood-spattered story.

Formed in Hermosa Beach, California, in 1978, for eight brutal years they made and played brilliant, ugly, no-holds-barred music on a self-appointed touring circuit of America’s clubs, squats, and community halls.

That one at least sniffs at greatness, while Barred for Life gives only a hazy look of what it could have been. But . His trip is best left to an introduction or prologue.

Neither Barred for Life nor Spray Paint the Walls then reaches its potential, though if one book comes out on top, it’s the latter.

They’re superb.

Adam Ellsworth is a writer, journalist, and amateur professional rock and roll historian. Ebersole is not a writer, and as such it’s hardly fair to grade him on the same curve as Stevie Chick. An extensive tour of North America and Western Europe documents dedicated fans bearing Bars-on-skin and other Black Flag iconography.

PM Press, 432 pages, $19.95.

Barred for Life: How Black Flag’s Iconic Logo Became Punk Rock’s Secret Handshake by Stewart Dean Ebersole. But hey, all publicity is good publicity, right?

The Black Flag family tree has many, many branches, which is why it’s even possible for two versions of the band to tour at the same time.

These photos and excerpted interviews form the heart of Barred for Life, and if the book had no other parts, then it would be a triumph. The story, laid out from the band’s earliest practices in 1976 to its end ten years later, makes a far more dramatic book than the usual shelf-fillers with their stretch to make the empty stories of various chart-toppers sound exciting and crucial and against the odds.”
—Joe Carducci, formerly of SST Records

“Here is an exhaustive prequel to, followed by a more balanced re-telling of, Rollins’ Get in the Van journal, chronicling Flag’s emergence in suburban Hermosa Beach, far from the trendy Hollywood scene (Germs, X, etc.) and how their ultra-harsh, hi-speed riffage sparked moshpit violence—initially fun, but soon aggravated by jocks and riot police.

This is informative in the sense that it mirrors the reasons that a lot of people got into hardcore and punk rock, but it takes forever! But Black Flag transcends this rule because even the shoddiest stick ‘n’ poke versions of the punk band’s logo, four rectangular bars, somehow always look great. It’s just not quite what it could have been.

Spray Paint the Walls: The Story of Black Flag by Stevie Chick.

If you do come across it though, check out the pictures. It seems obvious that a writer should do this, but too many don’t, and Chick deserves praise for pulling it off so well.

If the book has a flaw though, it’s Chick’s writing style, or lack thereof. He grew up in Western Massachusetts, and currently lives with his wife in a suburb of Boston.

In the entire history of rock and roll, there is arguably no band logo more powerful and certainly no band logo that is both more powerful and more elemental.