200 POUND UNDERGROUND

BEFORE SPEEDOS AND WEED, THERE WAS LICORICE PIZZA...

In those wide eyed, innocent days of pud pulling and record collecting, it was always a bright orange blast to find out there was some sorta artifact out there you'd never heard nor seen; a total holy grail (to put it in less wordy words) Back in said time, my pals and I always heard about some Black Flag 7" that wasn't available through the SST catolog and it was simply refered to as the 'Licorice Pizza' 7". The toddler trainspotter in me not only remembered seeing those two words at the bottom of alot of the Black Flag flyers my brothers' friend was sending him from L.A. (i.e. -- 'Tickets available from...') but I also recalled seeing some sign in the background of 'Fast Times At Ridgemont High' that had those words printed on it. What can I say? I was a nerd as soon as I stepped outta my mommas' gut. I later found out via a back issue of Flipside or something that Licorice Pizza was a chain store in Southern California and the singles were given away free (Uh...what?) at certain Licorice Pizza locations prior to the 'Damaged' record coming out. That was a total mindblower to me at my age. I remember thinking,'Man, I gotta get myself out to California...they have record stores there that just GIVE AWAY Black Flag records!' Later on in life, I found out the meaning of the word 'promotion' and realized this wasn't some act of punk graciousness, but simply a decent way thought up by Unicorn and SST to drum up interest in an upcoming lp. Nonetheless, I had no idea what was on this record or how to get it, which of course made me want it even more. A little further down the line, I heard somewhere that the majority of these singles were simply THROWN AWAY by the Licorice Pizza franchise when the promotional scheme didn't pan out as planned. I remember thinking 'Man, I gotta get myself out to California...they have record stores out there that just THROW AWAY Black Flag records!' Eventually, someone (TDT maybe?) got a hold of one through a trade with a penpal and to say I was dissapointed would be an understatement. The thing had no picture sleeve and it was just live recordings of 'Life of Pain' and 'Thirsty & Miserable'. Is this what I was waiting so long to behold? Ech... I promptly killed my persuit for the record and moved on to even lamer prospects...

But the other day I ran across a cheap bootleg of the thing and I thought 'What The Hell?' and I gotta say I'm pretty stoked on it in my time of dying. Perhaps it's that the cover has my fave Flag stillshot of all time (The one where Dez-O looks like he's either got a bad rasta cap or a poorly knitted Afro wig on his dome) Perhaps it's that the thing really looks like a labor of love, complete with liner notes, pics of the original record and a BF interview from an old issue of Ripper. Or it could be that these tracks simply shred (If I may use some sixth grade lingo here) The Ginn/Cadena assault is in full force here and although Hank sounds parched, his voice sounds burly as hell. Check the weirdo phrasing on 'Thirsty and Miserable'. At the end of the single, they even chuck on an unearthed studio recording of Dez singing 'Spray Paint (The Walls)' If you ask for more, you're simply an asshole...

There's a certain record store in NYC that's on Thompson St. that has abuncha these things, and as I check out the internetting of my computer I see a website named Punk Utopia (good lord) has some ...

http://www.punkutopia.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Store_Code=P&Screen=PROD&Product_Code=7IN0139

So get this thing and get to skankin'....

For those who don't know, Oaklands' Never Healed performed on my radio show this week and simply KILLED it. Do yourself a favor and check it out on the WFMU archives. Thanks to those dudes and Charles for the board help.

And how the hell did I go about my life without knowing about these two awesome web presences?

http://cooldudequarterly.blogspot.com/

http://shit-fi.com/

Be sure not to burst into flames....