10 things you probably didn’t know about Greg Ginn (Black Flag)

Despite, or maybe even because of, all the ridiculous Black Flag vs. Flag drama and recent domestic gone public familial issues, you might think you know all there is to know about Greg Ginn. Well, don’t get too presumptions. For the hell of it we decided to put together a list of 10 things you probably didn’t know about the Black Flag co-founder. Expand your knowledge below.

1. He is the only band member to appear on all of Black Flag’s releases up to date as well as the only member who has not left the band at one point or another.

2. Greg is the older brother of artist Raymond Pettibon, who had contributed a large amount of visual imagery into Black Flag’s works, including designing the band’s iconic logo.

3. His label, SST Records, originally begun in 1966 as Solid State Transmitters, a mail-order business that sold modified World War II surplus radio equipment. The business was small but thrived well into Ginn’s early adulthood.

4. Greg was the owner of Cruz Records, which was an off-shoot record label of SST. This label not only sold solo albums by Greg, but releases by pop punk and grunge bands like ALL, Big Drill Car, Chemical People and Skin Yard.

5. He used the name Dale Nixon to obfuscate the fact that he played bass on Black Flag’s 1984 album My War. Greg used that name again on the Black Flag’s latest album What The…, on which he also played bass.

6. Greg famously used a Dan Armstrong Lucite electric guitar throughout his career until it was stolen in 1986.

7. He currently lives in Taylor, Texas.

8. He produced The Minutemen’s 1980 EP record Paranoid Time, which was the second record ever to be released on SST.

9. Black Flag was known as Panic until 1978  (OK, this is not really a Ginn fact but we thought it was interesting and wanted to sneak it in).

10. Many early Black Flag shows ended in violence, often involving the Los Angeles Police Department. As a result the police tapped the label’s phones and kept the SST office under surveillance. Ginn claims undercover police posing as homeless people sat close to SST’s front door.