Henry Rollins takes Oliver James’ Man Test

Who else can you think of, currently alive, who can bring you to tears with his articulacy?

James: Who are the people who you do allow to come close?

Rollins: Nobody, really.

James: Why do you think that is?

Rollins. Um. Uh, let’s see. I don’t know if I have a real fear of intimacy, but I’ve probably convinced myself that I don’t need it. And also, I’m pretty sure that if somebody got really close, there might not be anything there.

Rollins: If I were a woman, I would want a man. I would want a man who would listen to me, not hit me, be smart, know about poetry and literature. Not be like this guy with his knuckles scraping the ground, like some drooling Neanderthal.

I’d want an articulate, sensitive man… who could whoop that ass. I’m not interested in the pseudo-intellectual man who can quote Proust, who has soft hands, and when the heavy stuff comes down, he’s gonna be like “But Plutonius said!”

Readings from David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King. Featuring every awesome person.

*faints*

Including Adam Scott (Party Down, Parks and Recreation), Henry Rollins (Black Flag, my Husband List), Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother), Casey Wilson (SNL), Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) and others.

*Discreet, self-contained weeping*

 

Henry Rollins on selling out

“I’m sure you’ve had the experience of watching television and snapping to attention when you hear a familiar song by one of your favorite small of fame bands as the backdrop for an automobile commercial. Perhaps you have thought to yourself, “That is so fucking weak, what a bunch of sellouts. I hate their guts!”

I get letters from people expressing their outrage that they heard the music of The Stooges, The Ramones, The Buzzcocks [above], or The Fall in an ad and I understand their anger and sense of loss as they figure yet another one of their well-kept secrets has just become part of the corporate structure and the band is nothing more than the lap dogs of the man, the very man they were supposed to be sticking it to in every waking moment.

These bands are not being co-opted or selling out at all. Selling out is when you make the record you’re told to make instead of the one you want to make.

I wonder if it ever occurred to these people that the reason the music of these interesting and alternative bands is being recruited is because their fans are now the ones calling the shots. In other words, we have arrived!

Of course the ad is trying to sell you something and by using a band you like, attempting to gain your confidence by exploiting the band’s integrity for a commercial end. So what? You’re not a fuckin’ moron are ya? You see through that, don’t ya?

What would you rather hear, Iggy and The Teddybears doing I’m A Punk Rocker in a car ad or enduring some generic background music? I thought so.

Do you have any idea what some of these bands went through to make that music? The fact that there might be some money for them all these years later is great.

You think that paycheck is in any way a slight to their integrity? Are you fucking kidding me? Pay them. Pay them double. Pay them now. It’s about fuckin’ time.”

- Henry Rollins

Punk rock colouring book

Henry Rollins’ favourite Christmas album #BlackSabbath

“The other Christmas album — unarguably the best one of them all — is the Paranoid album by Black Sabbath. Nothing says peace on earth quite like, “Day of judgment, God is calling / On their knees the war pigs crawling / Begging mercy for their sins / Satan laughing spreads his wings.” Damn, I feel better already.

If you think about it, Paranoid’s song Iron Man is the inverse of the utterly wretched Frosty The Snowman, made famous by Gene Autry.

Think about it. Frosty, a leeching lump of snow who depends on nanny-state hand-outs of a corncob pipe and a silk hat, suckers a bunch of kids into being his friend. Unable to stay the course, he steals a broomstick and ditches town before he gets the chance to get the kids to the local university’s gym shower.

That’s why he blows off the cop who tells him to stop in the last verse. On the other hand, Iron Man, an Ayn Randian rugged individual, turns to steel in the great magnetic field — and then goes out and kills a bunch of people. Cut. Print. Send to market with Burger King free Whopper coupon.”

—  Henry Rollins, LA Weekly (12.22.11)