Henry Rollins

Get in the van

'If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light, If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you.' Henry Rollins, renowned spoken-word performer, musician, actor and author of several books, has a unique, hard-edged view of the world. This collection of writings from 1989 - 1991 is the classic Rollins book. From dramatic fiction shorts detailing stark, disturbing realities to gut-wrenching tour journals destroying all misconceptions of the glamour of fame and the music industry; from the challenging poetry to revealing dream sequences, Rollins' writing is unflinching in its honesty, uncompromising in its truth and irresistibly addictive.

Black Coffee Blues

Henry Rollins is an artist whose legendary, no-holds-barred performances encompasses music, acting, and written and spoken word. As Details magazine said when it named Rollins the 1994 Man of the Year: "through two decades of rage and discipline, Henry Rollins has transformed himself from an L.A. punk rocker into a universal soldier. His enemies: slackers and hypocrites. His mission: to steel your soul and rock your world." Rollins was frontman for the seminal punk band Black Flag, and since 1987 has led the Rollins Band, whose ninth album, Come In and Burn, was just released by DreamWorks. As a spoken-word artist, he regularly performs at colleges and theaters worldwide and has released eight spoken-word audiotapes. His album Get in the Van won the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for 1995. As an actor, he has appeared in The Chase, Johnny Mnemonic, Heat, and David Lynch's forthcoming film, Lost Highway. From his days as front man for the band Black Flag and the current Rollins Band to his books and spoken-word audiotapes, Henry Rollins is the music, the attitude, and the voice that takes no prisoners. In his twelve books, he has led us on a hallucinatory journey through the decades--and his mind--with poems, essays, short stories, diary entries, and rants that exist at "the frayed edges where reality ends and imagination begins" (Publishers Weekly). For the first time, the best of his legendary, no-holds-barred writings are available. This collection includes new photos and works from such seminal Rollins books as: High Adventure in the Great Outdoors Art to Choke Hearts Bang! Black Coffee Blues Get in the Van Do I Come Here Often? Solipsist Plus never before released stories and more...

The Portable Henry Rollins

Presents more than 170 prose works that depict the landscape of modern America and the walking wounded who inhabit it

Solipsist

See a Grown Man Cry/Now Watch Him Die compiles previously separate Rollins work from 1988-1991 and 1992, respectively, in one new volume. In this collection Rollins exorcises the demons that emerged after he witnessed the senseless murder of his close friend, Joe Cole. This intense collection of writing includes prose, journal entries, and essays from the 1992 End of Silence world tour.

See a Grown Man Cry ; Now Watch Him Die

Chronicles a tumultuous five-month period during which a punk musician reunites with his former bandmates, tours North America, and appears in various radio and screen performances, in a tale told through a series of irreverent journal entries. Original.

What I Did on My Summer Deracination 2006

A Dull Roar

Popular author, actor, musician, and spoken-word artist Henry Rollins returns to the combative prose that has won him critical acclaim and a legion of devoted fans. The book is divided into three parts: poem, short prose pieces, and a series of mock love letters to a fictional woman who bears a striking resemblance to conservative pundit Ann Coulter.

Roomanitarian

The contents of this book were written all over the world, usually on tour. You get full disclosure of the character building experiences of a young man grinding it out on the independent music circuit. Famine, bitter cold, mean women, crazy women, no women at all. Clouds of locusts fill the sky and the gas gauge hits empty at every turn. When you need to wallow in the mire of your existence with a fellow self-obsessed insomnia-ridden megalomaniac and your friends no longer pick up the phone when you call, reach for this book.

Collected Work, 1983-1987

The First Five

photographs and writings

Occupants

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Billy Childish

Jello Biafra

Real Conversations, No.1 (Henry Rollins Jello Biafra Lawrence Ferlinghetti Billy Childish) (Real Conversations (Re/Search))

A Mad Dash picks up where 2007's A Preferred Blur left off. A seemingly endless stream of words, one after another, details Rollins' travels all over the world, over one hundred performances and the shooting of five documentaries. The book goes right to the end, only stopping at the last page.

Henry Rollins is still writing himself into total obscurity and from the looks of this book, he's almost there! This self-published punk is criminally in several books that bear his name. Someone should have a word with him about that. This back cover blurb is not the first time he has written in third-person singular.

Thank you. -Henry Rollins

Introspective Exhortations And Geographical Considerations 2008

A Mad Dash

"Work on Eye Scream started in 1986. I was crossing America constantly and experiencing the morality shifts, attitudes, and rituals in different parts of the country - the difference in the way people were in the Bible Belt as opposed to New York City, the way blacks and whites interfaced, the intolerance of homosexuality, the morality plays. I started to become aware of how brutal the country is and how much ferocity, cruelty, and oppression are inherent in the culture and how much of it was in me. I wanted to document it and create a book that brought the whole thing to a boil and see w here it left me off. In the summer of 1995, I finished the book and started to edit. Re-reading the manuscript over and over, I realized all the things I had picked up over a decade of playing Devil's advocate and it was inspiring because it clearly defined who my enemies are. As an American, I feel it impossible not to be infuriated by the way things are and have been. I refuse to be happy about the day-to-day and go along with it. There's too much spitting in my face and too much spitting in the faces of people who don't know any other way of life. This book is brutal, and at times, funny. I know that I will probably get a ton of shit for Eye Scream. Enjoy, or better yet... don't." ---- Henry Rollins

Eye Scream

High Adventure in the Great Outdoors

"[A] behind the scenes look at the making of the CD 'Rise above, 24 Black Flag songs to benefit the West Memphis Three' and the subsequent tour"--P. 4 of cover.

Broken Summers

Art to choke hearts

Pissing in the Gene Pool

Now Watch Him Die

Henry Rollins's thought-provoking pieces about the life and times of a world-traveling entertainer are always intense and often humorous. In this book he chronicles a year spent rehearsing, recording, and touring for the Rollins Band's last-ever album, Come in and Burn, and shares travel stories from his trip around the world.

Black Coffee Blues, Pt. 3

Smile, You're Traveling

Do I Come Here Often? includes interviews with Jerry Lee Lewis and Isaac Hayes, articles on Roky Erickson and David Lee Roth and Rollins' 1991Lollapalooza tour journals and features illustrations by Shannon Wheeler("Too Much Coffee Man").

Do I Come Here Often

How do you sell a book like this' It's like offering someone gum that has been previously chewed. Almost all of the material in Before The Chop II has been published in the LA Weekly. You can probably go online and find it at the best possible price. How dare the "writer" go slouching towards the trough with the audacity to re-cycle mere "content" and slap a price on it' It's a damn outrage is what it is! The hubris is bristling, the nest feathering obvious and repellent, the self-delusion total. Self-absorbed much' Running for Congress, perhaps' So again, how in the hell does anyone with a scintilla of integrity foist this carbon based catastrophe on citizens without "Hey, you dumb consumer bastard, feel the full weight of my sneering contempt, reserved just for you!" so blatantly implied' Sometimes, I hate my job. Well, maybe we could say that these are the pieces the way they were intended to be read' That all put together, they make a handy and potentially enjoyable resource for those who don't have time to read them as they stagger and fall into existence every week' Yes! Let's go with that. These are the versions before they were sent to finishing school to be refined and taught to keep their eyes and ears open and their mouths shut. This is the raw and "real" stuff, which also describes the artwork of a three year old. It could be put across that it's all about keeping the "artist" from falling into the depths of starvation and insanity. "I met Henry Rollins a few years ago. I was walking back to my car in the Rite Aid parking lot off of Fairfax. I saw a man urinating on my driver's side door. It was Henry. He smiled, waved with his free hand and said, 'TV party tonight!' then limped away." This is what we're trying to avoid. Sad how things sometimes end up, huh' That some buds never fully bloom' Ah, nature, while often cruel, always the straightest line to the truth. Well, even the mightiest redwood will one day fall. Okay, that's not a good example but nonetheless, on with the show. Get out your handkerchiefs, here it is, Before The Chop II! Can I stop now' The stench is making my eyes burn ...

Henry Rollins

About

Books

Join the club