Flipper

San Francisco outfit Flipper occupied a marginal position even amid the alternative-rock boom of the 1990s, never scaling the upper reaches of the charts and never cultivating a mass audience. In 1982, however, the quartet briefly became the focus of national critical attention thanks to the post-hardcore single “Sex Bomb.” The track stretched past seven minutes on the strength of a single riff that grew progressively more ragged, while vocalist Will Shatter opted for raw shouts instead of melody; its entire lyric consisted of the repeated exclamation “She’s a sex bomb/My baby/yeah.” The result was unapologetically loud, brazenly confrontational, willfully idiotic, and yet, in its own cheerfully brainless manner, an immaculate artifact.

Propelled by that recording, Shatter, vocalist/bassist Bruce Loose, drummer Steve DePace, and guitarist Ted Falconi surfaced from the fractious California hardcore milieu—Shatter and DePace having previously played together in the late-’70s Bay Area band Negative Trend—carrying a punishingly heavy, deliberately decelerated style that echoed the Stooges at their most chemically impaired, most notably on “We Will Fall” from the Stooges’ debut album. The group remained indifferent to whether listeners adored or detested the sound; they simply continued performing until the volume and duration became intolerable. That straightforward stance, however contrarian, allowed Flipper to outlast the typical fifteen-minute lifespan of a cult act.

Their first full-length release, Album — Generic Flipper, placed “Sex Bomb” alongside several strong pieces that examined anonymity and despair without surrendering entirely to gloom or forgoing flashes of wit. In doing so, Flipper arguably became the earliest hardcore or post-hardcore act to introduce affirmational sentiments, however ironically framed. Thus the album juxtaposed the song “Life Is Cheap” with “Life,” whose lyric declared, “I too have sung death’s praises/But I’m not gonna sing that song anymore,” followed by the plain assertion, “Life is the only thing worth living for.” Such sentiments stood conspicuously at odds with prevailing punk orthodoxy.

Extensive press acclaim soon elevated the band to a brief spell of underground prominence as de facto leaders of American independent rock. Although nothing that followed matched the visceral impact of their debut, the subsequent material remained largely compelling until the group disbanded in 1987 after Shatter died of a heroin overdose. The surviving members drifted in and out of musical projects for the next six years. In 1992, American Recordings founder Rick Rubin, a longtime admirer, persuaded Loose, DePace, and Falconi to attempt a new album; the resulting American Grafishy offered only faint echoes of their earlier force. Ultimately Flipper’s legacy rests on their insistence on proceeding according to their own dictum: “let’s rock our way.”