Saturday, May 21st 2011

News:  Black Flag

Fabled 1986 Black Flag Documentary Finally Surfaces

By Skwerl

Black Flag’s 1986 In My Head US Tour, which would be their last, was documented by filmmaker Dave Markey, who was playing drums in support act Painted Willie at the time. The footage was assembled into an hour-long film, entitled Reality 86′d, in 1991. At that point, Markey brought it to Greg Ginn of SST Records, in the apparently humble hopes of simply getting it released, and nothing more; He knew full well that if SST chose to distribute it, the notoriously stingy Ginn wouldn’t pay him shit.

In an interview with Vice, Markey recalls taking it down to Ginn’s office in Long Beach, where they watched the film together…

“And then we played music for a couple of hours! That was the last time I ever saw him. He said he needed a few days to think about it. Then he called me and said, ‘You cannot release this movie. If you do, I will stop you.’ Just like Tony Fucking Soprano! It has been wrongly reported that he walked out on the film in its only public screening in1991 at the Cinema Café in Hollywood. That’s not true, he wasn’t at that screening.”

And so the documentary lingered, for 20 years.

After being inspired by a great piece Henry Rollins recently penned for LA Weekly, Markey said ‘fuck it,’ and put it online, where everyone can finally now watch it on Vimeo:

UPDATE: This is unbelievable. 20 years later, Ginn is still doing everything he can to block the release of a film he took no part in creating, which doesn’t disparage him, which he doesn’t seem to have any intention of ever releasing himself. Where the video once was, there is now the following message:

Sorry, “”Reality 86′d” A film by David Markey” was deleted at 1:49:29 Mon May 23, 2011. Vimeo has removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Greg Ginn claiming that this material is infringing: “Reality 86′d” A film by David Markey. We have no more information about it on our mainframe or elsewhere.

The director, known for such cult classics as Desperate Teenage Lovedolls and 1991: The Year Punk Broke, is the first to admit that it’s not exactly a masterpiece of cinema:

“I myself have a hard time sitting through it,” Markey told Vice. But like a suitcase full of ancient polaroids, it’s worth going through at least once. “Parts of it are embarrassing. But I have to roll and realize this is fucking history. No one can deny that. You can see how this music would influence Seattle and the so-called ‘Grunge’ scene a few years later. It was the pilot light for that whole scene.”