So does anyone remembers the SST posts that started this blog (All killed by those 4shared bastards) well if not Then recap.... I've no love for Greg Ginn as a person his alleged mismanagement of the SST bands, Back Catalog and recordings themselves etc effectively killed what started as a very bright, new and innovative hardcore/guitar/punk label! By the end of the 80's you were lucky to get 1 gem in 5 from SST when there was a time when EVERYTHING SST released was essential, then there's the abortive rebirth of Black Flag in 2013 and the awful album and it's cover! Anyhow I could go on forever but I won't it has to be said tho having been the only consistent and original member of Black Flag that and some of his other work like his 3 solo albums and the first 2 Gone albums to name but a few well for the most part... I utterly love the sounds this guy gets out of a GUITAR! He has done his fair share of utter crap as well I mean there's little beyond the late 80's and the early 90's in his catalog up to the standards of the stuff i mention even the Gone albums he did were bad! So it's 2013 and Greg Ginn is back with a collaboration with Mike Vallelly called Good For You, Now it's been no secret that Vallely has wanted to work with Ginn after replacing Rollins for Black Flag's 2003 Reunion shows as a benefit for cat rescue operations! Back in 2002 Vallely also put together the short lived Mike V & The Rats they did release 2 EP's both scorching retro early 80's hardcore style with MORE than a nod to Black Flag to say the least as Mike V lays down his best Rollins-isms studiously learned over this ragged hardcore! Well worth checking out if you like that kinda thing? (See My Post On Mike V & The Rats HERE ) So I digress......
So Mike Vallely & Greg Ginn here as Good For You in 2013 with album "Life's Too Short Not To Hold A Grudge" LP so is it any good or is it another one of Greg Ginn's prolific turds? well the answers to those questions are YES! and NO! respectively! I first heard this album on Spotify being unable to hear it any other way as it's so far only seen vinyl release and i didn't think much of it it seemed to be a bit droney and skronky and no real groove to it however I misjudged this completely i think i wanted to hate it cos of the people involved and also because i had to listen on Spotify and I hate streaming! So I dismissed it as crap and forgot about it.... However i decided whilst locating the latest Black Flag album recently i decided to have another go at the damn Good For You album while I'm here and as i managed to get a download of it I decided to give it another chance! FUCK I am so glad I did! This is Ginn's finest album since the early 90's! Firstly Mike Vallely is in great voice here and uses it very well to pretty much distill every Black Flag singer's style and use each's style where appropriate as the music shifts tempo and style. (aggressive Ron Reyes/Keith Morris early Black Flag style for the loud parts, Rollins style for the rocking parts you get what I mean) And Ginn's riffing FUCK well firstly while it has got that classic Ginn Dissonance all over it, it's also got the same unashamedly "Rock" feel to the riffs as the "In My Head" / "Loose Nut" Era of Black Flag albeit "Rock" filtered through the brain of Ginn! I personally think if you like the Instrumental and more "chance taking" stuff Black Flag did towards the end and during the Rollins - era then there's a pretty good chance you will like this! Yeah it's really that good even when it shifts uptempo to an almost early hardcore pace whilst it's not as good as the more rocking stuff and sounds just a little trite is still way good enough to not have you reaching for "Skip Track" Whilst it doesn't display the same danger, grime and insanity as Black Flag it still has that familiarity to it and there's quite a few uptempo moments on there that hark back to Ginn's earliest punk guitar thrashing allbeit with a more confident and controlled feel of someone with near 35 years playing under his belt! And another thing how the fuck does he keep coming up with this stuff seeing as how he is 60 in June! And one final note with riffs as good as the ones all over this album WHAT the actual fuck happened with the new Black Flag album?
SO I have waffled long enough I think I need to wrap this up here, All I can say is there's a download here check it out it'll cost you nowt but a bit of your time, If your one of the people who came here for the classic SST stuff then here's 1 new SST release you won't want to miss! 1 Solid fucking album DAMN YOU GINN!!!!!!
UPDATE
So what you get are the "Lifes Too Short..." Album and "Too!" plus the b-side to their "Fucked Up" Single all re sequenced and mastered for CD over the first 2 discs (Meaning the 34 tracks don't run in the same order as the albums they have been put together in a different running order specifically for this set but as it would appear all the music was recorded in the same place at the same time so there's no jarring differences in sound quality) but it doesn't end there as there is a further 3rd disc containing 6 bonus tracks exclusive to this set making this 40 tracks and some 2 & 1/2 hours of sheer Greg Ginn guitar insanity! If you have read the blurb above I have nothing more to add to my musical descriptions all i can say is that this collection is a close as you are ever gonna get to Black Flag (Rollins - Era) without a time machine! And i for one am more than happy to have 40 tracks of it.
So Here's your updated link i have ripped it at 320kbps as usual and as far as I am aware this is NOT available anywhere else on the internet to download otherwise i wouldn't have had to buy it!!!! Go get yourself some serious CLASSIC SST style goodness I swear if this had been released anytime around 1983 - 1985 it would be held in as high esteem as any other SST release of the time just cos it was recorded some 30 years later doesn't make it any less classic in my mind if only the rest of that era of SST bands could come up with something this good now!ENJOY....
SST390 - FULL SERVING - Mediafire
No problem Bong Wizard (Love the name) by the way you should check out my posts on BongCauldron, The Bendal interlude & the North/Northwest Heavy Report judging by your scree name you will love them! Thanks for commenting,
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Dave B.
Thanks. I wouldn't have even heard about GFY if I hadn't stumbled on your earlier post. I downloaded life's too short and loved so much I ordered full serving. It made me go back to What The with new ears and I have to say I like that album now. There are a few songs that are lame but out of 22 songs I like most of them. I would have liked it sooner I think if it weren't for the cover but I now think I could deal with the cover if the record weren't called "what the..." I mean come on greg! The cover is probably one of the lamest I've ever seen and even if black flag didn't have such amazing artwork throughout their entire career (before this the only cover that I didn't absolutely love was the "I Can See You" single which looked like a lame bootlegger or Ted Nugent fan designed it) I would still have been confused by the odd South Park Sour Candy image. But ultimately the only thing I really don't like about the album is the title which is simply dumb and meaningless. If the record had been named after one of the songs, even one of the weaker filler tracks like "outside" or the cool sounding but silly named "Shut Up" I'd have less of an issue with the cover. They should have just put the 4 bars on a colored square as the cover and named it "down in the dirt" since all their studio records were named after the the "single" or the thematic centerpiece song. I think the only LP's or EP' s not named after the first track are Damaged, In My Head, Process, the compilations and the live records. Damaged, Annihilate, I Can See You, Water Again, Louis Louie, and the live records lack Pettibone drawings and I'm not sure if the "keep it in the family" drawing was done by Raymond or not. I think Ron Reyes has designed records or shirts for bands before but I don't think anybody will ever know the reason for the strange cartoon and amateur title on that record but the other non Pettibone covers and the other recent SST releases like GFY are cool enough looking. I've always been fond of the "wasted again" cover which looks similar to the Meat Puppets Mirage record. I wish black flag's new record had a cover like those or the GFY records because no image is better than a bad image, but I really think I wouldn't mind the chappy cartoon if the words at the bottom of it were one of the multiple songs from the record that actually fit the picture: "I'm sick, "give me all your dough," "it's so absurd," or "no teeth."
ReplyDeleteHey Kieth, well certainly an in depth comment there. My main reason for not liking the latest Black Flag album is not the cover which is atrocious not the title which again is atrocious but simply because of the speed with which Ginn put it together. To my mind it was simply a knee jerk reaction to FLAG doing their thing so with no regard to the legacy,influence or importance of Black Flag he threw together an album with Reyes simply to stamp his authority on the fact that in his mind HE IS BLACK FLAG it's not the worst thing he's done and there is some not bad songs on it it's simply his complete lack of respect for the name that will forever leave me hating the album as far as the artwwork well maybe itr was just a giant fuck you to the world cos it is probably one of the worst album covers i have ever seen. Yeah I do love pettibons art can't find anything on net to confirm/deny it was him who did Keep It In The Family but it certainly looks like his work! Thanks for sharing your opinions on this really enjoyed reading what you had to say,
DeleteCheers,
Dave B.
I really agree that GFY sounds like the progression from In My Head. What The sounds similar but it's less interesting rhythmically than the GFY stuff. I think that it took me so long to like What The because of the cover and title. I just stared at the cover with my mouth agape as I heard what seemed like the same song over and over. But after I heard GFY which has a similar but different "samey" sound on some tracks, I went back to What The and some of the sings spoke to me. I've been a huge black flag fan for 20 years and I love the entire discography as well as the individual members' other projects. I equally love the descendents, all, SWA, rollins band, DC3, Vida, Wurm, Gone, the Chuck Dukowski Sextet, Black Face and I even like Tom Troccoli's Dog. Something about the SST and South Bay bands like the aforementioned and the minutemen, saccharine trust, the last, overkill and saint vitus plus non SB bands like the meat puppets have always been inspirational to me. There's really only one serious band that SST put out that I don't like and that's the tragically lame Husker Du. I always felt that Greg Ginn had some major issues due to the fact he kicked out the amazing bill Stevenson, he booted kira presser who I adore and I never understood how he could get rid of dukowski who is my favorite musician of all time. I guess after dez left Greg wanted something from Chuck he couldn't get but why not replace Dez on rhythm guitar? Then hearing how he burned all the band's on sst while the alternative nation was boosting record sales enough to open a "super store" I just felt that Greg ginn was the bad guy. On top of that he was putting crappy records while his former band mates and label mates continued to produce amazing art. I never expected any sort of reunion but I would love for the black flag catalog to be remastered. If you listen to the ALL "greatest hits" record from 1999 or the recent remastered versions of the first two Bl'ast albums it just makes me wonder how killer Damaged or Slip It In, etc would sound remastered? What would need to happen for those black flag records to be remastered and reissued or maybe Flag could do a live album? The 1982 demos remastered would make my life complete. So ginn made a couple of decent records last year but he still won't due any of these reissues and he sued his former band mates and wound up having to finally pay them royalties.... do we have to wait from him to die before those records see proper treatment?
ReplyDeleteSaints Of Low - Low Road EP and Revolution Mother - Enjoy The Ride EP are the only ones I couldn't find on the internet, can you make a post of these, please ?
ReplyDeleteThanks so much!!!
ReplyDeletethanks so much, man
ReplyDeleteI saw Black Flag for the first and last time last night in Toronto, Canada. Greg Ginn calling me an ebayer was the height of insult that I will never get over and has tainted him as a musician forever.
ReplyDeleteGreat readiing this
ReplyDeleteAppreciate you blogging thhis
ReplyDelete