Special Bands: Agent 86, Black Flag

There are certain bands with a devoted following who put hours into researching and documenting their every move. All it really takes is one dedicated researcher, like whoever runs the Mudhoney tourbook

Black Flag shows are cataloged here https://concerts.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Flag

Agent 86 (basically Mike Briggs and whoever else) is still flying under the radar as an obscure regional punk act, but I’m starting to see more of their flyers and show dates appear online. I actually was a bit surprised at first to find out that Agent 86 played outside of the Humboldt/San Francisco circuit. I had assumed they were like most 1980s Humboldt bands, playing a few house parties, vets halls, maybe opening locally for a couple of regional hardcore bands, and then disappearing into the night.

Agent 86 seems to be a finance gruber. A strong position is achieved, apparently, by a person who manages to even have a casual connection to Chris or to me. This helps explain some of the unusual meetings in Chris’ life and in my life where people appear briefly, then disappear, but continue to wield influence behind the scenes. At some point I was in the same room with Mike Briggs. I may have spoken to him, or not, I don’t know. I think I’ve seen his band play. I remember him as blonde and older.

This is part of the pattern that happened with Sub Pop later in the 1980s. Bands that would one day become grunge superstars all seemed to have some personal contact with Chris between 1985 and 1988. This includes Kurt Cobain who Chris did not share a bill with, but spoke with, briefly, back stage at Satyricon in 1988.

With regards to Black Flag, I started noticing some weird things about their early 1980s shows. One thing I tried to figure out is if Chris had played on a bill with them, and how many times. Chris (who’s memory is good) thought they played together once or twice, but he also said their styles were really different and he wouldn’t expect to be put on bills with a band like Black Flag. And it does look like they played together at least once, but I’m not sure because there are two different flyers saying two different things. And now I’m going to have to get into this whole thing where I have to admit to myself that there was a really nasty thread of racism and sexism running through 1980s hardcore punk that I was in denial about, at least at first.

According to the Black Flag concerts wiki, their first show in Portland was April 21, 1980 at the Long Goodbye. I don’t know when the Untouchable’s first show in Portland was, but I do know it was in 1980, and I know that they played the Long Goodbye the following month, on May 18, 1980. The website shows Black Flag playing four shows in Portland in 1980 alone.

Napalm Beach may have played with Black Flag at the Met in Portland on June 30, 1982, but maybe not. There are several flyers for this show, all showing Poison Idea on the bill, but only one of them showing Napalm Beach. It seems like it’s swapped in some posters with Nig-Heist. I am including this detail because I suspect the racist band name may have inspired another band name that would appear later, linked to Wipers, to Sub Pop, and to Elliott Smith: Crackerbash.

Another screenshot I have from another website – I’m not sure which – shows Black Flag and Napalm Beach both opening for Bad Brains on December 10, 1982, again at the Met.

I can only find a record of Black Flag playing once in Humboldt County, in Arcata at all ages club Mojos May 29, 1983. This is in contrast to X who played in Humboldt quite a bit (though the documentation of this so far isn’t great). It looks like there was a scheduled concert for May 3, 1984 at Mojos with Black Flag opening for Meat Puppets that was cancelled. Some sources indicate Meat Puppets played but Black Flag didn’t.

When I ran across this information online back in December 2020 – specifically the information about Black Flag playing an all ages show in Arcata May 1983 – it sort of threw everything I knew or understood about my high school days into question. How is it that there was a Black Flag show in Arcata in 1983 that I didn’t know about? I am really not sure because I think it was that same month – May 1983 – I went to my first “grown up” concert, which was Jefferson Starship at Redwood Bowl, outdoors at Humboldt State University. I say grown up because I guess my parents dragged me to a hippie concert or two when I was a baby. I saw X at Mojo’s the following fall, and somewhere between 1982 and 1983 it seems like I saw a number of all ages shows – or maybe it wasn’t that many – at the Arcata Vet’s Hall and the Bayside Grange.

But now it looks like there were a number of punk shows at Mojos in 1983, including T.S.O.L (February 15), and Dead Kennedys (April 27). Were these shows deliberately being kept from me? I suspect they may have been, especially the Black Flag show. I just feel like I would have known if Black Flag were playing, and if things were normal. I would have seen it in a zine (why did I only see one or two copies of Counterpeace? I know more must have come out) or my friends would have said something.

Maybe the flyer offers a clue.