WHAT I SEE

Photos of the hardcore punk pioneers by the band’s best-known photographer.

Black Flag, the standard-bearer for independent American hardcore punk in the early and mid-1980s, wasn’t much for style. In the photos Friedman collects here, the band’s uniform was a rotation of dirty jeans, band T-shirts (or bare chests), and slacks fit for the office. The band’s “look,” to the extent it had one, was sweat-soaked intensity. During its heyday in Los Angeles, fronted by wild-eyed Henry Rollins, the band looks fearsomely focused, often feral. In one shot, Rollins is shouting into a mic he’s all but swallowed; in another, guitarist Greg Ginn doesn’t seem to be playing his instrument so much as wrestling with it. Friedman's shots became rightly famous in the punk underground—they sold both the band and hardcore genre as relentless, focused, and uncompromising. The photos taken during rehearsals and soundchecks suggest they were equally ferocious without an audience. In his introduction, Friedman—who got to know the band through the city’s punk-adjacent skateboard scene—suggests that he arrived at his particular aesthetic casually, eager to get as close to the band on stage as possible. There are publicity photos, too, but even those look intense; Rollins often looks coiled or in a sulk. To be sure, the band had reasons to be angry: As a target for moralizing industry types (one of whom called them “anti-parent”) and police, the band often found its shows shut down early. Consequently, the prevailing mood is one of righteous defiance, especially during a set of photos taken during an outdoor show promoting marijuana legalization in front of a federal building. It may be more difficult to be a Black Flag–type band now, but the photos show why it would be worth the effort. Bassist Chuck Dukowski provides the foreword.

Evidence of how one band’s music—and especially its attitude—became essential and inspiring.