Black Flag – Family Man

Description

Black Flag’s third album, Family Man, originally released in 1984 by SST Records, marks one of the most audacious turns in punk history. Splitting its two sides between stark spoken word pieces by Henry Rollins and instrumental tracks driven by Greg Ginn, Kira Roessler and Bill Stevenson, the record fuses feral punk energy with jazz-inspired improvisation and avant-garde noise.

Rollins’ monologues, darkly reflective and confrontational, established him as a defining voice of the emerging American spoken word movement—one that would later influence figures like Jello Biafra. The instrumental side sees Ginn’s guitar erupt into wild, feedback-drenched forms, offset by Roessler’s taut bass and Stevenson’s precision drumming, bridging Black Sabbath weight with free jazz chaos.

The record’s only collaborative track, ‘Armageddon Man’, unites these extremes into a volatile whole. Raymond Pettibon’s notorious cover art—a family murder scene captioned “November 23rd, 1963”—underscores the album’s unflinching vision: a raw, uneasy exploration of violence, alienation and creative rupture.

Tracklist

Side A: Spoken Word
“Family Man”
“Salt on a Slug”
“Hollywood Diary”
“Let Your Fingers Do The Walking”
“Shed Reading (Rattus Norvegicus)”
“No Deposit – No Return”
“Armageddon Man”

Side B: Instrumentals
“Long Lost Dog Of It”
“I Won’t Stick Any Of You Unless And Until I Can Stick All Of You!”
“Account For What?”
“The Pups Are Doggin’ It”