My friend posted this old Black Flag interview in my MySpace comments yesterday (see item #1), and it made me realize that Henry Rollins has pretty much been a bad ass since, like, forever. So I started writing a 5 item list with examples to explain exactly what, in my opinion, makes him so rad. When I googled him I found a ton of cool shit, and I clicked on stuff and clicked on other things which would themselves warrant an entire post. As a result, this is now “3 Things I Found After I Googled ‘Henry Rollins’ And Clicked On Other Shit”–most of which include or are directly associated with him–because when you think about it, the lists would have been pretty much the same. The dude is everywhere. Someone told me they were reading some book about American hardcore music and there wasn’t really a chapter on Rollins, but he was in pretty much every single chapter. (How can you write a book about American hardcore and not devote [at least!] one whole chapter to the man????) Anyway, whatever. If someone was going to write about me, googled my name, and ended up at shit half as rad as this stuff, I’d be totally fine with getting struck by lightening a second later. So it’s still kind of a “Why Henry Rollins Is Such A Bad-ass” post. Ya dig? So here you have it (in italics. because wordpress is taking away my linebreak tags.):
1. A Black Flag “interview” circa October 1985: who the hell is this kid and how did he allow himself to get so fucking moded? The only semi-obnoxious thing about HR in this clip is that he tries to make the kid spout off a list of the bands on SST Records–even though they were home to some really great bands, it almost makes me want to punch him in the face. He redeems himself by making the kid feel like a dick for talking trash on his own hood. And who the hell would ever ask ANYBODY, “So, are you guys selling out?” in a fucking interview? I bet he felt like a total douchebag when he watched this footage at home later. Either that or he got fired.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_3g4QPojMc]
2. One of the first things I found was obviously henryrollins.com, where I found a link to harmonyinmyhead.com, the radio show that Rollins does on indie103.1 from 8pm-10pm on Tuesday nights. Truthfully, his show is the reason why I got on this severely over done ROLLINS-IS-GOD kick; I listen to it sometimes, but it’s got really bad timing so I haven’t caught it in a while. In the past he’s played stuff like Pink and Brown, XBXRX, Tinariwen, and the second disc of London Calling (The Clash’s Vanilla Tapes), in its entirety. Last Tuesday he played every track, in succession, of a forgotten [by me] DEVO album, Duty Now For The Future, and both of the B-sides. This makes me happy because while on television there was crap like American Idol and Dancing With The Stars (I had to look it up…), Rollins played through an entire album that didn’t have any #1 hits on it.
Devo - Secret Agent Man
[audio http://www.mediamax.com/kindofadraag/Hosted/11%20-%20Devo%20-%20Secret%20Agent%20Man.mp3]
Devo - S.I.B.
[audio http://www.mediamax.com/kindofadraag/Hosted/Swelling%20Itching%20Brain.mp3]
3. Ian MacKaye subbed-in for Rollins on Harmony In My Head like a month ago, and he told this story about how Minor Threat was playing a show in Camden, NJ at this place called The Buff Hall and he got totally brutalized by a car beforehand. We’re talking like, in the fucking parking lot. Some dude smashed into him going like 45 mph and he was later told that he did some crazy flip off the side of another car and landed like 20 feet away from the point of impact. Lost his shoe or something. After a trip to the hospital HE ACTUALLY CAME BACK TO PLAY THE SHOW. End of story, end of list:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1jSrC-2uaY]
