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"Before you know it as the years go by, you're just like other people you have seen, with all those peculiar human ailments. Just another vehicle for temper and vanity and rashness and all the rest. Who wants it? Who needs it? These things occupy the place where a man's soul should be." -- Henderson the Rain King

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Get In The Van

46 down, 4 to go! Henry Rollins' Get In the Van: On the Road with Black Flag was the latest addition to my 2005 reading list.

The book is a collection of Rollins' journal entries chronicling the bands insane tour schedule from the summer of 1981 to the band's demise in 1986. The two main things I learned from this book were 1) Henry Rollins has anger management issues and 2) Black Flag was the hardest working band in show business.

You could seriously flip to any page in the book and I'd bet 90% of the time there will either be a reference to Rollins punching someone in the face or a story showing just how insanely intense Black Flag tours really were (sleeping at random people's houses, riding in the back of a U-Haul, barely having enough money to buy gas to get to the next town, etc). In fact let's give that a theory a try.

Randomly selected page #85:

"Some guys were throwing squashed beer cans at the Meat Puppets. I grabbed this one guy and nailed him pretty good. It would be great to be able to shoot these people on sight."
Wow. Okay that worked way better than expected. Let's try again.

Randomly selected page #178:

"Some guy jumped onstage and kicked me in the head real hard with his boot. I grabbed him and punched him in the face. Don't hit the singer in the head because he will try to punch your lights out."
Whoa. I think I might have just invented the world's coolest drinking game! Let's try one more for good measure:

Randomly selected page #62:

"Last time I played here sucked real bad. It was in 1981. I got punched out by a skinhead. I had my back turned and he hit me in the back of the head and I went down."

Nice. 3 for 3! And that's just counting punch-out references.

I found the first 50 or so pages of this book quite fascinating. Lots of crazy rock and roll stories that you just can't beat. There are also interesting references to other bands like The Minutemen, The Ramones, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Bad Brains, etc. After awhile though the book really started to drag for me. There's only so many times you can read about punching someone's lights out before it stops being a novel idea. If you're a big Black Flag fan you may enjoy devouring every page, but if you're just a music fan looking for a general chronicle of the underground scene, punk rock, DIY, etc. I'd highly recommend starting with Our Band Could Be Your Life instead.

You can read an excerpt from Get In The Van here.

posted by Jamie at 12:35 AM