Customer Reviews

Turned On: A Biography of Henry Rollins

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

 

 

This biography is a must for Rollins and Black Flag fans. Based on interviews, the book is peppered with quotes. This is not a fawning fan's account, although Parker is a fan he tells the story straight and shows the often negative ugly side of Rollins, his insight into the man and the music scene surrounding him can border on profound. A lot of time and detail is spent on the Black Flag years and reveals the personalities of the other band members making this a great companion to "Get In The Van", [a collection of photographs and Rollin's journal entries of those years]. Surprises are revealed, like a brief period of heavy LSD use by the straight-edge Rollins. If you ever wondered what made Rollins the unique intense person he is, this book will answer a lot of questions. A worthy often brilliant account of the early hardcore scene and its most fascinating survivor.

This is an extremely well written book and Parker is obviously a fan of Black Flag and Rollins Band music. It is, therefore, with greater impact that the contradictions in Rollins life are described. Henry's middle class, decently educated albeit dysfunctional childhood, while skimmed over to a degree, is in stark contrast with the extreme, intense later personality. Also the early DC 'straightedge' punk edict of no drink and drugs which Henry is described as a chief exponent of is ditched when touring with Black Flag a couple of years later as he throws himself into almost continuos LSD usage. Many of these type of details are missing from anything in Rollins own written work (notably 'Get in the Van') but Parker has had access to almost all the key people around Rollins through the years inspite of Rollins trying to ensure that Parker is not given access to press and interviews he gives himself. Is this because he is nurturing his public persona and wants to hide some of these glaring contradictions in his life. The Flag frontman willing to degrade himself on the floor of gigs as punters abuse his body, the 'art' performances where Rollins and cohort Lydia Lunch systematically abuse members of their audince in a tiny room one by one and the non-communicative, obnoxious Rollins of the final Flag days, are all in stark contrast to the lovable, funny guy Hank of '90s spoken word tours. Has this change been wrought by a mere coming to terms with his true self and inner demons or is it simply a mellowing with age from a man willing to appear in crass Hollywood movies to further his publishing business? I have always admired the guy for his intense honesty but this book throws up a lot of contradictions in the Rollins psyche. I guess in that respect he's no different from the rest of us. Incidentally, as a UK punk fan of the late '70s its interesting to note that DC hardcore and Black Flags main punk influences and early days are from and against a UK backdrop where punk had been over for at least 2 years (only cartoon punk bands like UKSubs, Damned - both thanked in 'Get in the Van' - Sham69 and Exploited were left and all were considered a total joke at the time).

James Parker's biography of Rollins is incredibly informative. We follow Henry's odyssey from DC to LA, and from the primal brutality of Black Flag to the more sophisticated dynamics of the spoken word scene. Rollins emerges as an intense and challenging man (though he does sometimes resemble David Lynch's comic-strip "The Angriest Dog in the World"). From the bloody stage to the bedside reading, this book's got it all --a must for any true Rollins fan. The best part: hearing about those salad days of punk, when it was a community, not a commodity.

Most books (and spoken word) about Henry Rollins is written by Henry Rollins. I am not saying he is a 'Liar' by any means but some of the most telling and endearing elements are the ones he leaves out. I love the parts when people say what a nice guy he is and their parents even liked him. This biography is fun to read against Rollins' own "Get in the Van'. It is challenging to encapilize a life in 250 pages but this book does a good job in making Rollins a modern day hero, a label that I bet he would dislike.

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.

I personally have always been much more interested in Black Flag than in Rollins band, particularly post-1990, so the fact that this book is 70% Flag is just fine with me. I've also read every little thing I could get my hands on about Black Flag since 1985 or so, and I gained plenty of new insights through this book. Parker does overwrite here and there, sounding like a bit of a starstruck fan, but with a book that's mostly about a crazy rock band you shouldn't be expecting Tolstoy. To give this book one star is underrating it without question. Makes a fine companion piece to "Get In The Van".

... but only to get up and slip another Black Flag cd into the stereo. This is a barnstormingly passionate celebration of music, so visceral you feel you're in the scummy clubs being battered by the serious sounds. Some of the writing is great, some is ludicrously florid, most of it is both. I had a great time.

This is a very interesting book. It's 3 am, and I just put it down. The author does a good job at describing what it was like back then.

A couple of minor corrections: the "punk crash pad" that Black Flag stayed at, the TC household, did not stand for "totally connected". TC meant "The Connected" (that's where "The Rejected" of the movie Suburbia came from ). Also, the author makes it sound like there were no girls dancing in the pit. That's not true. There weren't very many, but we were there, and the guys slam dancing around us respected us and protected us.

This is one of the better biographies that I've read. Parker has done a lot of research and interviews to reveal a lot of information on Rollins. I'm not a huge Rollins fan and don't know how much of this information was already known or not, but I can say that I have a much better understanding of Henry and what makes him tick after reading this book. My only complaint is that Parker is obviously a fan and that sometimes leads to more editorializing than I'd like in a biography.

I bought this book thinking I would get more insight into Henry Rollins, not just a history of the DC punk scene, followed by a detailed history of Black Flag. There is very little said in this book about Rollins that a fan doesn't already know from attending his spoken word shows. You get about 20-30 pages of the time period covering 1961 to 1980, then ~230 pages covering 1980-1986, with the chapter last of the book glossing over 1986-1998. I felt the book rambled along at times and I was tempted to toss it aside. I thought after reading the other reviews that this book was going to be so much better than it was. The bottom line: I would spend my money on another Rollins spoken word DVD instead of buying this book.