Flipper was one of the most important American bands of the early 1980s, as they were perhaps the first to realize that you could be punk as fuck and heavy as fuck at the same time. Punk had generally disdained riffage of the Sabbath-y variety (some would say musicianship tout court), and in fact, one of Flipper’s more enduring charms is ... well, I don’t even know what the fuck genre they do belong to. Allmusic says they’re “hardcore” but I’d opt for a term like drone punk or sludge rock before hardcore even occurred to me. But of course, they have elements of both and some other stuff too. They were a mighty influence on the Melvins, Kurt Cobain loved them—hell, Krist Novoselic joined the band in 2006—and you’d have to imagine that Gibby Haynes was intimately familiar with their catalogue.

I’ve been playing Generic Flipper a lot recently and you won’t be surprised to learn that in an absurd time such as ours, that album is simply the ideal soundtrack. Politically and spiritually speaking, we’re on a majorly baaaaaad trip, and that’s exactly what that album is, the ultimate bad trip—but catchy and rude and smart and riffy, all at the same time.

More after the jump…

 
Always defying both cultural and counter-cultural conventions, San Francisco’s Flipper were one of the more sonically caustic bands of the early ‘80s West Coast punk scene. Mostly on the pop consciousness radar for being “on Kurt Cobain’s T-shirt,” Flipper is the dirging sound of boredom, depression, and nihilism—ugly music for people with ugly feelings, and their long-lasting influence reaches throughout punk, grunge, sludge, and noise rock.
 

Infamous band/famous T-shirt.
 
Some internet saint has uploaded an entire unreleased Flipper studio session from 1982. This recording would have come between their Generic Flipper and Gone Fishin’ records. Indeed, many of the songs on this were re-recorded for Gone Fishin’.

In this excellent article on sfbg.com, Flipper’s Bruce Loose makes mention of an unreleased album:

Luckily, he hasn’t lost his sense of humor, either. He has some hilarious stories, and it’s a joy to hear his voice perk up when he tells them. For example, there was the time he crawled under the stage at a Dead Kennedys show and yelled through a hidden, plugged-in microphone, “I might be ‘too drunk to fuck,’ but I can sure lick some pussy!” He also mentioned a scrapped plan to issue a still-unreleased studio album from the mid-‘80s under the title Flipper’s Greatest Misses, with artwork depicting a dartboard decorated by errantly thrown syringes instead of darts. “Will would have thought it was hilarious,” he maintained.

Loose is referring to bassist/vocalist Will Shatter who died in 1987 of a heroin overdose.
 

 
The album remains unreleased to this day, but has appeared as a bootleg CD entitled The Light, The Sound, The Rhythm, The Noise, and—at least for now—you can hear it, in its entirety, on You Tube. It’s absolutely incredible, and if you’re a fan or even have a casual interest in the band , you need to hear this right now.

Tracks included:

Sacrifice
In Your Arms
You Naught Me
Survivors of the Plague
In Life, My Friends
One by One
Now is the Time
On & On
In the Garden
First the Heart
I Want to Talk
Flipper Blues
Get Away
Talk’s Cheap
The Light, the Sound, the Rhythm, the Noise
Kali

Here you go, you can thank us later:
 

 
San Francisco’s Flipper were one of the most unique hardcore bands to come out of the Bay Area, or indeed to spring out of any US city’s punk scene. Their slow, sludgy, THICK bass-led sound made them seem extra heavy—much more heavy metal than any mere heavy metal group—and would influence The Melvins, Nirvana (who were huge boosters of the band) and the entire “Stoner Rock” genre.

Flipper’s live shows were utterly insane and intimidating. A pal of mine back in the early 80s suggested that the ultimate drug cocktail for a Flipper show was to sniff glue and smoke Angel Dust. Although I personally never tried that, I think he was probably correct. On record you only got half of the Flipper experience, live you got the whole thing pounded into your skull like a spike.

I first discovered the joys of Flipper via a friend who had secured (against all odds, I grew up in West Virginia) a copy of their “Love Canal/Ha Ha Ha” single in 1981, which I then got my own hands on (and have to this day). Their disturbed, demented and deranged “Ha Ha Ha” is something I used to stick on mixed tapes all the time, especially ones that I’d hand over to friends about to take a road trip telling them “Don’t listen to this one until late at night.”
 

 
I recall seeing Flipper co-bass player/singer Will Shatter stumble into the Odessa Diner on Avenue A one night in the mid-80s, looking like he’d gone to Hell and come about halfway back. I was eating with my friend Hillary—who actually knew him—but he was in such bad shape that she opted to leave him in peace to shove his eggs into his face. Shatter was dead not long after that of a drug overdose, and two more members of the band would also fatally OD over the years..

Bruce Loose has apparently appeared on-stage with a cane and heart monitors when the band has reformed in recent years. Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic was a member of Flipper from 2006 to 2008.

Below, is Target Video’s document of Flipper’s May 29, 1981 opening set for Throbbing Gristle at San Francisco’s Kezar Pavilion. At a certain point Loose’s bass breaks, and Genesis P-Orridge lends his axe so the show could go on. Set list: “Shine,” “nothing,” “Low Rider,” “one by one,” “Hard Cold Old World,” “Life.”
 

 
Oh dear. Forever 21 is selling the “homemade” Kurt Cobain version of a Flipper t-shirt made popular when Cobain sported his on Saturday Night Live in 1992. There’s even a “Ha, Ha, Ha” t-shirt I found on their site, although, I doubt it has anything to do with Flipper. 

To me, Flipper was always the band who I thought of as making the best soundtrack for sniffing glue. I wonder what people who’d buy this product at Forever 21 think about Flipper?
 

 
Below, Flipper’s “Ha Ha Ha.”

 
Thank you, Jason Diamond and Vol. 1 Brooklyn

 
Steven Blush, author of American Hardcore: A Tribal History, has uploaded 911 hardcore tracks of his favorite bands for free.  Some of the artists include: Flipper, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Dicks, Butthole Surfers, Cro-Mags and more!

Travel on over to 24 Hours of Hardcore compiled by Steven Blush and download the goodness while it lasts. 

Side note from Steven: “COPYRIGHT HOLDERS: I will delete your tracks at your request.”

(via Das Kraftfuttermischwerk)

 
Umm… okay, like. see there was this…. and… w-and then the-.... nevermind, forget it, you wouldn’t understand anyway.
 
thx Ted Falconi of Flipper!
NSFW !