MY DISCLAIMER

The story that follows is how I might have responded to any question regarding the meaning behind the Black Flag "Bars" tattooed on my ankle, had anybody cared to ask and stay around long enough to listen to my grandstanding on everything Punk Rock. heaven knows, I can tell a story, but at my advanced age I might feel the need to exaggerate an instance or make some radical assumptions to connect widely separated thoughts at varied points of the story. As I see it, in the proper telling of any good story there will be the need to suspend disbelief, so suspend it.

All ideas and text, except the larger interviews and photograph captions, are my interpretations of a myth about a band called Black Flag and a thing called Punk Rock, which both conspired to completely change my world. yes, over the past three decades, Black Flag changed a lot of people's worlds, but from this point forward I mostly speak from my own personal history.

No two people viewed, or continue to view, this groundbreaking band's contributions to the Punk Rock subculture in the same light. Each person's Black Flag experience can be best summed up various elements, including a favorite song, album, lineup, era, concert, and interview. Not every person's experience was a positive one, and negative commentaries thread into the lore, especially the post–My War period, when Black Flag lashed out at fans instead of lashing out at messy aspects of the outside world. That noted, I chose to pull and use mostly positive commentary and experiences from the hundreds of interviews that my crew and I conducted over the past half of a decade. To add variety to this volume, I decided to include extensive interviews with Black Flag veterans and others inside the SST camp. Meeting and interviewing Ron Reyes about his experience in Black Flag was one of the most profound experiences of my adult life, and the resulting interview could have certainly become a book itself. Interviews with greg ginn and henry Rollins are absent. Both were both invited, and declined an interview. Though missing contributions from two of Black Flag's most prominent and keystone players, Barred for Life (which started out as a joke among a few of my friends and me, mind you) does contain an in-depth, close-to-the-ground, and well-rounded approach to the topic.

So, yes, this is my blanket warning: the following text is a biased account of events pertaining to me over the past twenty-five years. With luck, you will relate to my opinions, but your interpretations of the myths, differing ever-so-slightly, are at least as good as mine and equally interesting. I do not aim for the whole truth; I simply offer my own story juxtaposed to the insight and anecdotes of Black Flag's members and close friends. Furthermore, the photographs and quotations embody fans' personal sacrifices to become part of the permanent record. If you have a problem with the expressed views, or you feel that your story was maliciously excluded, then do the Punk Rock thing: write your own book, blog, zine, or make your own documentary film. After participating in Punk Rock's more active aspects, I learned one very important lesson: Punks are quick to criticize and slow to produce, so produce or keep your trap closed and read on.

SCENE NUMBER ONE REMEMBRANCES ON A CULTURE OF YOUTH REBELLION

THE HUMBLE PERSPECTIVE OF ONE JADED OLD MAN

This is not a treatise on Black Flag, so if you desire a treatise, rush out and buy Get in the Van or Spray Paint the Walls, or aNY Other books sketching the heart of the Black Flag experience. Do whatever you need to do, please, but don't read Barred for Life and expect high drama and juicy details about a single band amid thousands shaping the culture of youth rebellion appropriately named Punk Rock. While Black Flag was important, I refuse to write off other amazing bands that helped build the scene.

While I will not claim to be an authority on Black Flag matters, I do understand Punk Rock because it impacted my life for years. In my opinion, if Black Flag quit right after releasing the Damaged LP in 1981, I would be satisfied with their long list of previous achievements. Instead, Black Flag proceeded to release a lot of records, a few of which I bought and still enjoy. That is the extent of my Black Flag fandom: I am not an admirer of their entire career.

Middle-aged by now, I grew up in the throes of the early 1980s American hardcore culture, when Black Flag's status as innovators and leaders was not doubted. Not only did they play a generation-defining aggressive style of music, but by all accounts they lived aggressive lives too. By doing so, they generated a template even modern Punk Rockers accept and emulate. In simple matters, such as honestly making an effort to stand up against authority systems and figures, which is now easy to discuss over coffee and cigarettes, Black Flag actually pursued a politics of action. Thus they earned a solid reputation as being the real deal — truly hardcore.

They didn't just offer tough talk; they walked hard too, and they caused an epic amount of drama along the way. As an authentic real-deal, they unapologetically sought the complete and total attention of the LAPD — no small feat for a musical group to accomplish — by squaring up against them at nearly every show, big or small, they played in the Los Angeles area from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. While most bands steered clear of police intervention, Black Flag seemed to encourage the wrath of the LAPD, which created a dark, permanent cloud around them. Like the bad press issued to the Sex Pistols on their first-and-only American tour back in 1978, Black Flag easily won the hatred of parents and the praise of pissed-off kids across the country by simply taking on the cops, the most identifiable example of questionable authority. Few bands dealt with police the same way then, or since.

Stewart Dean Ebersole
Age: 40
HOME: Philadelphia, PA
Occupation: Designer-Builder

Favorite Singer: Chavo (Ron Reyes)
Favorite Song: Rise Above


Mike "B" Brennann
Age: 30
HOME: Philadelphia, PA
Occupation: Bartender and Rocker

Favorite Singer: Early henry...