Nervous Breakdown

***Nervous Breakdown*** is the debut release by both Black Flag and SST Records. It was released in January 1979.

### Recording

The recording of *Nervous Breakdown* was financed out of the pockets of Greg Ginn from proceeds he had made with his ham radio business, Solid State Tuners. He had made the acquaintance of Glen “Spot” Lockett a few years earlier; Lockett was apprenticing at Media Art, a studio that had recently completed construction.

The band recorded eight songs at Media Art in January of 1978 with David Tarling, Media Art’s house engineer, supervising the session. Brian Migdol was the drummer during the sessions. It is commonly misconstrued that Spot was the actual producer and engineer of the sessions, but he pointed out in his liner notes of the 1982 outtakes anthology *Everything Went Black* that his involvement in the sessions was limited to microphone placement during the tracking sessions, and doing rough mixes for the band to hear and take home on cassette.

Initially, the record was supposed to be released by Bomp! Records, but the band felt that Bomp! Was taking too long to release it. Ginn cancelled the deal with Bomp!, and having already been involved in printing catalogs for Solid State Tuners as well as a ham radio fanzine, elected to pay for the pressing himself and simply looked up a pressing plant in the phone book. He and bassist Chuck Dukowski then confounded SST Records, borrowing the logo and label name from his ham radio business.

The initial pressing of *Nervous Breakdown* was 2,000 copies. The original sleeve did not use the Black Flag logo associated with the band today. (Later pressings introduced the Black Flag logo, but deleted all of the individual musician credits). By the time the record was released, Migdol had already left the band and been replaced by ROBO. In addition, Dukowski is credited on the back sleeve under his birth name, Gary McDaniel. According to Dukowski, also from the *Everything Went Black* liner notes, the band were able to use the record as “a badge of legitimacy” to begin getting live gigs in the Los Angeles area.

Four other songs were recorded during the sessions: “Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie”, “I Don’t Care”, “White Minority” and “No Values”. All four recordings were released in 1982 as part of ‘’Everything Went Black’’. “White Minority” and “No Values” would be released with Ron Reyes on vocals as part of *Jealous Again*, while “Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie” would not see release until *Damaged*, with GHenry Rollins singing.

### Release History

The EP remains in print both in its original 7” vinyl EP form and as a 5” CD single in a cardboard mini-album sleeve. It is also available as part of the anthology *The First Four Years*. It has also seen release as a 3” CD single, a 10” colored vinyl EP, and as part of the compilation album *The 7-Inch Wonders Of The World*.

### Track Listing

All tracks written by Greg Ginn except where noted. On the original vinyl, Track 1 was on the first side and the other three tracks were on the second side.

1. Nervous Breakdown 2:07
2. Fix Me 0:55
3. I’ve Had It 1:20
4. Wasted (Keith Morris, Greg Ginn) 0:51

## Black Flag

* Keith Morris - vocals
* Greg Ginn - guitars
* Chuck Dukowski (credited as Gary McDaniel) - bass
* Brian Migdol - drums

## Production

* Black Flag - producers (It is presumed that Greg and Chuck did most of the actual production duties).
* David Tarling - engineer
* Spot - assistant engineer
* Raymond Pettibon - artwork