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Black Flag apologizes for "falling short in 2013," announces Mike Vallely as new vocalist ++ new album and tour plans

by Doug Moore

Greg Ginn (apologizing?) with Black Flag, 2013 (more by P Squared)
Black Flag

The Black Flag reunion saga grows more painful every time we return to it. First there was the “Black Flag” vs. “FLAG” spat, which culminated in Greg Ginn (of Black Flag, not FLAG, which is built around Keith Morris and Chuck Dukowski) inexplicably suing a number of his ex-bandmates, not all of whom were involved in the FLAG reunion. He totally explicably lost. Then there was What The…, a reunion album that lived up to its name both musically and aesthetically. Then Black Flag manager/pro skater Mike Vallely fired BF vocalist Ron Reyes onstage in mid-gig, drawing an extensive public response from Reyes. So yeah, Black Flag 2013 was a pretty bleak entity.

This year has been no kinder so far. Rolling Stone ran a feature on the band today that begins with the following sentence: “Black Flag are sorry.” Guys, few things are less punk rock than publicly apologizing for foolish behavior. Most of the feature actually focuses on Vallely, who’s become Black Flag’s new vocalist (as Reyes speculated that he would). Vallely told RS that Black Flag “fell short in 2013 because of a difference in the philosophies of Ron and Greg – it just led to dysfunction” but effectively goes on to blame Reyes’s intransigence for said issues. He also mentions that they’re working on new material (including “a lot of songs like ‘TV Party’ and ‘Six Pack’ that are fun, fun songs”) and booking another tour, in the interest of proving that Black Flag 2014 won’t be the deeply humiliating train wreck we all expect.

You can read the whole feature here. Stay tuned for more (probably cringe-inducing) news from the Black Flag camp.

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