We've been waiting forever for this to happen! The first four Flipper albums have finally been reissued, and each one of these albums is a crucial chapter of this seminal San Francisco band. EVen if you've never heard Flipper, I bet that you've at least heard the name; these freaks have had an enormous influence on so much of the heavy, fucked-up punk and metal that we love over the past three decades. Flipper formed in 1979 in the midst of the burgeoning hardcore scene, but even though the band was eventually embraced by a cult following in hardcore, these mutants had little in common with the louder/faster aesthetic of punk as it headed into the 1980s. They were much more closely aligned with that weirdo San Francisco art punk scene of the late 70s that gave us other unclassifiable bands like Chrome and The Residents, but Flipper were heavier than everyone. Playing slow, bludgeoning atonal riffs and plodding super-heavy rhythms, Flipper were slower than anyone else in punk at the time, and their sheer heaviness and the nihilistic aura that surrounded the band and their music is what drew in the hardcore punks. In the decades that followed, Flipper turned into one of the most influential bands of the American underground, and you can trace their influence through the sloppy, misanthropic sludge rock of 80's bands like Drunks With Guns, Blight and Kilslug to the success of Nirvana and the Melvins, both citing Flipper as being one of their biggest influences. Especially the Melvins. Out of all of the bands that I listen to, the Melvins might be Flipper's most devout disciples (next to Rick Rubin's mid-80s band Hose); over the course of their career, the Melvins have covered tons of Flipper songs and have cited Flipper as one of their biggest influences since the beginning, and its pretty obvious when you listen to the crushing, plodding drumming and sludgy punk riffs on any of the Melvins's albums. And more recently, there has been a whole movement of fucked up noise/punk bands that are worshipping at the altar of Flipper, from Pissed Jeans to Brainbombs to Clockcleaner, they've all got that Flipper DNA coursing through their veins. Of course, nobody has ever surpassed the mighty, mysterious brain-damaged heaviness of Flipper themselves, and these new reissues are crucial for anyone who wants to hear the band at the height of their demented powers.

Only Flipper could put together a double live album and turn it into an experience as fucked up and drooling as their early studio releases. Originally released in 1986 as a vinyl only double LP on Subterranean, Public Flipper Limited is a direct shot at PIL and John Lydon, who the band accused of ripping off their Generic art and title concept for PIL's Album. It collects various live recordings from between 1980 and 1985 that capture the band at their most deranged, live on stage and wasted beyond belief, the songs furiously belted out into a murky, distorted clusterfuck with Will SHatter's hilarious stage ramblings showing up before almost every song. Which, of course, is exactly what made these guys so amazing. The setlist is loaded with the sludgy art-punk classics that you'd want to hear, including "Life", "Sex Bomb", "(I Saw You) Shine", "Love Canal" and onward, more than fifteen tracks of stumbling Flipper chaos. There's also some more obscure Flipper songs that are only found on this double album. Many of the recordings that Flipper used for this album were taken from soundboard tapes made by Tom Lyle (Government Issue) and a young Gregg Turkington, aka Neil Hamburger, both of whom were huge fans of the band back in the 80s.

Surprisingly, this reissue is the first time that Public Flipper Limited has ever been available on CD, and it's been assembled into a cool looking package just like the other reissues. Like the reissue of Gone Fishin, this new double CD release of Flipper Limited Live reproduces the original LP sleeve, which was designed to look like a board game complete with game pieces and game cards based on the chaos of a Flipper tour across the U.S. The booklet also has some liner notes from Steven Blush, the author behind the book American Hardcore. Recommended!