Flex Your Head

Flex Your Head is a compilation album of music by hardcore punk groups of the American East Coast, especially Washington DC, published in January 1982 by Dischord Records. It also represents the seventh release and the first LP of the label

Genesis

Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson in 1980 were active in the band The Teen Idles. Out of necessity, that there was no record company that released their music, they founded the label Dischord Records. Their first release was the EP Minor Disturbance. Starting from the Teen Idles, several new hardcore bands founded in Washington DC as S.O.A. with the later Henry Rollins, Government Issue and Youth Brigade. In January 1982, decided the young label, which had just moved into a new apartment, to bring out a compilation with their fellow bands. Like all other publications of the label they used the DIY -Maxime and released the compilation entirely in-house, by paying the pressing plant to production to creating and sticking together of the record covers. The album was released as the seventh release of the label. It mainly unreleased songs were used, in particular those of the now-defunct band The Teen Idles house and the follow-up band Minor Threat.

Among the featured groups also included Artificial Peace, Deadline, Youth Brigade, Iron Cross, Red C, Untouchables, Void and Government Issue. It contains a total of 32 pieces. The sampler also contains the first official publications of Government Issue, Void, Untouchables, Deadline, Artificial Peace, and the only release of Red C. The record was released with four different album covers.

Importance

This first compilation of Dischord is one of the most important publications of hardcore. It laid the foundation for the supremacy of the DC hardcore scene, from the hardcore punk became one of the most sub-scenes of the punk subculture of the 1980s. Through the compilation of the first title of Minor Threat and the precursor band Teen Idles also the foundation was laid for the Straight Edge movement.

A similar compilation called This Is Boston, Not LA released a few months later in Boston.

Title list

Versions

The first pressing came with a violin on the cover and was pressed 4,000 times, the second press with a grain field 3,000 times. A third version with a hazy head appeared in a 3000-meter run. A special version for the United Kingdom appeared with the symbol of the straight edge movement, three large X on the cover and was distributed by Alternative Tentacles. Later reissues in CD format contain miniature versions of the album cover and a reprint of the text plus cover sheet.