by Victor Ozols
Black Book
March 12th, 2013
Check Out Barred For Life, a Book About People Who Have Tattoos of the Black Flag Logo
An interesting book landed on my desk the other day: Barred for Life: How Black Flag’s Iconic Logo Became Punk Rock’s Secret Handshake by Stewart
Dean Ebersole, with photos by Ebersole and Jared Castaldi. For those of
you who aren’t members of the club, Black Flag was (and sometimes is) a
band that started in southern California in the late 1970s and is
credited with pioneering the hardcore punk genre. There’s not much else I
can say about Black Flag that its fans won’t argue over. Suffice it to
say, they’re an easily-agitated, often-alienated, always-opinionated
bunch, but they’re also united in their love of the band and its DIY
ethos, if not its individual members. You see, throughout its tenure,
Black Flag cycled through numerous singers and musicians, the most
famous being Henry Rollins, who went on to some degree of fame as a
spoken word artist, writer, actor, and crank. Ebersole’s tome gets into
the history, joys, and sorrows of the band’s years, landing on the one
point every fan can agree on: their awesome, four-bar logo that so many
have had permanently inked onto their bodies.
It’s probably the
most recognized logo in all of punk rockdom, four simple black bars that
represent the waving of a black flag, signifying attack rather than
surrender. You could easily call it a marketing success story, though
marketing is the antithesis of what the band stood for. Regardless,
legions of fans, probably numbering in the thousands, have inked their
bodies with it, at once becoming members of a fraternity recognized
around the world. I’m no fan of tattoos myself, being of the belief that
putting an image on your body doesn’t necessarily mean you’re more
hardcore about what it means than those who didn’t (star-bellied
sneetches and so forth). After all, some people live and breathe the
collective works of Shakespeare, but see no need to tattoo the Bard’s
name to their biceps.
And yet, the Black Flag bars feel like the
exception to the rule. It does have meaning. It’s a signifier that
unites the band’s diverse group of fans, spanning ages, races, genders,
and backgrounds. And so it’s with fondness and occasional sympathy that
I flipped through the pages of this book and read the stories of the
dozens of fans who proudly show their body art for the camera. Each
portrait includes the subject’s name, age, home, occupation, favorite
Black Flag singer, favorite Black Flag song, and favorite Black Flag
album, along with a quote about what the band means to them. Many of the
stories involve not fitting in as a youth, and finding strength and
affirmation in the band’s music, which encourages listeners to be
themselves and reject the mainstream if it’s not working for them.
Among
those featured: my friends Seth Fineberg and Marissa Levey (above),
true punks if they ever existed. Seth’s in one of New York’s most
enduring punk rock bands, Blackout Shoppers, and the fact that he has a
day job doesn’t take away his punk cred. Blackout Shoppers are gigging
constantly, and if you want to get a great feel for the high energy and
fuck-it-all attitude of an old school punk rock show, you should see
them.
Among those not pictured: Me. Okay, I don’t have any
tattoos, but I did go to high school in the ’80s, when there really was a
difference between the jocks and the skaters and the punks, and the
term “alternative music” actually meant something. While the girls who
wouldn’t date me were woo-hooing to “Living on a Prayer,” I was blasting
“Rise Above” out of the tinny speakers of my car stereo. The music had
power. It spoke to me where hair metal failed to. It felt real.
And so does Barred for Life.
It’s a book with heart. It also avoids the trap that similar
single-subject photo books fall into. There’s actually a narrative arc,
thanks to a series of interviews with former band members (though not
founder Greg Ginn or Henry Rollins) interspersed throughout, telling the
story of the band and its fans. The book will be released on April 1,
2013 and you can pre-order it here.
And if it inspires you to
experience the punk scene, go check out a Blackout Shoppers gig, or just
hang out at New York’s punk-friendly bars, like Otto’s Shrunken Head,
Double Down Saloon, Trash Bar, Manitoba’s, and the Second Chance Saloon.
See you in the mosh pit. (I won’t be in it, but I’ll see you there from
the bar.)
Back to Stewart Dean Ebersole’s Author Page | Back to Jared Castaldi’s Artist Page
