My War
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| My War | ||
 |
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| Studio album by Black Flag | ||
| Released | March 1984 | |
| Recorded | December 1983 | |
| Genre | Hardcore punk |
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| Length | 40:24 | |
| Label | SST | |
| Producer(s) | Greg Ginn, Spot, Bill Stevenson |
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| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
| Black Flag chronology | ||
| The First Four Years (1983) |
My War (1984) |
Family Man (1984) |
My War is the second full length album by American hardcore punk band Black Flag. It was released in 1984 on SST Records.
Black Flag's founder and primary songwriter Greg Ginn played both bass guitar in addition to his usual guitar; "Dale Nixon" (credited for playing bass on the album) is a pseudonym.
My War was released after a long period where the band could not release any albums due to a legal dispute with Unicorn Records.
The first six songs on the a-side of My War are similar to the material on 1981's Damaged, but the three songs on the b-side proved that Black Flag was moving away from the band's early, fast-paced material. The b-side songs are played at about half the pace of the band's earlier material, are each over six minutes long (rather than the 60 to 120 seconds of many early hardcore songs) and have a pronounced influence from heavy metal music, particularly Black Sabbath's droning sludge metal.
Fans generally have sharply-divided opinions of My War. Some who loved the band's early punk rock material were disappointed, while others saw the album as completely groundbreaking (see Grunge music for discussion of how My War influenced '80s rock in the U.S. Pacific Northwest). My War would become one of the albums to greatly influence singer, songwriter and guitarist Kurt Cobain, who often included it in his "favorite albums" lists in his Journals.
[edit] Track listing
All songs written by Ginn except * by Dukowski and ** by Ginn/Rollins.
Side A
- "My War" – 3:46 *
- "Can't Decide" – 5:22
- "Beat My Head Against the Wall" – 2:34
- "I Love You" – 3:27 *
- "Forever Time" – 2:30 **
- "The Swinging Man" – 3:04 **
Side B
- "Nothing Left Inside" – 6:44 **
- "Three Nights" – 6:03 **
- "Scream" – 6:52
[edit] Personnel
- Henry Rollins - vocals
- Greg Ginn - guitar, producer
- Dale Nixon - bass
- Bill Stevenson - drums, producer
- Spot - producer, engineer, mixer
- Raymond Pettibon - artwork
Dale Nixon is a pseudonym used by Greg Ginn. He played guitar and bass on My War. The pseudonym was used again by Dave Grohl on the Buzz Osborne EP King Buzzo and by Brian Baker on Dag Nasty's 1992 reunion album Four on the Floor.
| Black Flag |
|---|
| Greg Ginn |
| Vocals: Keith Morris | Chavo Pederast | Dez Cadena | Henry Rollins |
| Bass: Raymond Pettibon | Spot | Chuck Dukowski | Kira Roessler | C'el Revuelta |
| Drums: David Horvitz | Brian Migdol | ROBO | Emil Johnson | Chuck Biscuits | Bill Stevenson |Anthony Martinez |
| Discography |
| Albums: Damaged | My War | Family Man | Slip It In | Loose Nut | In My Head |
| Extended plays: Nervous Breakdown | Jealous Again | Six Pack | TV Party | The Process of Weeding Out | Minuteflag | I Can See You |
| Live: Live '84 | Who's Got the 10½? | Annihilate This Week |
| Other releases: Everything Went Black | The First Four Years | Wasted...Again | The Complete 1982 Demos Plus More | |
| Related articles |
| Rollins Band | Dos | State of Alert | Gone | SST Records | October Faction | Joe Cole |
