Generic Flipper (Vinyl LP)
Flipper’s 1982 debut remains one of the most underground statements to crawl out of early San Francisco punk. Released on Subterranean Records, Generic Flipper rejected the era’s “faster‑shorter‑louder” arms race and instead doubled down on a heavier and slower approach. Recorded between 1980 and 1981, the album was imitated endlessly by every band that ever tried to weaponise a slow tempo. Decades on, it remains a benchmark for punk at its most stubborn, hence why Superior Viaduct are giving it another moment in the sun. - Flying Out
Generic Flipper, the debut album by Flipper, remains the most absorbing full-length LP to emerge from the early San Francisco punk scene. A constant source of imitation for so-called "noise rock" bands, it has yet to be surpassed in its nihilistic glee.
Recorded between October 1980 and August 1981 and released in 1982 on the indispensable Subterranean Records, this album functions as a chaotic, sticky mass of individual personalities: the magma-like bass eruptions and dual vocals of Will Shatter and Bruce Loose, Ted Falconi's icy guitar scraping and the relentless beat of drummer Steve DePace. At times playful and taciturn, paranoid and absurd, Generic charts a deliberate path that willfully chances destruction.
In early '80s punk, when the hardening default was "faster-shorter-louder," Generic subverts the nascent hardcore scene with a strictly applied regimen of turgid-slower-heavier. The lyrics are bleak, yet unnervingly beautiful. "Ever" sets the tone with trademark restraint – "Ever wish the human race didn't exist? And then realize you're one too?" – while closer "Sex Bomb" is a churning, 8-minute epic with looping bass, saxophone accompaniment and electronic effects of dropping bombs.
Tons of indie bands have attempted to recreate Flipper's mix of acidic guitar, metallic bass sludge and sardonically brilliant lyricism, using the seemingly effortless template they pioneered; however, the effect usually drives listeners right back to Generic. While most of their contemporaries wilt under direct comparison, No Trend, the Butthole Surfers, feedtime and Church Police are a few who can stand the frigid heat.
Tracklist
- Ever
- Life Is Cheap
- Shed No Tears
- I Saw You Shine
- Way of the World
- Life
- Nothing
- Living for the Depression
- Sex Bomb