Headache EP released

Big Black’s first release for Touch and Go was the Headache EP in spring 1987. The cover artwork for the limited original edition of the EP was a pair of forensic photos of an accident victim whose head had been split down the middle, and the record was packaged in a black plastic “body bag” to conceal the artwork from sensitive consumers. A sticker on the EP’s cover read “Not as good as Atomizer , so don’t get your hopes up, cheese!” According to Durango, “We didn’t want to sit there and screw people. If we felt it wasn’t as good, then we should just be honest about it.” Indeed, Headache recycled many of the same sounds and themes found on Atomizer , showing signs that the band was lagging creatively. Durango later remarked that “I was feeling tapped out ideawise. At that point I think we had tried everything that we wanted to try, musically and in the studio.”