I am a disgruntled, cranky, increasingly disillusioned rock and roll fan — a man who really wants to believe in the transformative, healing properties of loud, fast music — and as I stare out at today’s pop-musical landscape, I’m filled with despair. I mean, it’s just a vast panorama of shit, from one end to the other. Music targeted at the masses has gotten so awful that it almost literally defies description. (How do you rail against performances that were born and bred inside a machine, as most modern “hits” are today?) “Rock and roll” — at least the kind foisted on the masses by today’s music/multi-media conglomerates — is just as depressing, if for different reasons. “Alternative” is a word that has completely lost all its meaning. And even music that strives to be new, as made by kidz who have never actually heard the old stuff… sounds so much like the old stuff that I find myself retreating further and further into my opium den of ancient, scratchy 45s and — yes, it’s true — 78 RPM records. I’m becoming a dragon robe-wearing high priest in E. Pluribus Gergley’s church of Nothing New Is Worth a Shit. It’s comforting.
People like me are why Henry Rollins seems to exist. He’s full of righteous indignation about the State Of Rock Things. He’s got punk cred answers where the rest of us struggle to articulate our questions. He makes aging hipsters feel all warm and fuzzy inside, as he rails against the awfulness of “the system” while simultaneously hailing the DIY ethos of the kidz and their basement-party rock politics. He’s our Jimmy Hoffa, our Teddy Roosevelt — our Mussolini. He makes our brain trains run on time, makes us feel good to be Rock Germans again.
The question is: is he actually an asshole? I’m really not sure. Do I prefer Hank Rollins the art-poet? The game show host? The rock philosopher? Who is Henry Rollins, anyway? Do you like Henry Rollins? I really want to know.
I look forward to your responses,
HVB
i interviewed rollins for the campus paper in ’85 when he was on a spoken-word tour supporting the publication of polio flesh. when i asked him about the concept of “selling out” he responded that he wanted to be on mtv and that his goal was to change mtv for the better. the seeds of the eventual commercialization of rollins (details magazine’s “man of the year”) were evident back then. he was friendly and personable, incongruently so for someone whose performance moments earlier had included a story of serving his father’s heart to friends for dinner, causing some to get up and leave the show.
When I first became aware of Rollins in the ’90s (I am not of the Black Flag generation), he seemed like someone whose enthusiasm far outstripped his talent. Really, this guy who just screams a lot is going to inform the Youth of America about Miles and Trane?
I’ve warmed up to him since then, for the most part. I do think he walks the walk, with the USO tours, trips to third-world countries for National Geographic, etc. He does seem to really want to understand how people live in other cultures and also promote a progressive-leaning mindset to people who might not otherwise entertain such thoughts. His episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast was very good. All of this has little to do with his status in the rock world, though.
I don’t give e crap about Rollins. Never have. And anyone who talks in terms of “music is alive and well and doing great” is not someone who interests me. It’s like saying “I like food.” It just doesn’t mean anything.
He’s an army brat, right? I get the sense he was one of those kids with a hard-ass parent who wanted to do his own thing, promising his highly disappointed parent that he would do it right. Then he went about creating his own path using all the tools his hard-ass parent gave him. Hard-Ass Parent had to acknowledge that Son did OK. Son carries on, keeping to the path his hard-ass parent set out for him, pleased as punch with the new shrubbery he planted along that path.
Rollins’ main strength seems to be that he’s got PRESENCE. He could spout off anything and sound sincere and intelligent. I don’t doubt that he is, but he leans so heavily on his PRESENCE that it becomes his weakness as much as his strength. I have trouble listening to whatever he’s actually saying or singing; I just enjoy the PRESENCE for what it is.
I saw Rollins Band once and liked them a lot even though I couldn’t have cared less about the music. He was stalking the stage in gold gym shorts and nothing else – not even shoes. He had a giant sun tattoo on his back. He seemed really worked up and into whatever he and the band were going on about. It was fun. It made me feel like getting worked up about whatever it is that I go on about. In that way I find Rollins inspiring and valuable. And yes, he seems like he’d be “good people” if you ran into him on the street or at a party.
I’m glad that this thread hasn’t turned in to a long list of hating on Rollins.
I like him. He’s not tremendously talented, but Black Flag was a band that was always willing to take risks and didn’t pigeonhole themselves as much as many punk bands. I find their discography still pretty listenable, maybe even more listenable as they have become a historical artifact. And that even includes Family Man and some of the very dated (but now actually kind of quaint) spoken word stuff.
He’s not much of a poet, but his spoken word material, both with Black Flag and without, did make poetry a possibility for people who otherwise might not have considered it relevant.
Add all that up, and he seems a guy of limited talent who actually achieved quite a bit more than he ought to have, and who continues to push for things he believes in. That he does so in forums where purists might consider him to be selling out is an example of his being more open-minded in many ways than they are.
I think his message, about staying true to principles and getting the word out and so on, is always half hokum, but half a crucially important point. Seriously: young people need to learn that DIY culture and music and art is a great thing to do with one’s life, and they need people who are willing to tell them.
For someone who’s not much of a singer and not much of a writer either, he’s done a lot more with his limits than many people have done with much more impressive talent.
I don’t even mind watching his show if I don’t have anything better to do.
These are some super-thoughtful answers, and I appreciate them!
While I’m not a fan of Black Flag and sometimes wish Rollins would switch to decaf, for the most part he comes off as an intelligent and articulate guy behind the bluster. I bet he’d be great dinner conversation.
This is a tricky one. I liked Black Flag when I was a young suburban kid thinking punk was kinda cool. And I saw them put on a blistering show at the 9:30 back in 83-ish. I have their first Jealous Again EP , their “illegal” double album and some other stuff. I was sold.
Then I got older and wiser. And saw that Liar Video which is absolutely so bad in every possible way that it made me rethink my early Rollins affair.
here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxrd_jZJxkg
Can a song be so horrible that it paints every other song that came before it with the same horrible brush. (a future Town hall post perhaps?) If so, that did it for me.
I agree with all the “more presence than talent” argument. And in retrospect, even though you have to give BF props for being one of the first hardcore bands, I can’t listen to their crappy music any more. I think TV party is one of the worst, most embarrassing songs in the punk canon. I can still listen to almost any band on the SST roster — minutemen, meat puppers, husker du, etc … and even Minor Threat kicks Black Flags ass.
I know every punk must grow up and get a real job — Henry playing another cop in a movie perhaps — he’s turned into sort of a joke. I wish he had a better sense of humor.
Sometimes its better for pioneers to get out and not tarnish their own legacy. Iggy Pop are you listening?
Oh, and to your original crankiness about the state of music, I would say you. are. wrong. my. friend.
The democratization of the recording and releasing process has open the proverbial floodgates of cool music from bands you and I have never heard of. Sure, a lot that I hear is bad — but there is a lot of hipster, cool music that is surprisingly great.
Since a lot of these bands aren’t fighting to get on one radio station or signed to one label, the shackles are off and they’re making music like they just don’t care if you like it. And that’s when it gets really interesting.
You just need a cool 17-year old to turn you onto it.
Hey, you should get your cool 17 year-old to do a periodic series here — one that’s designed specifically to open up the ears and minds of people literally old enough to be her mom and dad. That would rule — and I would appreciate it. Just, like, one song a week — that’s all I need to keep the faith.
Look in the background of that “Liar” video. See what I see? Yep, it’s a Paul Reed Smith guitar. I’m serious — no good music has ever been made by anybody playing one of those things. I challenge anybody to find me some. I need visual evidence. One good song featuring a Paul Reed Smith guitar.
I wish he had a better sense of humor.
Nice! I keep a list of ‘worst party guests’ in the back of my head (currently: Steven Spielberg and Paul McCartney). Welcome, Henry!
I totally LOVE Liar, song and video. Sue me.
Completely agree about this, Machinery…
For me he sits alongside people like Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell and Yes – I am extremely glad that they are out there doing their thing, but would rather not have to listen to it.
I grew up in Hastings, about ten miles from Macca’s farm. I’ve been given to understand that Heather McCartney (Linda’s daughter before she married Paul) came to my 18th birthday party and Linda came to collect her in the bright pink Mini she used to drive around the streets of East Sussex. I had no idea she was there and I missed meeting her, but given how drunk I would have been by then it’s probably just as well.
Macca used to have his hair cut in a really grungey little barbershop about a twenty second walk from where I lived when I left home, although I never saw him.
Rollins talks fast and forcefully so you might miss his incoherent arguments. Music is alive and well being made in front of 8 guys in a basement. Their new album is a CD-R, go borrow it. How does that jibe with him name checking punk banks of the 70’s and 80’s we’ve all heard that exist as part of our music shared language?
I saw Black Flag in the day (85?). They are about the only Cali hardcore I can still listen to. But these days, he gets paid to be the guy he is with the point of view he has to draw eyeballs that are attracted to his kind of thing. He the Anthony Bourdain of rock.
k, you’re in the running for post of the week with that Bourdain bit. Bravo!