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The MOCAtv web series "The Art of Punk" we told you about is underway and the first installment on Black Flag and Raymond Pettibon is up. Pettibon's album art and logo were key bits of iconography for his brother Greg Ginn's hardcore act in the '80s. Pettibon's often captioned, often disturbing hand-drawn black and white images undercut the return to a golden age that the Reagan years promised mainstream America. Pettibon's work also turned up on Minutemen albums, and later Sonic Youth's major label record Goo. As great and lasting as Pettibon's work (he also named the band, we learn) has been on American punks, his Black Flag logo remains a masterpiece of underground artwork, expressing an attitude in a visual code that's both rebellious, mysterious, and incredibly powerful. The video features Keith Morris, Henry Rollins, and Flea as well as Pettibon himself talking about the Black Flag band name, logo, flyers, and album art.

Bryan Ray Turcotte, founder of Kill Your Idols which published the authoritative volume on punk flyers, Fucked Up + Photocopied, has collaborated with Los Angeles MOCA for a new web series called "The Art of Punk." The episodes feature interviews with Raymond Pettibon, who created the bars logo and album cover art for his brother Greg Ginn's band Black Flag, as well as punk luminaries Flea, Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra, Keith Morris, and more.

The three-part series begins with Black Flag on June 11, but in the meantime check out the trailer below to see Flea on the toilet talking about art and action coming together, as well as details about the L.A. premiere at MOCA this Thursday, June 6. 




In 2013, there's both a FLAG and a Black Flag touring and playing Black Flag songs—we won't get into who's putting on the better show. But it was FLAG, featuring former Black Flag members Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski, Bill Stevenson, and Dez Cadena (as well as Descendents guitarist Stephen Egerton), that returned to the scene of the band's first ever gig on January 27, 1979, the Moose Lodge #1873 in Redondo Beach, CA for a semi-secret show. FLAG blazed through a 40-minute set at the secret gig, and just this week, lucky for us, professionally shot and edited footage of the show has hit the Internet. In the fight for the legacy of the iconic punk act, FLAG certainly won this battle, if not the war.