"Original members Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski, Bill Stevenson, and Dez Cadena with Stephen Egerton performing the music of Black Flag.

On January 27, 1979, at a Moose Lodge in Redondo Beach, California, Black Flag took the stage for the first time. Whipping up as much meat energy as possible, they didn't so much play songs as create rapid-fire, rhythmic drives.

Everything was short. Stripped-down. A wall of distortion, built on a relentless series of riffs. And vocalist Keith Morris ran around the stage like an escaped lunatic, eventually wrapping himself in one of the venue's American flags like it was a straitjacket. It was hardcore punk-rock before anyone ever started calling it that. It was great. You could ask anyone who was there.

Although Black Flag's line-up - Morris, bassist Chuck Dukowski, guitarist Greg Ginn, and drummer Robo - would splinter within a year, the band's ever-shifting membership released a half-dozen LPs (including the now-classic Damaged, My War, and Slip It In), two live albums, two compilations (Everything Went Black and The First Four Years), and several EPs that incorporated heavy metal, free jazz, and break-beats into the mix before they finally imploded in 1986."

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