Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag

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Summary: Hardcore Modern Classic
Review: I've probably read this book about 3 or 4 times since I bought it about 2 years ago. I'm a huge Black Flag fan, as anyone'd probably have to be to get interested in this book in the first place. However, once you actually start reading it, at least in my case, you find it to not necessarily be so much about the band as the experiences rollins was going through at the time. Kind of in the vein of Kerouac's "On the Road" if you ask me.

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Summary: Rollins eye opening experiences have opened mine!!
Review: I've read and listened to this book over and over and now understand the music even more than before. I lived the music of Rollins' "FLAG" years and am totally amazed at the effort it took to produce. If your intrest is music as a performer or listener this book will open your eye's to the reality most real bands face. More than just a book about touring, it goes beyond that, into the life of a man growing up in harsh conditions just for the music. THIS IS A MUST READ!!!! I also highly recommend the audio version read by Rollins.

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Summary: Thoughts from inside the mind of a tortured soul
Review: I've read this thing about 3 times now, it never gets old. To tell you the truth, I didn't really dig punk rock when it was happening (whether it was East Coast or Euro). I kind of don't dig it now. I am, however, a musician and have spent some time on the road. Nothing like Rollins!! This guy had it bad! Full of wit and somber moments, this is a roller coaster ride. The interesting thing to note is that Henry lived the most jaded life and managed to articulate it perfectly so that you could hear the roar, smell the sweat and feel the pain. Even if you don't like the music that he makes, this book is more than entertaining to read, it is an experience!

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Summary: Good stuff... for a guy who can't write.
Review: If you haven't read the book yet, let me lay your suspicions to rest... Henry Rollins is indeed illiterate. But! That fact does nothing to repress the raw energy bursting from every page of this book. This is the stuff. True accounts from the front lines. The first two chapters are basically just Rollins telling stories from Black Flag. The rest of the book is journal entries, and my only complaint is that Henry comes off as retarded when he tries to play the hardcore intellectual. This book is excellent as an anthropological record, not as a literary feat. It's a coffee table book for degenerates. (Man is there a lot of good juicy violence in here! Rollins gets his ( ) kicked like 500 times!) Good stuff.

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Summary: The most honest book i`ve ever read.
Review: If you havent already read it do it now. MR.Rollins is one of most honest people around. Not like any braindead rockstar of today. He toughts about everything but its his and thats whats important. You can almost feel the "alonity" that lurks behind the fort of self-doubt.

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Summary: .
Review: if you're a fan of rollins, you'll really enjoy this book. it really sucked me in and gets you all dark and moody, but it's great!!

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Summary: oh shut up
Review: If You've ever read anything Henry writes, you know that he just writes stuff down as he thinks of it. This tells of his hardships and trials from the road, after first joining BLACK FLAG. On up until they were well-known, in the punk/underground-scene. Some really great stuff. For beginning Henry enthusiasts, check out the "The Portable Henry Rollins". A compilation of some of his works, and some very moving reading material. Not for the faint of heart!

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Summary: True Tales From The Road...
Review: If You've ever read anything Henry writes, you know that he just writes stuff down as he thinks of it. This tells of his hardships and trials from the road, after first joining BLACK FLAG. On up until they were well-known, in the punk/underground-scene. Some really great stuff. For beginning Henry enthusiasts, check out the "The Portable Henry Rollins". A compilation of some of his works, and some very moving reading material. Not for the faint of heart!

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Summary: How to become famous the hard way
Review: Imagine living your life for nothing other than the chance to express yourself honestly in music night after night. Now, imagine you are puting your heart and soul into every song you thrash out, even though there is little chance of you ever becoming a main stream success...even though you barely have enough money to eat, you ride in a rickety van for hundreds of miles between gigs, and club owners, promoters, cops and skinheads are always screwing you over or beating you up. But you don't care: you live for the music and you do not compromise. This is exactly how Black Flag, one of the heaviest American rock bands ever, lived for six years while Henry Garfield/Rollins was at the mic. And Rollins' "Get In the Van" is his mesmerizing testimony of that magical time in the eighties that we aging punks remember so fondly...maybe a little too fondly, because many of us at the time thought the punks on stage lived the glamorous lives of their heavy metal brothers...such was not the case, as HR lucidly recollects in his trademark style. I mourn the passing of the energy and heart of the American punk scene. All of the supposedly "heavy" music of today is depressingly lame by comparison. Above all, I miss Black Flag. Fantastic book by a fascinating man.

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Summary: Rollins' Black Flag diary. Reads like war correspondence.
Review: In 1980, Henry Rollins was a teenager living in Arlington, Virginia, USA, just over the river from Washington, DC. He worked as the shift manager for a Haagen-Dazs ice cream shop near Georgetown University, and was a huge fan of a Southern California punk rock band called Black Flag. One day, Henry and his friend Ian MacKaye (who later formed Fugazi) drove to New York City to see Black Flag play at the Peppermint Lounge. They played later at a small club down the street, and Henry jumped on stage and took the mike for a song. A few days later, Henry was called back to New York to audition for the band. Henry spent the next six years riding in vans, sleeping in the back of trucks, getting beaten and mauled on stage, and fronting the baddest, most primal rock and roll band in the history of the world. These accounts and more are in Get in The Van, a collection of Rollins' personal diary entries during his tenure with the band. An abridged version of this book is also available as a self-narrated compact disc.