Greg Ginn is the founding guitarist and only constant member of Black Flag, and the co-founder, with Chuck Dukowski, of SST Records.
An influential yet polarizing figure, he is acclaimed for his guitar work, his songwriting, and (with Black Flag) helping lay the foundations for an independent touring network that still exists and is used by independent bands to this day. Through SST Records, he helped discover and bring to international attention bands like The Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Saccharine Trust, the Meat Puppets, Sonic Youth, fIREHOSE, Saint Vitus, and Soundgarden.
After the disbanding of Black Flag in August of 1986, Ginn concentrated on what was his instrumental side project, Gone, only to see that band break up soon afterward. (Gone’s rhythm section almost immediately went on to join ex-Black Flag vocalist Henry Rollins in the Rollins Band.) He took a couple of years off from recording but continued to run SST, which had expanded with the acquisition of New Alliance Records from Minutemen/fIREHOSE bassist Mike Watt. Ginn also founded two sub-labels, Cruz Records and Issues Records; the former saw releases from ALL (the band consisting of the Descendents with singers other than Milo Auckerman) as well as three solo albums from Ginn himself. The latter was a short-lived spoken word label.
From the early 90’s onward, he also started to become notorious for business disputes, including delays or failures to pay or report royalties, with many of his artists, starting with high-profile lawsuits filed against him by the Meat Puppets and Negativland. Other bands, including Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and Soundgarden would also take back the master rights to their SST releases after suing Ginn and SST for non-payment of royalties.
For the latter half of the 90’s and into the new millennium, Ginn recorded with an odd variety of projects including Mojack, Pointdexter Stewart, Screw Radio, and Jambang – many of these furthering his interest in jazz, jam bands, and electronic music. He also relocated SST Records from California to Taylor, Texas, a city just outside Austin.
In the early 2010’s Ginn ramped up his musical activity, recording a variety of instrumental projects including Greg Ginn and The Royal We, a project that was mainly Ginn playing guitar over synthesized backing music, and Good For You, a rock project with professional skater Mike Vallely on vocals. Ginn then shocked onlookers by announcing the reformation of Black Flag with second singer Ron Reyes and a new rhythm section. This version of the band recorded a new album, What The…, but fell apart days before the album’s release when acrimony between Ginn and Reyes was “solved” by Mike Vallely, who had been touring with Black Flag as both tour manager and frontman of Good For You, taking over the lead vocal position in the middle of a show.
A “new” version of Black Flag with Ginn, Vallely, and a new rhythm section toured in 2014 but quietly disappeared afterward in the wake of post-marital problems and custody battles (some documented by gossip site TMZ) between Ginn and his ex-wife. Ginn revived Black Flag again in 2019 with Vallely and yet another new rhythm section for live shows, mainly to negative reports from audiences.
