Bruce Loose brought his own unique blend of complexity and a menacing darkness to San Francisco punks Flipper | Punk

Because the blitzing tempo and mosh pit violence of hardcore swept the US within the early-80s, San Francisco punks Flipper – whose frontman, Bruce Unfastened, died this weekend of a coronary heart assault – assumed a provocative stance, selecting sarcastic nihilism over dumb machismo and swapping high-velocity thrash for menacing, slow-as-sludge post-punk jams. In an period of 7in singles filled with 30-second screeds, Flipper would draw their tunes out to 20-or-more minutes of grind, fielding spiteful comparisons to hated hippies the Grateful Lifeless as bassist and founder Will Shatter warned audiences, “the extra you heckle us, the longer this tune will get”.However the true “offender for any pissing off of audiences”, as drummer Steve DePace advised Scene Level Clean in 2022, was Unfastened. Born Bruce Calderwood, within the late 70s Unfastened cashed in a life insurance coverage coverage his mom purchased for him and spent the cash on a bass guitar and amplifier. He quickly joined an embryonic model of Flipper in 1979, assuming the nom-du-punk “Bruce Lose” (which he later switched for “Bruce Unfastened”, as a result of he needed to be “much less unfavourable”) and sharing bass and vocal duties with Shatter. The pair laid down heavy, industrial bass strains, whereas guitarist Ted Falconi, a Vietnam vet Unfastened later alleged had PTSD, fired off abrasive, trebly guitar strains.There was, no query, a darkness to Flipper; Unfastened advised the San Francisco Bay Guardian in 2005: “We noticed a society that was going to hell, and we have been both going to tug all of it the way in which to hell, or drag it up out of hell.” However there was additionally a complexity to their lyrics past the rote misanthropy of their contemporaries. Ever, the black-hearted opening monitor to their 1982 debut Album – Generic Flipper, concluded with Unfastened ranting “Ever want the human race didn’t exist? / After which realise you’re one, too?” whereas Life discovered Shatter reflecting, “I too have sung demise’s reward / However I’m not going to sing that tune any extra … Life is the one factor price residing for.”A dirty, joyful automobile crash: Ted Falconi, Bruce Unfastened, Steve DePace and Rachel Thoele of Flipper carry out in Nottingham in 2012. {Photograph}: Ollie Millington/Redferns/Getty ImagesIn live performance, Flipper typically fielded a pulverising model of nursery rhyme The Previous Girl Who Swallowed a Fly, whereas their signature anthem, Intercourse Bomb – later lined by REM – was a dirty, joyful automobile crash of 50s rock’n’roll and punk, welding shredding saxophones and screaming theremin to eight minutes of rutting noise-rock and a repeated deranged chorus of “She’s a intercourse bomb my child yeah!” On tour, the band would welcome native sax-players on stage to jam together with it; anarchy often ensued.A commendable second album, Gone Fishin’, adopted in 1984, however the group break up after Shatter died of a heroin overdose in 1987, solely to re-form in 1990 after Rick Rubin signed them to his Def American label. The self-produced American Grafishy surfaced in 1993 by which era Flipper have been being championed as an affect by teams akin to Melvins, Jane’s Dependancy and Nirvana, whose Kurt Cobain wore a selfmade Flipper T-shirt on Saturday Evening Dwell and within the video for Come as You Are. However Flipper by no means fairly obtained to cash-in on the grunge second: Unfastened was critically injured in 1994 after rolling his truck off a rustic street and breaking his again.Flipper: Ha Ha Ha – videoThere can be occasional reunions within the years that adopted, most notably within the noughties, when Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic joined for his or her look at 2006’s Thurston Moore-curated All Tomorrows Events: Nightmare B4 Christmas. It led to an surprising fourth Flipper studio album, 2009’s Love. “Krist began rehearsing with us and simply popped out an ad-libbed bass line, and all of us went together with it, and we clicked,” Unfastened mentioned. “All of us realised we didn’t have to simply be sitting again and doing the identical previous stuff, turning into a punk-rock revue kind of band.”Unfastened would exit Flipper quickly after, nevertheless. “I advised [the other members] after the 2009 tour, I’m completed,” he advised Suburban Rebels, citing his many well being points, together with his ongoing lower-back ache. Unfastened later mentioned he had been “voted out” of the group by the opposite members, who employed Jesus Lizard frontman David Yow to take his place for exhibits between 2015 and 2022, whereas punk-rock lifer Mike Watt sang and performed bass on their most up-to-date excursions.Unfastened, in the meantime, continued to battle his critical well being points, which he ascribed to “35 years of punk life. We ain’t obtained no well being protection, no retirement plan.” It was a life-style that had given his 66 years appreciable which means, nevertheless. As he confessed to the San Francisco Bay Guardian twenty years in the past, “For me, it was pertinent to be on the sting. In any other case, I didn’t really feel alive sufficient. It was a problem to see how lengthy you can dwell on the sting with out dying.” This text was up to date on 9 September 2025. Flipper’s guitarist is Ted Falconi, not Tim as beforehand acknowledged.