Diggin' In The Crates "Often Imitated, Never Duplicated" Edition

Since there was some major brouhaha over a shitty fashion chain store basically pirating a shirt of theirs that the late great Kurt Cobain had not only designed himself (he with his artistic hand, a blank T-shirt, and a new Sharpie) but wore on Saturday Night Live...

Artist: Flipper
Title: "Get Away" b/w "The Old Lady That Swallowed The Fly" 7" single
Label: Subterranean Records
Vinyl: Clear green vinyl

Flipper, for the uninitiated, are one of the most influential American punk bands of the hardcore era of the early 80's... mainly because they didn't play at hyperspeed, instead settling for a slow to medium tempo groove where the bass - alternately played by either Bruce Loose or the late Will Shatter, both of whom alternated between bass and lead vocals - was actually the lead melodic instrument while the guitarist, Ted Falconi, was left to spray all manner of semi-melodic white noise all over the rest of the sonic field not taken up by the bass, vocals, and Steven DePace's drums. Nirvana (of course), The Melvins, Soundgarden, Metallica ("Sad But True" on the 'Black Album' certainly owes a great deal to the Flipper sound; Flipper would later cover it for a Metallica tribute album!), and Sunn O))) are some of the many bands that owe Flipper major props. 

I first heard Flipper on the legendary (and unfortunately out of print) compilation Let Them Eat Jellybeans, via their early single "Ha Ha Ha", which opened the album. I would hear a couple of other Flipper songs on compilations and even get ahold of their brilliant live cassette-only release Blow'n'Chunks [recorded completely live at CBGB's over a week-long stand], but this would be the first piece of Flipper vinyl I would ever get my hands on. I had wandered into a record store in New Hope, PA during a school trip centered around the drama club I was part of, and left the store having scored this 45 along with the Dead Kennedys's "Too Drunk To Fuck" single and Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables album (and probably a couple of other punk 45s that I can't recall right now - hey, that was thirty years ago, what the fuck). The song quickly became one of my favorite 45s ever and definitely my favorite Flipper song. 

The A-side is one of Flipper's most popular songs; Ted Falconi's guitar riffs and Bruce Loose's bass line are still ingrained into this musicians memory (Hell, this band's music made me want to PLAY bass to supplement my guitar skills, a move that served me well and helped me make a few bucks in Reagan America), Steven DePace's drumming on this track made him one of my all-time favorite drummers to listen to (his snapping out great and precise drum breaks every four bars on this track are some of his best playing, in my opinion) while the late great Will Shatter sings about some of his friends that got down on their luck and need to escape. Despite the down tone of the tales Will tells, this song sounds almost joyous.

The B-side - which spins at 33.3 RPM rather than the standard 45 (probably due to the general length of the song, is taken from a cassette recording Ted Falconi made during a Flipper rehearsal/songwriting session during which Bruce Loose starts reciting the nursery rhyme "Old Lady Who Swallowed The Fly" while the rest of the band improvises a musical bed behind him. 

I would only ever get ahold of one other Flipper album wtithin a couple of years after this one, their first LP Album Generic Flipper. A year after that, Will Shatter died while in the process of trying to kick heroin, ending Flipper's existence for awhile. Several years later, Flipper reunited with a new bassist taking Shatter's place, Bruce Loose taking over lead vocals entirely, and - in an even more shocking move than just merely reuniting - signed a major label record deal with Rick Rubin's American Recordings label, which would reissue Album Generic Flipper and their Sex Bomb Baby singles and compilation tracks anthology as well as deliver a new Flipper album, American Grafishy. That reunion was short lived (Shatter's replacement as bassist would also die of a heroin overdose, sadly), but the band would kick off the 21st century by reuniting for good, first with their original substitute bassist Bruno DeSmartass (Steve DePace's brother) and then - in a move that certainly had to have pleased Kurt Cobain as he watched from the next dimension - with former Nirvana bassist Krist Novaselic, with whom Flipper made a new studio album, Love, and a companion live album, Fight. The band also regained their back catalog of releases (save for Blow'n Chunks and American Grafishy which are still owned by ROIR and American Recordings respectively) and remastered and reissued them on vinyl, CD, and digital download the same year Love and Fight dropped. 

Krist had to bail on Flipper reluctantly due to some family issues (Bruce Loose would call Krist the best bassist Flipper ever had), but the band continues to tour on occassion... and all three surviving members of Flipper as well as Novaselic's successor, Rachel Theole, are all on Facebook and quite approachable and friendly. Unless some skanky mass-market fashion boutique rips them off, of course.