So some of the Black Flag members went personally to the pressing plant and applied labels over the logo which read, “ As a parent, I found it an anti-parent record,” which was the label head’s exact quote.

It was only then that the president of MCA took one listen to Damaged and claimed it was “anti-parent” which lead to MCA refusing to distribute the already pressed and packaged record with it’s logo on the lower right corner on the back. Having been in a distribution deal with Unicorn, which at the time was associated with MCA, 25,000 copies were made in the initial pressing. And thus was born Damaged, Black Flag’s debut album, which was arguably, along with Minor Threat’s first EP, the first hardcore record.īlack Flag recorded the album at Unicorn Studios, which was owned by the SST label. Most of the backing tracks on Damaged had been recorded beforehand, and Rollins ended up having to overdub the vocals. After a couple of attempts to make a full-length went sour since releasing their 1978 debut EP Nervous Breakdown, and having already gone through three singers, a 20-year-old by the name of Henry Rollins stepped up to the plate to take on vocal duties.

Black flag damaged