For more than three decades legendary guitarist Greg Ginn has been an innovator in the music industry,
beginning with the iconic punk rock group Black Flag and continuing through a number of creative
projects in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
So, it is no surprise that Ginn will be appearing at the 2009 Black Swamp Arts Festival with a set of
entirely new tunes and two bands,
The Taylor Texas Corrugators and Jambang, both distinct and separate projects, even though the line up
remains the same from show to show.
“Both groups are instrumental. The Texas Corrugators is all improvised,” Ginn said in a recent telephone
interview. “Jambang is kind of a hybrid of electronics. We use a lot of looping, which is quite
different.”
Jambang headlines the Electronic Music Stage this year, while the Taylor Texas Corrugators plays the Main
Stage on Sunday. Ginn is joined by guitarist Gary Piazza and drummer Dominic Feedarn.
For Ginn the opportunity to perform and write music for two distinctly different groups night after night
is a natural extension of his musical drive. For instance, in Jambang Ginn performs on bass and works
from a set of structured loops to build music energy, rhythm and, for lack of a better term, a solid jam
bar after bar.
In the Taylor Texas Corrugators Ginn switches to guitar, and builds improvised instrumentals that
incorporate elements of Latin music, jazz, funk, rock and even classical from a basic key or musical
idea.
“I like playing in both bands and I like playing bass and guitar,” Ginn said. “Also it is nice to not
just do improvisation only and also work on songs with structure and really dig in and explore that. Of
course Jambang has a lot of improvisation within the structure.”
Both bands drive the heart of Ginn’s post-punk experimental guitar style that is exploratory without
falling into obscurity. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Ginn’s projects is seeing them both
perform within a narrow timeframe.
The players stay the same. The instruments, for the most part, stay the same, but they sound like two
completely different bands.
“Once we go on tour we sometimes go back into the same territory automatically, just because we play
every night,” Ginn said of the
Taylor Texas Corrugators. “Themes develop into songs, but we don’t plan out the sets. I try to give it
some variety. When most people in the audience find out it is improvised, they are surprised because it
comes across as a structured song.”
However, his focus remains largely on live music and creating new songs for each band on each tour. For a
living legend of the punk music world, from his Black Flag days, it is his way of stepping out of the
box, finding a new sound and reinventing himself as a musician year after year.
“Certainly there are a lot of people that are Black Flag fans and then they find out about these groups
and they become fans as well, but we don’t want people coming to our shows expecting to hear old songs.
It’s not what we do,” Ginn said. “There are a lot of music fans that are not tied to a certain genre or
era and they are open minded, and those types of music listeners become fans of ours.”