Format: 2LP

To say that Greg Ginn, founder of Black Flag and SST Records, was interested in instrumental music is an understatement. Toward the end of Black Flag’s run, he started writing instrumental songs and incorporating them into the set. While the record Family Man is famous (or infamous depending on your point of view) for introducing Henry Rollins to the world as a spoken word artist, Side Two was all instrumental. So was the EP The Process of Weeding Out, which many fans interpret as the moment when Mr. Ginn stopped giving a fuck. 

During Black Flag’s final ill-fated tour across America in 1986, one of the opening acts was Gone, Ginn’s all instrumental solo project. 

Given his passion for instrumental music, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched that Ginn would want to release a compilation of instrumental music, but that doesn’t make it any less unusual. Some of the musicians were already on the label when Ginn came up with the concept, others were suggested to him by other SST employees and subsequently brought into the fold. The result was a double album called No Age. 

No Age’s front cover features a photo of an industrial hellscape, but what looks like a bombed out fuel depot is actually a storage tank that was being demolished at the nearby Wilmington refinery. The shot was taken by a photographer who’d done another album cover for the label back in the early ‘80s. 

The back cover is a master class in PR. SST employee Michael “Spaceman” Whittaker was given the unenviable task of describing each cut, which was a tough assignment since there aren’t any vocals or lyrics to latch onto. “When there is nothing, anything can happen. Welcome to… No Age” reads the headline at the top of the back cover. One former employee I talked to said that sometimes when Whittaker had a lot of writing to do he would take LSD. 

I’m not going to break down the tracks (I’m all out of acid) but let’s take look at the Four Sides: 

SIDE ONE
Black Flag, Blind Idiot God, Henry Kaiser, Elliot Sharp, Lee Ranaldo

SIDE TWO
Lawndale, Glenn Phillips, Pell Mell, Paper Bag

SIDE THREE
Scott Colby, Lawndale, Paper Bag, Universal Congress Of, Steve Fisk

SIDE FOUR
Gone, Alter Natives, Elliott Sharp, Frith & Kaiser, Gone

(There’s a second Gone track at the end, though it’s not listed on the album cover. I guess the LSD must have worn off.) 

My question is where are the Meat Puppets? What about the Minutemen? Both bands had a couple of great instros. One can make the argument that Ginn wanted to promote bands that were touring, but that would disqualify Black Flag and Pell Mell. Nor was Black Flag solely an instrumental band and Steve Fisk often included vocal tracks in his sound collages. 

What’s your favorite side?

This post originally appeared in a slightly different form in Message from the Underworld.