Flipper is a punk rock band from San Francisco, CA. Flipper was founded from former members of the Sleepers and Negative Trend. The name is often seen to be a reference to thalidomide babies, such as the one featured on the cover of their early "Love Canal" single. In fact, the band was named Flipper after Ricky Williams' curious habit of naming all of his pets "Flipper", regardless of their species.

Flipper's music was very shambolic and noisy, and often considered "slow" for a punk band of the time. In many early shows, the band had half the audience on stage with them singing backup vocals, and encouraged horn players to join them for their anthem, "Sex Bomb"; the crowding on stage usually knocked the stringed instruments out of tune. Guitarist Ted Falconi installed spikes in the head of his guitar to help prevent this, but blaring, out-of-tune dissonance became part of the band's signature sound. At the time, San Francisco had a very active scene which combined free form performance and audience participation in the guise of rock and roll shows.

Mark Arm posits in the 2003 documentary American Hardcore that Flipper's charm as a band lies in their ability to upset audiences, while attracting their undivided attention and curiosity at the same time. Their first single, "Love Canal"/"Ha Ha Ha", was widely derided, not only for its offensive cover art, but its bizarre sound, and yet sold many copies in the underground. This, in brief, was the band's concept: to be bad in ways that no band had ever been bad before. Causing some to later label Flipper as "Limp Dick Core" or, "music to fail at having sex to." However, in true Flipper fashion, they even failed to fail, and their audience continued to grow as their outlandish approach appealed to those seeking something different.

Two more singles on Subterranean followed, "Brainwash"/"Sex Bomb" and "Old Lady That Swallowed The Fly"/"Get Away" before Album (also known as Generic Flipper). Their debut LP sees the drone and blare molded into startlingly effective songs, with a lyrically bleak outlook, but humane vulnerability in the vocals, and flashes of genuine musicianship. It is widely considered a classic album of this era. The mayhem contained on the disc is infectious as Will Shatter repeats "Life! Life! Life is the only thing worth living for!" Similarly, "Sex Bomb" is a seven minute track with only one lyric, "She's a sex bomb, my baby, yeah.", intertwined with a raucous yet melodic musical interplay. The original release of the "Sex Bomb" single featured individually hand-made covers.

The follow-up studio album in 1984, Gone Fishin, was even darker and artier than the first LP. It featured the disorientating opening track "The Lights, The Sound, The Rhythm, The Noise", the haunting "Survivors of the Plague" and the decrying of the war machine in the song "Sacrifice".

The original lineup began splintering after a long debauched period of touring, and singer and core member Will Shatter eventually died on December 9, 1987 of a drug overdose after forming A3I (Any Three Initials, a punk outfit whose title mocked the prevalence of acronymic band names). Subterranean packaged the band's singles and some rarities into a collection entitled "Sex Bomb Baby" released in 1987. The cassette edition and later CD rerelease featured three bonus tracks.

By the early 1990s, the band resurfaced with a new single on Subterranean called "Someday"/"Distant Illusion" and began performing again, releasing an all-new studio album in 1993, American Grafishy. Bruce Loose had become a heroin addict by this point. After Loose allegedly stole the band's master tapes from Subterranean's warehouse, he and DePace brokered a deal with powerful Los Angeles-based music industry figure Rick Rubin. Rubin used his attorneys to quash Subterranean's claim to the music and soon re-released Album Generic Flipper and the singles compilation Sex Bomb Baby on his Infinite Zero label. Even with Henry Rollins onboard as the latter label's A&R, the label soon went defunct. By 1997, Flipper's groundbreaking music went largely out of print, with Rubin still holding onto the rights, though tentative plans had been made for the band's catalogue to be re-released on Rubin's American Recordings in 2007.

The original members of Flipper, barring the late Will Shatter (with Bruno DeSmartass replacing Shatter once again as he had done for a 1982 tour), reunited to support CBGB on August 22 and August 28, 2005. Singer Bruce Loose appeared on stage with a cane. This line-up of Flipper then continued to play live again beginning in 2006, with plans for a new album to be recorded and released in 2007.

In 2008, the band recorded a new album with Novoselic, Flipper have announced that they will finally be releasing their new album as a "twin album" featuring 1 album, titled 'Love', with new studio material and a second live album, titled 'Fight' featuring both old and new songs.

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