LOL, comparing Black Flag to Van Halen is like, well hell I cant even put it into words.
Van Halen changed the way people looked at rock guitar and what was possible, and they did it in a pop song format. I think most of the 90s hair bands were inspired by Van Halen, either Roth as a frontman or Eddie as the axe man. Plus they inspired all the pyro tech guitar players for a couple of decades.
I remember me and another guy I grew up with listening to the first album the first time and we just looked at each other like, WTF???? I thought they had a couple of guitar players.
I think many of you that are a bit younger than me, dont realize the impact they had on music, they were huge, as big as it gets, and at the time some of the older bands such as Zep and Aerosmith kinda went downhill, they brought heavy rock back to the masses.
They were a huge influence on me. If you happened to catch them back in the day, you would have been totally floored, thier concerts were just like no other, plus unlike many groups of the era they had a sense of humor about them.
And I know I may go against the grain, cause they have lost a little step, and also lost thier vocal harmonys when Michael left, but they still can rock as good as anyone.
I personally like Black Flag, Greg Kinn, and Henry Rollins, but comparing them to Van Halen is just stupidity in my opinion. There is no comparison.
"A winks as good as nod to a blind man"