The Portable Henry Rollins
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3.9 • 9 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
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...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Some books should come with warning stickers plastered on their covers. A prime candidate for such a label is The Portable Henry Rollins: "Warning: This book contains graphic images of abusive parents, gratuitous death and destruction, and sex with giant insects." Certainly not for the squeamish, this collection of excerpts from Rollins's 11 books published by his own company, 2.13.61 (including Get in the Van), jars readers with its rawness and hate. Much like his work in the seminal punk band Black Flag and now as a spoken-word artist and frontman for The Rollins Band, Rollins blurs his writing at the frayed edges where reality ends and imagination begins. This book is chock-full of irksome rants about suicide, the murder of Rollins best friend Joe Cole and the writer's obsession with death. This is not to say that some workings of Rollins's mind and pen aren't twisted genius. His simple, staccato prose and verse suit the voice in which he writes, and his gifts of honesty and observation shine through in accounts of life on the road. He even gives insight into the 1986 dissolution of Black Flag, why he despises love and his self-described role as a performer. Taken in small doses, this writing is tolerable; swallowed chapter after chapter, though, leaves readers anesthetized. Caveat lector.
