Greg Ginn
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| Greg Ginn | ||
|---|---|---|
| Background information
<tr><td>Birth name</td><td colspan="2">Gregory Regis Ginn</td></tr><tr><td>Born</td><td colspan="2">June 8, 1954</td></tr><tr><td>Genre(s)</td><td colspan="2">Punk/Alternative</td></tr><tr><td>Occupation(s)</td><td colspan="2">musician and producer</td></tr><tr><td>Instrument(s)</td><td colspan="2">guitar, bass, vocals</td></tr><tr><td>Years active</td><td colspan="2">1976–present</td></tr><tr><td style="padding-right: 1em;">Label(s)</td><td colspan="2">SST Records |
Gregory Regis Ginn (born June 8, 1954) is a guitarist, songwriter and singer. He is best known for being the leader of and primary songwriter for the punk rock band Black Flag, which he founded and led from 1976 to 1986.
Since breaking up Black Flag, Ginn has recorded a few solo albums, and has performed with the bands HOR, Fastgato, Gone, Confront James, EL BAD, Mojack, and he also played bass with Tom Troccoli's Dog. [1]. He also owns the South Bay based, independent record label, SST, originally begun as an electronics company called Solid State Transformers when he was a teenager. He remains very active in music; in a recent interview he states he still performs "about six nights a week." [2] This is similar to how he was with Black Flag; with them he was very strict about practicing and would practice for up to 7 hours a day, 6 days a week according to Henry Rollins.
Ginn's guitar sound is distinctive, often recognizable within a few notes. Black Flag singer Henry Rollins has repeatedly compared Ginn's playing not to any other guitarists, but to free jazz saxophonists Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. These may initially appear unlikely comparisons, but a closer examination reveals some similarities: Like both saxophonists, Ginn tends towards highly emotive playing and has a thorough grasp of musical harmony, though often choosing to play notes that are technically "incorrect" but which frequently carry a greater visceral impact than "proper" playing. Ginn is an avid jazz fan, stating he generally prefers music by saxophone or piano players.
One review of Black Flag's Slip It In (1984) notes that Ginn's "playing was becoming increasingly avant-garde and exciting. Rather than simply coughing up one clichéd solo after another, he wandered harmolodically up and down the fretboard as a jazz player like Blood Ulmer would, making the material more interesting than what most Black Flag-influenced bands were playing." [3]
Ginn's brother, Raymond Pettibon, is an award-winning artist whose early works have appeared on album artwork for Black Flag and other SST bands; Pettibon also designed the Black Flag logo.
Ginn's nephew, Alex, founded the punk band, 1208.
Ginn is also active in cat-rescue, possessing approximately 30 cats, having reformed Black Flag in September 2003 for a cat rescue benefit.
Ginn has a 2-year-old daughter, and his wife is expecting their second child now.
Ginn made it to 99th on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
He has uses the pseudonym Dale Nixon on Black Flag's My War and in the bands Confront James, HOR, and El Bad and Fastgato [4]. During the September 2003 reunion concerts, "Dale Nixon", in the form of a computerized bass track with a sombrero, took the stage along side Greg Ginn. The Melvins also use the Dale Nixon pseudonym to credit Dave Grohl on the King Buzzo album.
Contents |
[edit] Equipment
For a majority of Black Flag's existence, Ginn used a Ampeg Dan Armstrong Lucite electric guitar, seen in use here. This guitar was stolen on April 16, 1986. This guitar became very very worn out after its intense use. Ginn would play it so hard that sweat (as well as blood) would seep inside the guitar and cause it to short circuit. To fix this problem he soldered the tone and volume knobs into place and installed a waterproof switch.
After his Ampeg was stolen, reportedly switched to using an Ibanez GRX40. According to Ginn, he also used an Ibanez Flying V with a Sound City tube amp for a little while. He has said that this Sound City amp was horrible and was the last time he used a tube amp. He has said that he dislikes tube amps because they round off the sound and he wants a sharper tone.
Ginn used a Roland until 1985 when he began using a Yamaha preamp. He used a Peavey P.A. head for a while too.
He has used Roland and Marshall cabinets for amps as well as a few others. The Marshall is thought to be a 4x12 (four 12" speakers).
Ginn does not use any effect pedals and every sound he gets is from his amp and guitar.
Currently, he uses a solid state Sansamp Preamp (overdriven) and uses a Macro-Tech Crown Power Amp with "more Wattage than I really need." The power amp drives a custom made 6x12 cabinet.
His current guitar-- The one used at the Black Flag Reunion shows in 2003 is a custom-made ebony stratocaster model called "Graffiti". The unique thing about this guitar is that it has a graphite neck and its quite heavy for a strat copy.
[edit] Solo Discography
[edit] Albums
- Getting Even (1993)
- Payday (1993)
- Dick (1995)
- Let It Burn (1997)
[edit] Singles
- "Don't Tell Me" (1995)
[edit] Black Flag
| Black Flag |
|---|
| Greg Ginn |
| Vocals: Chavo Pederast | Keith Morris | Dez Cadena | Henry Rollins |
| Bass: Raymond Pettibon | Spot | Chuck Dukowski | Kira Roessler | C'el Revuelta |
| Drums: David Horvitz | Brian Migdol | ROBO | Emil Johnson | Chuck Biscuits | Bill Stevenson |Anthony Martinez |
| Discography |
| Albums: Damaged | My War | Slip It In | Family Man | Loose Nut | In My Head |
| Extended plays: Nervous Breakdown | Jealous Again | Six Pack | TV Party | The Process of Weeding Out | Minuteflag | I Can See You |
| Live: Live '84 | Who's Got the 10½? | Annihilate This Week |
| Other releases: Everything Went Black | The First Four Years | Wasted...Again | The Complete 1982 Demos Plus More | Spray Paint EP |
| Related articles |
| Rollins Band | Dos | State of Alert | Gone | SST Records | Spot | October Faction | Joe Cole |
