Black Flag - Family Man

Family Man is the “White Album” of Black Flag releases. It’s an e.p., I know, but work with me here. It’s the first Flag release that demonstrates the individualistic factions of the band: one side devoted to Greg Ginn’s schizophrenic guitar patterns, the other to Henry Rollins’ word jazz.
Rollins’ was young, just finding his feet in the world of poetry. Not only was he coming from an environment where he wasn’t even the primary songwriter of his band (that distinction fell to Ginn again), he was the frontman of a band that performed a style of music that wasn’t known for the art of its written word. Rollins went on to help change that, particularly with his continual stream of prose that he released from his own publishing company, but his talents at the time of Family Man weren’t that well known and, as a result, came as a complete surprise.
He’s young-his spoken word here shows that, particularly in the content of his material. But it’s promising-particularly with the title track which wonderfully details the monotony of suburbia-and it’s good that someone had the good sense to encourage his newly found interest so that he continued to explore this new creative field. I remember seeing video footage of Hank performing on some late night video show thinking “Holy shit! It’s that dude from Black Flag!” before thinking “Holy shit! He’s reading poetry!”
The other material is instrumental passages spearheaded by Ginn and the Black Flag line up at that time. Understand that the band were not only road dogs, but they rehearsed an insane amount of time when they weren’t on the road. As impressive as that may sound, rehearsing does not mean every sound made is worthy of recording. Add to this, Ginn has a penchant for jazz arrangements and free range riffing. Not only can his music be a test of ability, they can be a test of tolerance. If there was a large market for his style of instrumental jam then more of you would hear about Ginn’s post-Flag instrumental band, Gone. Only “The Pups Are Doggin’ It” manages to reach any sort of inspired jamming and even that is questionable as something that needed to be released.
Unlike The White Album, Family Man is a mixed bag-a curio e.p. that’s exciting upon first listen but not something that would inspire repeated listening. At the same time, Raymond Pettibon’s album art is a hell of a lot more controversial than the Beatles’ cover ever was.