Completion (lost unreleased Charles Manson album; 1984)

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CharlesMansonGuitar.jpg

Charles Manson playing guitar in San Quentin State Prison, 1983.

Status: Lost

In 1984, while incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison for his role in the 1969 murders of Sharon Tate and Rosemary LaBianca, former cult leader Charles Manson wrote a letter to Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins.[1] At the time, Rollins was living at the offices of SST Records in Long Beach, California. After the two musicians had corresponded back-and-forth for awhile, SST received a letter from Manson's lawyer regarding some acoustic recordings that Manson had been working on in prison. Rollins agreed to produce the material for release, and Manson sent him the tapes.

The album, entitled Completion, was completed by Rollins, mixed, and submitted to SST. The label scheduled Completion for a 1984 release and produced five test pressings of the mastered album. However, when news broke that the fairly well-known label (whose roster at the time included the Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, the Meat Puppets, Soundgarden, Sonic Youth, and Dinosaur Jr., in addition to Black Flag) was releasing an album by the notorious criminal, reaction from the public was swift and fiercely negative. SST founder Greg Ginn (also a member of Black Flag) even reported receiving death threats over the planned release.

Availability

The release of Completion was cancelled by SST Records, and as of 2020 the album remains unreleased. Henry Rollins owns two of the five copies pressed, and the other three were most likely owned by Manson himself until his death in 2017. The whereabouts of those three records since Manson's death are unknown.

Reference