Flipper 1/26/1983 San Fransisco

Allow me to try and weigh in with this one. I've been in the bleachers for a few of the groups that everyone knows. Were any of them the greatest gig ever? There's a lot of different meanings of the word "greatest"obviously. Let me paste in a list of the greatest gigs of all time...an official one, more or less, courtesy of the United Kingdom and its BBC.

1. Queen, Live Aid (13th July 1985)
2. Jimi Hendrix, Woodstock (18th August 1969)
3. Sex Pistols, Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall (4th June 1976)
4. Bob Dylan, Manchester Free Trade Hall (17th May 1966)
5. David Bowie, Hammersmith Apollo (3rd July 1973)
6. Bob Marley, One Love Peace Concert (22nd April 1978)
7. Bruce Springsteen, Roxy (7th July 1978)
8. U2, Red Rocks (5th June 1983)
9. The Rolling Stones, Hyde Park (7th May 1969)
10. Radiohead, Glastonbury (28th June 1997)
11. Clash, Rock Against Racism, Victoria Park (7th May 1977)
12. The Who, The Isle of Wight Festival (29th August 1970)
13. Pink Floyd, Earls Court (17th June 1981)
14. James Brown, The Apollo (24th October 1962)
15. Oasis, Maine Road, Manchester (27th April 1996)
16. The Beastie Boys, Brixton Academy (24th May 1987)
17. Johnny Cash, San Quentin (29th August 1969)
18. Brian Wilson Smile Concert, Royal Festival Hall (20th February 2004)
19. Elton John & John Lennon, Madison Square Gardens, NYC (28th November 1974)
20. Nirvana, Reading (30th August 1992)



The thing about a list like this is, all these groups are gonna sell you out when the time comes. You're gonna see their brand names next to Exxon or Ipod or Walmart and all their supposedly personal voice rock and roll image is just the public relations face of exclusion...of money and control. Once you put yourself in the position of expressing yourself for a living, eventually you're going to have to be a mouthpiece for someone bigger than you, bigger than a genuine, living person. Something that has the money to get your face on the video screen.

"But don't you like ---------insert famous celebrity name here-----?
"...like that guy? I don't even know him. I never even met him."


No, I never saw Flipper. My familiarity with the band consist almost solely with the Public Flipper Limited live LP ( recently reissued on both CD and vinyl). Those recordings are heavy... too heavy, in fact, most of them go on for far too long. "Hard Cold World" and "If I Can't Be Drunk, I Don't Want to be Alive." trumped Joy Division, Christian Death, and all of the posturing negativity legions with some truly belligerent rawness. There is a sense of provocation going on where the band is really going after the audiences. For me, personally, you get a good band playing in a room of 50 people- there are occasionally these moments of interaction where everybody is paying attention to everybody else. It doesn't necessarily have to be a hostile vibe- I've caught all styles of music where the whole room full of people itself seemed to be the show. Size is much closer to the key. More often than not, it's the smaller club sized shows that really make it.

Reviewing this Flipper cable access show was just an excuse to talk about Flipper. Because it's not even a live show, really- it's a TV studio performance with films projected on the band, primitive state of the art video effects, and some interview segments where the band attempts to evade answering every single question. The music itself is actually good. I've sat through it a number of times.

MVD has reissued a target video live show which supposedly captures Flipper going all out to make a real impression. Speaking of Target Video and the Greatest Gigs ever, how do you not have the Cramps at Napa on that list? The list is bullshit, my friends. One of the only performances that really made it...that really made it all the way...missing from the official top 20 ! A good thing that you and I were on camera for that one!