Emily: When we were picking the current group of albums, I was reading a biography of Dave Grohl that Zack bought me a while back. We had just seen Foo Fighters at Firefly, so it was a fitting read to get through post-festival back-to-work sadness. What I didn't expect from the book was a fairly comprehensive history of all of the music that influenced Dave Grohl in his youth, especially before he joined Nirvana. Grohl grew up in suburban Washington, DC, and during his teenage years an underground hardcore punk scene was developing in his midst. Influenced by the bands he saw in rec centers and church basements and listened to on vinyl that he ordered from the backs of DIY 'zines, Grohl played drums and guitar, joined a bunch of different hardcore and punk bands, and ultimately made his way to Seattle to join Nirvana. One of the bands chronicled that had a formative influence on Grohl was Black Flag, and that's precisely why I chose to listen to it now. Black Flag was one of the most influential bands to emerge from the underground hardcore scene. Black Flag started out in California, but became part of the DC scene when Henry Rollins (a fairly scary man with a really large neck) became their lead vocalist before recording Damaged. Hardcore took the anarchist elements of punk, both musically and politically, and turned them up even more. The result frequently approaches fits of screaming rage with a little bit of guitar thrown in. Fortunately, Damaged only approaches that unpleasant threshold a few times. At its best, Rollins' scream-sung vocals meld perfectly with the band's power-punk drums and guitars, creating music that just begs to be performed in a small club or basement with hundreds of young people like Dave Grohl jumping, slam dancing, and yelling along like their lives depended on it.
Favorite Tracks: Rise Above; TV Party; Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie
Zack: I’d heard about Damaged from Cracked,
my go-to depository for time-wasting lists (suck it Buzzfeed!) so I already
knew to expect violent anti-parentism from this record. I’m not entirely sure
what that means, but I assumed that at least one track would have a bridge that
was just a man putting a condom on or some other audial representation of
contraception and/or abstinence (Kenny G?). Tragically, I don’t think I got that.
Damaged is one of the formative albums from the hardcore punk subgenre, which
apparently is where annoying straight-edge people come from. When I was
listening to it, I couldn’t help but think of a line from the show Orphan
Black, which I started watching recently. In the scene, the main character is
talking to her foster mother about how the latter exposed her to punk music.
The foster mother laments that she took up the music, but left behind “all of
the politics.” What made that line interesting to me was that both sides are
vital. Damaged definitely has both sides. Musically, Damaged was heavier than
your average punk, but in line with albums we’ve heard from around that same
time (Dead Kennedys has been my favorite example). Politically, well, the album
starts with a track called Rise Above that isn’t about zeppelins. Overall, I
didn’t love either the music or politics of Black Flag as much as I hoped I
would. In general, I seem to favor either the original punks of the '70s or the
punk revivalists of the '90s (minus Green Day for obvious reasons). Hardcore
especially seems to turn me off. Maybe it’s because I’m just not real enough
for it. Maybe it’s because it shares too many cursory similarities to Napalm
Death which still prompts flashbacks and episodes. I don’t know. All I can say
is that Damaged was clearly a good album, just not one that I feel inclined to
listen to over and over again.
Favorite Tracks: TV Party; Rise Above; Padded Cell
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