I first saw Chip Kinman sing and play guitar when I was a student at UCLA in the mid-‘80s. I was a big fan of Rank And File, the genre-defining cowpunk band formed by him and his brother Tony (the bass player with the booming baritone), before I knew about The Dils, the first-generation and hyper-political punk band they also co-founded. I was excited to check out their noisy industrial duo, Blackbird. They were great.