Customer Reviews

The Boxed Life: A Spoken Word Performance

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This CD set was my first experience with Henry Rollins and it drove me to buy every other spoken word album he has ever released. For those of you who want a "jumping on" point, this is it.

I've never been able to get into Hanks solo musical career, nor his books and CD's of poetry. His lyrics always come off a little pretentious to me, as if he's had way to much time to think about what he's saying. To lonely and despairing for my taste. If you think the same thing, you should still give this CD a chance.

Live spoken word performances like this one is Rollins at his best. The lonely stuff goes out the window when he has an audience. From the hip, painfully honest and screamingly funny. Still one of the best CD's (or CD sets) that I've ever owned. Highly recommended.

In an attempt to help readers decide whether to actually buy this product, I'll refrain from simply repeating what everyone else has already said. Instead, I shall attempt to fill in the blanks left my my fellow reviewers.

Firstly, the recording quality (though a marked improvement over previous offerings) is still poor. It's not as quiet as CDs like Human Butt or Big Ugly Mouth, but it's still full of echo and is definitely not professionally recorded. Don't buy this one expecting hi-fi audio because you'll be disappointed in that respect. That said, you can hear everything properly and this time the crowd's applause doesn't drown out Henry's speech.

In terms of content, this is a good CD. I consider that this is one of the first outings where Henry is really starting to develop a style and rhythym to his performance. Certain topics and aspects prevalent in previous CDs have been abandoned, his sense of comedic timing is getting sharper and some of the stuff he talks about is laugh-out-loud funny. Watch out for the 'Rock Chix' on disc one..

In summary, this one is worth a buy. It's two discs and represents good value. You'll get to hear Rollins finding his groove in this medium now that he has some experirence behind him. While it's not as polished as later offerings, it contains a somewhat raw, gritty character that later offerings don't.

Buy this one after Talk is Cheap, Rollins In The Wry and Think Tank.

This is in my opinion the BEST Henry Rollins spoken word album out there. I love his music, but it is also great to hear him loosen up and just tell jokes. I really like this album because he tells real life stories and talks about stuff that happened on the road. Henry Rollins has a great gift for comedy and is a talented man all around. My favorite bits on the album are the ones called Funny Guy, the Condom bit, and the two bits on Strength. If you love Rollins and want a great spoken word album, do not hesitate to buy this one.

This man can keep an audience at bay for 3 hours. I had teachers who could not hold a student's attention for 3 seconds. There is something about him that makes mundane things seem wonderful and much more interesting. Henry feels that context is critical to how we see things. Life filtered through his eyes is filled with heart and guts. The old addage about the boy in the box, the one who bangs his head against the walls trying to break out when the key to freedom was within applies here. There is a little boy in Henry that saw too much but still wants to play and I think this CD exemplifies that. Maybe Henry will inspire you as he did me to look at my life as more of a narrative and less of a dictation.

I'm serious, she thinks it's about the funniest thing in the world. Like a good woody allen movie, in that it's filled with a terrible amount of humor and catharsis. It laughs and it hurts, it's a beautiful record and the escence of what good, entertaining spoken word is all about. Take it along with you on a long trip, it'll make great company and probably heal a few wounds.

(The only downside I can think of is the terrible, terrible cover. Mr. Rollins, I'm glad you gave up on the skeleton motif.)

Of his many excellent spoken word albums, The Boxed Life shows Rollins at his best. Funny, erudite, insightful and intensely human. The latter being the greatest praise I can accord an artist. The Boxed Life is an unfettered, unfiltered, and uncompromised document of Rollins' unique ability to celebrate the "dark" side of humanity while recognizing its detrimental effects on the psyche. If you're a person who enjoys honest and sincere art you can't go wrong with this album.

I was introduced to Henry Rollins about two years ago. I had seen him in a couple of movies, but I didn't know who he really was. I listened to this and Think Tank, and was very impressed. He is as honest a person as one could meet, and his poetry speaks volumes to the outcast in all of us. I highly recommend anything Rollins has published.

After becoming a huge fan of the Rollins Band in 1993, I bought "The Boxed Life" on cassette that year and really wasn't sure what to expect. I think I mostly just wanted to know what made my hero tick and hear some of his thoughts. I hesitate to call this "stand up comedy" as many do. I think if Rollins really wanted to be perceived as a comedian he wouldn't call himself a spoken word performer. The difference between Henry Rollins and a stand up comic is that Rollins is not always trying to be funny. In fact, much of Rollins' spoken word material is based on his life's experiences and his reactions to them, and they are often anything but funny. Needless to say, he has been through some pretty heavy stuff. I own almost all of Rollins' spoken word albums and this is the one that I have continued to return to for perspective in the 17 years that have passed since I initially purchased it. On this collection Rollins managed to balance his often humorous (although frustrated and sleep deprived) experiences with life on the road in bits like "Bone Tired", "Airplanes", and "Jet Lag", with outright hysterical diatribes about his life as a semi-celebrity on "Good Advice" and "Funny Guy". I found the latter tracks to be particularly revealing. "Good Advice" dispels the myth that so called "rock stars" party all the time rather than Rollins' reality of answering his mail on a Saturday night and trying to think up responses to all the ridiculous questions asked of him by fans. "Funny Guy" focuses on Rollins' feeling that others perceive him as a walking joke, as illustrated by his story about Ziggy Marley laughing at him just for walking down a hotel hallway. However, my favorite two tracks off of "The Boxed Life" are "Strength" Parts 1&2. This is Rollins at his best, telling the story of his first job out of high school, including the racist attitudes at his place of employment, a sick job assignment (killing mice and rats), and trying to get by on $110 per week while living in his car. Although he dealt with this period of his life a little more in detail on the "Live At McCabe's" CD, this is my favorite of Rollins' storytelling, and you can tell by the end of his monologue that the audience was hanging on his every word. As with many of Rollins' spoken word releases on Imago records, the audio recordings of his performances are of varying quality, and "The Boxed Life" is no exception. However, the impact of his stories is not diminished in any sense by the recording quality, and if you are looking for a starting point to his spoken word work I would highly recommend this collection. I would also recommend Henry's video release from 1992 called "Talking From The Box" if you can find a copy.

It is pretty good. Not quite as funny as Think Tank, but not bad.

This CD set was a real pleasure to listen to. It contained cuts from several different spoken word performances he had delivered over the past ten years. Henry is the voice of clarity in the jumbled up world of the absurdly politically correct, exposing the ridiculousness of many aspects of modern society. He expresses his dark sense of humor in front of responsive crowds, delivering his aggressively poignant analysis in a manner akin to standup comedy. I would recommend it to all who refuse to look at life through rose-colored glasses. It is a must for all non-mainstream Generation X'ers END