One of the world's deepest philosophical wars was deepened further on Thursday: A judge has ruled that Greg Ginn and his record label, SST, have no right to prevent former Black Flag members Keith Morris and Chuck Dukowski from using the band's four black-bar logo and playing the band's music under the name FLAG.
The original band, one of the most iconic bands in the history of the hardcore genre, broke up in 1986. Ginn, guitarist and de facto leader of the group broke up the band during 1986, and it occasionally reformed for minor reunion get-togethers. Ginn decided that he was going to reform Black Flag during January 2013, along with the band's second vocalist Ron Reyes. Coincidentally, founding vocalist Morris and one-of-many-bassists Dukowski decided around the same time to found FLAG, a band for playing Black Flag's music. Ginn filed suit in August looking to prevent them from touring under the Black Flag flag.
One would think that based on the creative forces behind the work, Ginn would have some clout in this argument. He wrote the majority of the band's songs, and most of the tracks not penned by the guitarist were by vocalist Henry Rollins, who isn't touring in any semblance of Black Flag. Dukowski only wrote a few songs for the band, although its hit "My War" was one of them. The famous logo was designed by Ginn's brother, which probably gives the guitarist the closest thing to a trademark. Still, the court ruled that even if SST had any right to the materials, they abandoned them by failing "to police the mark for nearly 30 years."
Alas, the result will be two separate Black Flag bands touring later this year. FLAG will come back to play Nov. 8 at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, TX, and Black Flag will be touring Australia during the same month. American fans can decide how pure they need their flag to be.
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