AUSTIN, Texas — Aging Black Flag founder and lead guitarist Greg Ginn mainly hired a bunch of Zoomers to be his new bandmates so he’d have someone to help him get rid of the abundance of unnecessary browser toolbars he’s installed on his PC over the years, sources within SST Records confirmed.
“I’ll admit, I was a bit confused when my audition ended up being two minutes of singing followed by an hour of Greg grilling me about how good I am with computers,” new Black Flag vocalist Max Zanelly confessed. “It’s not a bad gig, though. I have to do the same thing for my grandpa all the time, so I figured I might as well get paid for it. Besides, purging Greg’s PC of malware definitely beats band practice. We usually only get a few songs in before he sits us all down in a circle and makes us listen to him play the theremin. He typically starts to nod off after that.”
Ginn himself explained that hiring bandmates who grew up in the internet age just made practical sense.
“Mike V used to handle all the AOL stuff when he wasn’t causing all that infernal racket with that skateboard of his, anyway. But he’s only 16 years younger than me, for goodness’ sake! These new kids really know a thing or two about browsing the information superhighway, let me tell you! I bet they can even help our next album go ‘viral’ on that ‘TikTok’ forum,” Ginn said as new drummer Bryce Weston and bassist David Rodriguez stared vacantly into the distance, seemingly already numb to this sort of thing. “That was my main reason for hiring them. The fact that they’re also musicians who can help me record the album was just a convenient bonus!”
Local music fan and social media manager Donny Gribbin says he can see how this problem arose, and where Ginn is coming from.
“Like many senior citizens, Greg tends to just click ‘yes’ on every prompt his computer gives him, then wonders why he suddenly has 37 toolbars and keeps getting redirected to scam sites that use comic sans,” Gribbin said. “Struggling with technology just kind of goes with the territory of getting older – and being a Ginn, for that matter. I mean, have you ever seen Raymond try to tweet? I can see why Greg would want some tech-savvy youths around. It certainly makes a lot more sense than him wanting every Black Flag show to look like he’s a high school janitor who got roped into filling in on guitar for the kid who got sick just before the battle of the bands.”
At press time, former Black Flag vocalist and “What The…” album cover artwork creator Ron Reyes was reportedly thinking about reaching out to Ginn’s new bandmates so they could teach him to be better at MS Paint.