San Francisco's famous Target Video is one of the premier archivists of early punk and hardcore, with an extensive catalog of concert recordings captured in the late 1970's through the 1980's that documented crucial bands like Black Flag, Crucifix, Throbbing Gristle, The Screamers, and many others. Much of their back catalog has been making it's way onto DVD, and this new release from the company really has me stoked: a collection of crucial live footage from the notoriously fucked-up LA noise punk band Flipper, whose dissonant, antisocial, sometimes saxophone-laced sludge punk has been an influence on everything from Melvins to Nirvana to Brainbombs and the whole wave of neo scumfuck bands that I've been grooving on heavily lately like Violent Students, Clockcleaner, Pissed Jeans, etc. The footage on this DVD comes from the classic early 80's incarnation of the band, including a small headlining set from Berkeley, California in 1980 and a San Francisco concert from 1981 from when Flipper were opening for Throbbing Gristle. When every other band in the country were speeding up and striving to be louder and faster than all of the rest, Flipper did the exact opposite by getting loud and slowing down, way down, into a dirgey violent mess loaded with out-of-tune guitar noise, stumbling rhythms and lumbering mongoloid riffs, stoned and tone-deaf downer mantras, and the Kezar Stadium show from 1981 shows Flipper in real skullcrush mode. Jesus, it's hard to belive these guys were laying down the slop sludge this heavy all the way back in '81. Just goes to show how fucking essential Flipper's music is. As a bonus, the DVD also includes a cable access video of the Flipper classic "Sex Bomb"! Comes in a full color case with an insert sheet with liner notes.