Rating: 
Summary: Utter Crap
Review: While reading the first page of the introduction, I realized I made a mistake in purchasing this book. First off, what was I thinking buying a BIOGRAPHY of Henry Rollins, a man who has been consistently putting out autobiographical material for years?!!! After smacking myself for that I continued to read on.
This is not a difficult book to read. In fact, it is insultingly too simple. It is obvious that James Parker is completely taken by Rollins, a fine thing, but please...if there's something we can all gain from Rollins himself, it's the insight to take everything with a grain of salt. Well if you're going to read this book you better have a few hundred pounds of salt on hand.
I anticipated that this would be a book on Rollins, the man. Nope. It's basically the history of the DC punk scene and of Black Flag, with some anecdotal filler dispersed throughout. Anyone who is a big enough fan of Rollins to buy this book probably already knows about the DC scene and Rollins' friendship with Ian MacKaye. That said, any fan of Rollins interested in his work has most likely heard "In The Van" thereby eliminating the need to read a history of Black Flag by some random guy with the writing skills of a tenth grader.
My advice to anyone who is considering the purchasing of this book is to NOT fork over any money toward it at all. Reading the works that Rollins has put out himself, listening to his spoken word and music will prove to be much more informative than this drivel.
The only thing that gives this book one star is the information on Kira. She is hardly ever mentioned and it was nice to learn a little bit more about her role in Black Flag. As a female, it's annoying to read only about girls as groupies and sex objects; I did find it nice to have information on a girl who could actually DO something included.
Rating: 
Summary: The Rollins Bio that Wasn't
Review: Writing an engaging book about rocker-writer-monologist Henry Rollins is pretty easy, because Rollins himself has the can't-look-away magnetism that is the elusive ingredient of fame. Rollins' ineffable crowd pull has become clear to those, like myself, who have kept an eye on Rollins since his time with L.A. punkers Black Flag. James Parker was not that shrewd, then, in spotting a subject that would sell copies of even an unauthorized biography like this one. Though Rollins prolifically records the details of his life, his writing is famously solipsistic and claustrophobic-more focused on immediate feelings than on context and objectivity. Parker needed only to structure Rollins' life into a coherent narrative, fill in some missing details, and he would have a book that would keep fans riveted to the page. It is precisely this minimal approach that Parker takes, apparently by necessity. Parker was shunned by Rollins and his post-Flag inner circle. The narrative of the book seems to have been pieced together through correspondences with four or five of Rollins' former acquaintances, researching articles and interviews, and, of course, researching Rollins' own written accounts. Parker's most talkative interviewees, it seems, were Black Flag roadies and workers at the record label SST during its glory years. The inevitable result is that the book is most detailed about Rollins' years on the road with Black Flag. Rollins does not graduate from Black Flag until page 205 of the 261-page book! The extra details provide perspective, but readers of such Rollins books as Pissing in the Gene Pool and, especially, Get in the Van, will feel that Parker does not dig very far below familiar details. What does it mean to charge that Parker does not dig deep enough? Consider this characteristic passage from page 24: "Nathan Stracjek: 'Ian told me that he offered Henry the job of singing [for the Teen Idles], but Henry wouldn't do it because his girlfriend didn't like him hanging around with him so much.' Girlfriend or not, Garfield [i.e. Rollins] nevertheless became the unofficial fifth member of the group, hanging out at practice, carrying gear, lending support." Girlfriend?! This short passage is the first and last time that the reader is "introduced" to this influential girlfriend. Parker says no more about her, nor does he explore the glaring contrast between Henry's militant skinhead demeanor at the time, and the apparent power that this woman had over him. These sorts of omissions reveal that Parker is less a biographer than a compiler of a detailed chronology. Another example is the revelation that Rollins frequently used LSD during the Flag tours of the early-to-mid eighties. What drew him to it? Why does he not talk about his heavy use of it in the books? What can we learn about the striking contrast between Rollins the publicly straight-edge, health-obsessed road warrior, and Rollins the private daily user of powerful hallucinogenics? Parker leaves so many unanswered-even unacknowledged-questions, that he has practically created an outline for a real Rollins biography. Turned On will reward those who have been bitten by the Rollins bug, but whet their appetite for the biography it should have been. Those who are looking for a good rock biography-not particularly for a Rollins biography-had best look elsewhere.
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