Spray Paint The Walls: The Story of Black Flag

I'm not going to lie. I haven't read Our Band Could Be Your Lives, yet. I've only seen clips of The Decline of Western Civilization Pt. 1. So reading Stevie Chick's take on the world of Black Flag was my first literary experience with the mighty Black Flag. Spray Paint The Walls easily takes the cake for one of the best books on music history. While Please Kill Me: The Oral History of Punk remains a crucial punk rock read to some, I can say Chick's book trumps it.

Chick's take on the history on one of punk/hardcore's most famous and notorious bands reaches even beyond the band itself. While the narrative focuses on the Greg Ginn's brainchild, the history weaves through the history of many bands, creating a parallel narrative of the history of SST Records and its bands.

Most fans of the growing cache of punk documentaries (books and movies) will not only have an easy time reading this book (as many stories in this book have been well documented elsewhere) but will mostly enjoy what the book seems to try and celebrate: Going against the grain. It tells a story of a group of outcasts that want to remain that way. By the time Henry Rollins joins the band, the Flag has become to writing party anthems that their early EPs made them famous for. The band starts out as a means to rebel against the populous, but eventually creates something popular themselves. And what do they do? They pave a new road, pissing of their fans, but that's what they want. While the first half of the book depicts Ginn and company trying to create something different, the second half of the book shows the band almost trying to destroy it, and eventually destroying themselves.

Some people have questioned the image of frontman Henry Rollins on the cover. Some have argued that while Rollins may have been the most tenured of the bands howlers, he was not the best. Fame SST producer Spot has even been quoted as saying Rollins ruined the band. Chick's portrayal of Rollins would seem quite the contrary. Rollins was not of the bands inner circle. Growing up with Ian Mckeye in the D.C. scene, he was an observer, a fan. Who Henry Rollins was and became was the product of being a fan, first. It's almost as if Rollins is punk rock's Tim Owens.

If anything, Rollins' addition to the band only perpetuated the band's agenda of steering away from. He was a willing soldier to fight Greg Ginn's war to the point that he almost seemed to be the target of the fans' hostility, which only fed Rollins the adrenaline he needed to move on.

The other great part about this book is the story of SST Records, the record label that celebrates band who want to be different. The bands on SST celebrate the concept of punk without the uniform appearance or sound. Chick celebrates bands like the Minutemen, Husker Dü and the Meat Puppets all as bands who share Black Flags need to be different. It's these bands that Black Flag would bring on tour as further means to show down their fans who only want to hear 'Six Pack' and 'TV Party'. Chick manages to tell the story of these unsung heros as a testament to Black Flags work ethic and ideology.

This book tells the story of people who paved the road for the next phase of the underground movement in the purest sense. With no one watching their backs, they created a world, a community to watch their own. This book can easily serve as a manual for any budding musician with the DIY spirit. Anyone who's ever been in a band or had to facilitate their own fun will truly enjoy this book.