THROWBACK: Black Flag -- Damaged: Review

Black Flag -- Damaged

[SST Records]

Legendary hardcore punk outfit Black Flag released their fiery debut record Damaged on December 5th, 1980. This record is a landmark album in the history of punk as it was an early display of the anti-establishment passion and furious attitude that was unique to the genre. The dark topics of Damaged mixed with its lightning fast breakbeats still make it stand out as a pillar of the punk rock genre.

Although universally loved long after its release, Black Flag had interesting love-hate relationships with critics and fans. While the album generally passed under the radar of most media publications, there was a strong underground following for the record from rabid fans everywhere.

I say ‘rabid’ fans because at every concert, there was a constant battle for stage space between the band itself and the audience viciously trying to climb on stage. Sure, singer Henry Rollins’s main job in the band was indeed to sing, but in concerts he doubled as a bodyguard, ruthlessly punching insolent audience members and throwing them by their shirt collars back into the crowd. Rollins was not a playful frontman and his attitude as a contrarian slam poet with biceps to break bones is what made Damaged sound so ‘damaged’.

That’s not to say he hijacked the band with his entrance in 1980 though. Guitarist and primary songwriter Greg Ginn penned the lyrics with Rollins, harnessing his angry demeanor as another vehicle for the band’s holistic anger. Ginn’s piercing guitar lines and atonal solos were complemented by rhythm guitarist Dez Cadena’s frantic strumming and Chuck Dukowski’s vile bass strokes.

Although the songs on Damaged are mixed pretty quietly, the recording sessions were anything but. The album was recorded at Unicorn Studios on Santa Monica Blvd. in Los Angeles, which was right above a jazz club, forcing the band to play as loud as possible to drown out the noise in the recordings. There were 25,000 copies pressed and distributed by Unicorn and MCA before the head of MCA pulled back on their support after listening to it, calling it an “anti-parent record”. This sentiment made the band so happy, they decided to print it on a sticker to cover the MCA endorsement!

However, this was a setback to the rollout of Damaged and Black Flag faced even more hardship past the release. The distributor Unicorn denied the band any royalties from the sale of the record and their European tours flopped as audience members spit on them, roadies stole their food, and critics panned them. All this resent in the band made them the ultimate outcasts and their music was a direct result of that anger.

The opening track of Damaged is “Rise Above”, a wild anti-establishment anthem that had the band calling out the society that abused them. A plunging guitar line with breakbeat drums opens the song until the main riff comes in and Rollins starts shouting up to the powers that be. “Jealous cowards try to control… they distort what we say!” Rollins screams, “Society’s arms of control… Think they’re smart, can’t think for themselves!” All of these while screams are mixed in with invigorating groups vocals: “Rise Above! We’re Gonna Rise Above!” The combined energy of the whole band and the group vocals of collective power make this feel like a young man’s union song.

Politics are up front in “Police Story” as well where Rollins recalls the hostility between marginalized groups and the police. Considering how many run-ins with law enforcement the band had already up to the point of this record, it’s no surprise that they hated the police. Rollins’s scratchy growl imbues hatred as he yells:

“Fucking city is run by pigs

They take the rights away from all the kids

Understand that we're fighting a war we can't win

They hate us, we hate them.”

The band confronts incarceration in the poetic “Padded Cell” where Dukowski and Ginn’s lyrics compare the confines of living on earth to being in a mental facility. “Damaged II” is a furious anthem in contemplating the perpetrator of your own abuse and your anger towards them, be it the police, capitalism, or societal standards.

Although the band had plenty to say about society, its most pained lyrics are in its introspective cuts like “Depression” where the band confronts frustration in sadness. The lyrics of this song talk of depression as confinement that the singer needs to break out of or it’ll kill him. On “Thirsty and Miserable” and “Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie”, the band tackles addiction and the dissonant guitar lines in each song fit with the fiendish attitude of the narrators in each song.

The most painful cut on the record happens to be the longest song on the record as well: “Damaged I”. This heart wrenching closer is truly painful to listen to and makes you sympathize with the pain in the record. Rollins screeches in pain as he opens up about his abuse and his violent demeanor. He abstractly alludes to repressed memories as a child and why that makes him as cold and distant as he is now. I mostly want to leave this up to interpretation but I suspect this song is related to Rollins’ relationship with his father who left him and his mother as a young child. The slow chugging beat of this song is a huge contrast to the 120 bpm beats of the rest of the album and makes the pain in this track so much more guttural.

Even when the band took breaks from the political commentary and abuse, they have some truly funny moments. My personal favorite track is “TV Party”, the silly anthem that brings the whole band together as bros watching TV and getting drunk. The tongue-and-cheek attitude is displayed in its lyrics of “We’ve got nothin’ better to do, than watch TV and have a couple of brews!” and in the sequences where each member chants they’re favorites from 80’s television. The hilarious group vocals get even funnier in the second half when the TV set breaks and Rollins and company sing about how sad they are that they can’t have their TV party anymore. This whole song is tied together with its wicked guitar licks and clapping snares that make it a fun time for any listener.

The tight thirty-five minutes of Damaged feels simultaneously like a fleeting flash of fun and an excruciating dive into the injustices of living in 80’s LA. Either way, this album was a landmark in the beginning of hardcore punk, both in the music on it and the story of commercial failure and DIY production surrounding it. Ginn and Dukowski’s indie label SST would go on to be the most important label in pushing the hardcore genre, signing legendary outfits like Sonic Youth, Bad Brains, The Descendents, Saint Vitus, and Soundgarden. Even with all its cultural influence and the wave of bands that followed in Black Flag’s footsteps with the genre, Damaged still stands as a hell-of-a-time that makes you want to empathize, laugh, and scream your guts out.

RIYL: Dead Kennedys, Sonic Youth, Black Sabbath

Listen To: “TV Party”