Hardcore will never die, at least while Keith Morris is still alive and kicking. The 55-year-old Morris co-founded the legendary Black Flag with Greg Ginn before leaving the band three years later to start the equally seminal Circle Jerks with future Bad Religion guitarist Greg Hetson. That band lasted a decade, though since 1994, the Circle Jerks have continued to tour sporadically but haven’t released a new album since 1995. That was going to change when the band convened last year with producer Dimitri Coats (Burning Brides) to work on new material. The result, however, was Morris quitting the CJs and forming OFF!, a new hardcore supergroup with Coats on guitar, Steven McDonald (Redd Kross) on bass and Mario Rubalcaba (Rocket From The Crypt, Hot Snakes) on drums. OFF! recorded four EPs that will be released as a vinyl boxed set, First Four EPs (Vice), on December 14. The band will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with Morris.
Dimitri: Suck (written and directed by Rob Stefaniuk) had a brief run in theaters before heading to DVD this year. A shame considering the cast, but with a motley crew of rockers like Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, Moby and Alex Lifeson, this is perhaps the perfect fate for a potential future midnight, cult b-movie. I had the great fortune of playing Queeny, the main villain vampire hunted by Malcolm McDowell’s character, Eddie Van Helsig. When we weren’t busy being onscreen enemies, Malcolm told me stories of seeing the Beatles at the Cavern Club in Liverpool and attending the Beggars Banquet listening party with Mick Jagger when John Lennon showed up with an acetate of “Revolution.” Cooper was keen to discuss Captain Beyond and desperately tried to convince me to start a horror-rock band after watching this footage. Needless to say, there were so many other memorable situations, like helping Lifeson learn his lines in my hotel room or meeting Iggy. However, my favorite conversation might have been with with Rollins. OFF! was close to being born, and all he wanted to talk about was Keith Morris being the greatest singer in Black Flag.
Video after the jump.
