New Books In Music

Scholars commonly trace the rise of the punk rock movement of the mid-1970s to two cities and two bands, New York’s Ramones and London’s The Sex Pistols. In Spray Paint the Walls: The Black Flag Story(Omnibus, 2010), however, journalist Stevie Chick convincingly argues that Black Flag, and Los Angeles, the city that that spawned the seminal group, deserve a place alongside these more storied locales and bands. Chick, who interviewed everyone from early fans to former band members for this engaging book, skillfully traces Black Flag’s development from its suburban garage-band beginnings through its popular peak in the early 1980s, when the Los Angeles Police Department regularly sent officers outfitted in riot gear to disrupt Black Flag’s tumultuous performances and to undermine the growing power of the city’s – and the nation’s – punk movement. Still, as Chick shows, a band whose members at times seemed willing to go to war with everyone and everything surroundi