OLD PUNKS DON'T DIE... THEY JUST CASH IN...

Article taken from NOSEBLEED 18

The world of popular culture has 3 distinct overviews on Henry Rollins... one is that the man is a genius, musically and literally, and can do no wrong... a point of view which I certainly do not subscribe to, but have frequently witnessed... the second is that he is of exceedingly average talent musically, but that his literary leanings, if not taken too seriously, can be downright entertaining... the third is that the guy's finest performance will be dying. Whatever personal conclusions can be drawn, one thing is certain across the board... This man has made a huge target of himself.

Tom Frank wrote last year in American "Tower Records hip alternative section publication", BAFFLER, that "Nothing better demonstrates the impoverishment and terminal irrelevance of our inherited notions of cultural dissent than former punk rocker Henry Rollins". The man has a point, but in saying that, cultural dissent must have crossed some sort of line in the sands of cool to forebear any product with a print run of more than 5000 (a figure randomly selected, recalling the first Crass LP on Small Wonder, as a possible marker of what is regarded as reaching people, and what is regarded as an arrogant sell out, mostly by underground nerds).

Delving into the roots of Rollins' career, it's pretty common knowledge that he was regarded by many as the swift ruination of Black Flag... listening back, I'd find it hard to choose between MY WAR and DAMAGED as the high point with Rollins in the band... but anything after that, forget it. Funnily, the fault was thrown on Rollins, and I always remember hating those subsequent records for bad MUSIC... something the man had very little to do with. Obviously, the initial pulse of the band, before Rollins, which rightly made them legendary, was some of the most compelling US punk produced... but the intensified progressive milestone that was the MY WAR album is still grossly underestimated.

Whatever ex-members of Black Flag, or even ex-fans of the band have to say about how their little club was destroyed by Rollins, he's certainly found his niche in the world of stand up public address. His recent appearance in the ghastly Vicar Street venue (his 3rd & 4th spoken shows in Dublin), showed a less angst ridden, less self depreciating and much more self ridiculing, relaxed person. Basically... less of an asshole. Could it be that the guy has grown up??? The man has probably realised over the last couple of years that you can be "Man of the Year" in DETAILS magazine, or a popular 10 minute hero alongside Al Pacino or Charlie Sheen (kind of a poster boy for a Bad Guys Inc. film extras agency) but you're not going to amount to very much unless you stop spilling the same post-adolescent sympathy-seeking, blatant honesty to your target audience over and over. In the past, he's gotten away with exposing his own faults by weaving the point into some amusing pacey anecdote... but more often than not, it's the would-be "tortured artiste" front which has been the guy's own worst enemy. That sort of presentation is expected if you're someone like Jim Carroll...
some total sleaze, who is admired for various reasons... but nobody in their right mind idolises him. That would just be fucking stupid....... I guess Patti Smith didn't get it.......

....But anyway, my point was that his recent live show and double THINK TANK CD shows the gaps in a lot of indulgent banter from previous outings, and shoots to shit all the existential crap about being a solitary poet or whatever. In short, Rollins has finally grown out of his "I destroy people" phase, and is now treating the audiences that put him where he is, to non-patronising spoken word entertainment instead of angst fuelled martyrdom.

Watching the guy in '98, addressing a seated crowd with fine tuned versions of stories he's no doubt told around the globe a couple of times, there's a very apparent sense that the guy knows deep down, he's one of the fortunate few who got a lucky break down the years and found a way to make punk pensionable. And it can only be his " I wanna be Hubert Selby JR " persona that made him a target, because if you think about it, others who'll be riding high on that punk pension plan include members of Crass, Bad Religion, The Dead Kennedys, NOFX, Iggy etc... all highly respected
stalworths of a worldwide punk community, and none of them short on a few bob!

I suppose the remaining question is, what the fuck do you expect these people to do when they reach their mid 30's....... give up what they've always done and get a job in Centra just so some naive kid sitting in his bedroom can feel that he's buying into genuine sentiment and integrity... somehow I think not.............

- Boz '99.