Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag (Henry Rollins, 2.13.61, 1994)

    The word that comes to mind with BLACK FLAG is ritual. The importance of keeping up with a routine until it becomes a habit and then a way of life. Setting a direction, but not a destination, and just going, pressing on. So it made sense to me that I would engage in a reading ritual with this text. It’s hard enough to find that it’s cost-prohibitive to purchase. Many libraries do not carry it. But, the Harold Washington Library Center of the Chicago Public Library system has it on closed reserve, so you better believe I spent a few hours reading it on a summer afternoon this July. Though I couldn’t finish it in a single sitting as I had planned, a few hundred quick snaps of the remaining spreads meant I could finish it at my leisure on my phone over the next few days. Maybe not the way it was intended to be ingested, but I set a goal and I followed through with it until I reached completion.

    For years, I’d resisted reading it on principle because of Greg Ginn’s comments in We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews. (Two colons in a book title, what a flex!) In a retrospective on his band, Ginn said he hadn’t read Get in the Van and didn’t need to because Henry had falsely written himself into the hard times of BLACK FLAG in the pages of the book. According to Ginn, those hard times happened before Henry joined up with southern California’s most influential band, so all of the stories in Get in the Van can be safely disregarded. Also, the “shed” in the Ginn family’s backyard was “constructed like a house” and so Henry talking about living in it doesn’t seem impressive to Ginn. For years, I accepted this received wisdom and thought it made me a more discerning BLACK FLAG fan because I didn’t go on the Henry Rollins deep dive. I knew better! Ron Reyes was the best BLACK FLAG vocalist and “Damaged” was the beginning of the end, right? Right? Right…? Even if I agreed with Ginn for a while, I really did myself a disservice by skipping over this book if for no other reason than because I was missing out on the Glen Friedman, Ed Colver, and Naomi Petersen photos throughout its pages. (The recent-ish Glen Friedman book of BLACK FLAG photos is a mandatory purchase.) And that Rollins guy does have a way with words now and then.

    Aside from ritual, another concept synonymous with BLACK FLAG is police harassment. Rollins makes that abundantly clear in his journal, though most of the most intense police activity the band suffered isn’t directly described in these pages, as he wasn’t journaling in the earliest days he shared with the band. It makes me wonder whether Greg Ginn ever kept a journal or anything else related to the band’s history. I’d love to read a book of the notes he must have taken to prepare for and engage in the 1981 trial with Unicorn Records. Rollins’ tales of the constant harassment from cops in Redondo Beach for just walking down the street are a lot. The agency Rollins has is an interesting thing to consider. It’s like he couldn’t be around people so he just had to be alone all the time. Still, he felt trapped, and that suffocating loneliness really crawls into these pages in the entries where he is locked in the shed’s vacancy for weeks at a time.

    Rollins tracks the end of BLACK FLAG and the beginning of his spoken word career in the pages of this text. Its greatest value is in the sheer monotony of touring, not any kind of insight on Hank’s part. I mean maybe you can learn something about the experience of human misery but that’s not the takeaway I had. Take this comment about Ian MacKaye from when BLACK FLAG dropped by Washington, D.C., in 1985: It must drive Ian crazy, making him drive me all over the place. He doesn’t seem to mind. Ian is one of those types of people — genuinely nice and considerate of his pals. He always impresses me in that way as well as many others too. Ian is one of those rare types who takes time for others. He does it about 99% more than I do. I am one of the most inconsiderate people I have ever seen — ever (p. 184). That last line captures a lot of the ideas in this book, frankly. Shining moments of clarity blinking through the darkness of self-hatred and misanthropy.

    It’s more that this is a document of the USHC scene as it transitioned from its first to its second wave. From a distance, it’s clear that he was not into it as much as many of the people reading this book might have been. The mockery of BL’AST is a perfect example of this tension. On the other hand, the critique of pretty much every band in this book makes me reflect on the misguided idea that I once held—that I had to share the opinions of bands I liked with regard to their musical preferences and influences. What do I mean by this? I mean thinking I couldn’t like U2 because Rollins once dogged them in a standup bit, saying they used “the same bass line for 25 years.” It doesn’t even matter whether that accusation is true; it’s a hot take from someone whose music I enjoyed, so I had to take it as gospel. (This is a bad example because I don’t actually like U2 anyway, regardless of what anyone thinks.) So, I don’t have to dislike BL’AST just because Rollins bagged on them when they were taking off. Anyway, people who like BLACK FLAG but not BL’AST at this point are just being particular. That said, I relished Rollins’ take on the gig they did with VENOM in New Jersey in 1986. His words cannot diminish my enjoyment of the early VENOM singles and albums. I also cannot help but laugh at this review. “What bullshit. VENOM suck. They are so full of shit. What a bad joke. They don’t sweat and they probably don’t even fuck” (p. 232). Deadly. Moments like these are the true gems in this book. I mean “they don’t sweat” from a band as hard-working as BLACK FLAG is brutal. By the same token, “They probably don’t even fuck” (emphasis mine) is incredible. Like, why is he hedging on this take? The mind reels. Still though, asking for autographs from a punk band, which is a recurring event in these pages, just seems silly. It must have been strange and difficult to navigate the tension between being successful enough to live off the band and not have a “real” job waiting for you at home. It gave the people at BLACK FLAG shows a skewed idea of how comfortable the lives of the band members were. For that matter, consider the passages about Rollins and other band or crew members riding in the U-Haul trailer between gigs while sitting on amps and gear in complete darkness. Given how frequently they did so, it’s incredible that only D. Boon went out that way…

    For all the obsession over different eras and releases of BLACK FLAG after the release of American Hardcore (the 2006 movie, not the 2001 book), it’s a little surprising that there wasn’t a band on No Way, Grave Mistake, Sorry State, etc. called JEALOUS COWARDS with an EP titled “Try to Control.” That, or a band that dressed in ’80s era Häagen-Dazs shirts and invited an enthusiastic fan to sing a cover of “Clocked In” at the end of every show. Really, even if they had done these things, or taken an even more obsessed eye to the critical aspects of the band, they would never measure up. Part of that has to do with how time marches on. The other part, though, is the singer of your band probably isn’t pen pals with NICK CAVE and DIAMANDA GALAS and members of EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN, or whoever their modern analogues might be. You just aren’t that interesting.

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Are You Morbid? Into the Pandemonium of Celtic Frost (Tom Gabriel Fischer, Sanctuary, 2001)

    It has been a long time coming for me to read this book. CELTIC FROST appeared on my radar for the first time maybe 20 years after they abandoned HELLHAMMER as a project. They had a cool name and their singer called himself “Tom G. Warrior.” That was cool. It is cool. Imagining a new reality so powerful you need to rename yourself to go along with the vibe your band is creating. Just incredible self-belief and vision from social misfits. Good-looking, well-adjusted people can’t make music this important.

    It’s difficult to make a recommendation about this book. I say that not because Fischer needed the careful eye of an editor, but more because the book is out of print (and expensive—I borrowed the Chicago Public Library's copy). Beyond that, the CELTIC FROST albums are so blatant in their intent that you do not really need a supplement such as this text in order to understand them fully. I also do not mean that the book itself is hard to recommend because it is bad per se. It’s more that the same ground has been covered more fully and carefully with Bazillion Points’ Only Death is Real from 2010. All of the incredible photos (again, think of the unwavering confidence and commitment involved!) from this era truly deserve hardcover 9" x 12" treatment and that book is the place to see them. Image is an indispensable part of CELTIC FROST’s appeal, and the tiny pictures in Are You Morbid? don’t do justice to the band’s sense of visual identity.

    There are moments of wonder in these pages, such as when Fischer repeatedly catalogs the problem with Noise Records’ management of the project. After two EPs and an LP, Fischer wanted to grow the band beyond the thrash and speed metal scenes that they came from, but his reach exceeded his grasp (at least as far as Noise were concerned). It’s telling that he refers to the style the band plays as “heavy rock” instead of “metal” or some other subgenre. It’s not as though he's naïve in thinking he is NOT playing metal; he just sees it as more expansive than his label bosses and label mates do. His wide-ranging tastes in music and interesting choice of cover tunes (WALL OF VOODOO, BRYAN FERRY, DAVID BOWIE) make that clear. They apparently attempted PRINCE and ROXY MUSIC covers as well.

    For someone who is conditioned to expect and accept being an outcast from most social situations, having the social graces and skills to navigate a rip-off label must have only made things more frustrating. The pain is evident as he explains in the first chapter, which recounts the recording of “Into the Pandemonium.” It’s clear he thinks of this record as the essential CELTIC FROST document. I’d say “Morbid Tales” is my favorite recording and “To Mega Therion” the most important, while “Into the Pandemonium” is the most… interesting (derogatory). As an aside, HELLHAMMER has never clicked for me, to the point that a friend insisted about 15 years ago that my dislike of them must have been informed by this book, but I’ve only read it now, in the past few weeks! HELLHAMMER’s influence and legacy cannot be disputed, nor can the fact that they do nothing for me. I don’t have an opinion on “Vanity / Nemesis” but I will go on record as saying that “Cold Lake” is not nearly as bad an album as its reputation suggests. Anyone who dislikes it must also not like the DICTATORS, CHEAP TRICK, or that band from Norway that has a racial slur in their name and plays with gender norms and rock clichés. It just plainly rocks and it’s a shame that it’s been deleted from the back catalog. Try this record with an open mind and you might even surprise yourself. 

    What really baffles me about the reception to “Cold Lake” is that it is seen as a departure for the band lyrically. In Ian Christe’s Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal, Fischer explained how “To Mega Therion” was “an expression of [his] own immaturity and male urgings.” He goes on to explain that “it’s made for people in puberty.” That view is even clearer with HELLHAMMER’s lyrical displays. There’s enough evidence in the bands’ catalogs for someone to write an article with a title like “From ‘Bloody Pussies’ to ‘Cherry Orchards,’ the Changing Same of Tom G. Warrior’s Views on Sexual Conquest” for a comparative studies journal. The lurid tales Fischer relates while recounting their U.S. tours further support a lustful state of mind. He and Martin Eric Ain (R.I.P.) did not drink or use drugs, so it seems more than likely that the episodes and escapades in these pages are accurate. For their last tour, Fischer acknowledges that the band and crew had been extremely lucky to have not contracted AIDS during previous debauched outings. Despite these hormonal compulsions, Fischer met a woman on the road that he felt close enough with to later marry.

    The book itself is genuine and uncompromising, just like Fischer’s vision for the band. The most valuable parts of it include the exclusive and excessive endnotes, mostly for the explanations of the concepts for some of the records. I’ve bought (and sold) the recent LP reissues of “Morbid Tales” and “To Mega Therion” in the past six or seven years and I can’t remember this level of detail in the inserts. So this information must be unique. It’s a testament to Fischer et al.’s vision for the band that they would write such an in-depth concept for each album and song. To see these notes and then to think of how the inserts to the original pressings of some records involve ads for other bands’ records at the expense of the intended, extensive liner notes and you can understand why Fischer was so frustrated with the label. That’s the mood that permeates these pages—frustration—an unrealized potential through even their highest achievements. One wonders what the world would be like had Fischer’s iconoclastic vision been brought to full fruition. Still, the music we do have is worthy of scrutiny and is simply unique (complimentary).

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    So this record only caught my attention because Steve Albini died. It was in seeing the tributes to him on social media that I learned he’d recently taken part in this one-off project about his favorite sport. Not knowing how else to properly pay my respects, I thought I’d pick up a copy. I've never heard SHELLAC and have only checked out BIG BLACK in recent years because I felt obligated to have an opinion about them, so I really didn’t know what to expect. These three songs are quick genre sketches—a little NWOBHM here, a touch of nervy ska there, some heavy rock there. Truly, the lyrics to “You Break My Heart Every Year” are ostensibly about America’s pastime, but they could just as easily be about a fickle flame that has been troubling someone who just heard TRESPASS or SARACEN singles for the first time. (Or, really, HEART or LED ZEPPELIN, honestly.) The title track even has the requisite “pick it up” parts to go with the ska beat. These dudes could play straight up metal but find it silly; yet, they don’t want to be limited to simple, three-chord punk rock, so they are chasing cool sounds to help out their friend with theme music for a baseball podcast.

    I know Albini loved baseball because my awareness of him is based more on his arguments than the music he engineered or played. On a 2011 episode of Baseball Prospectus, he claimed that baseball is the best sport because “pure athleticism, which is the dominion of jocks and assholes—just being a big, powerful guy—won’t get you that far in baseball… A really smart baseball player doesn’t have to be that great of an athlete.” He goes on to contrast the game with “mob sports” such as football, soccer, basketball, hockey, etc., which he calls “literally trivial games.” He also says “pong sports” such as tennis, volleyball, badminton, racquetball, etc., involve trying to “defeat the return of a ball over a net” are all the same. So, “there’s those two kinds of games, and baseball.” He also distinguishes “target shooting” (archery, curling) and “strength and endurance contests and races” (swimming, track) from “games,” which means baseball stands alone again. I disagree about the athleticism of swimming or track making it less of a sport. There’s no purer competition than the clock and no contact permitted between the participants. It is as much a test of physical limits as mental ones. The thing about Albini is that even though you may disagree with him on certain parts of his argument, you know that in the end, responding to him (even in your head, even post mortem) has pushed your thinking and refined it so that you can make a stronger case as a result. Leaving us with such tools for self-improvement is a lasting gift.

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The Transition (Luke Kennard; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2017)

    What would Scared Straight look like if it were for slacker 30-somethings? That is essentially the premise of this sarcastically dystopian novel. As the dust jacket indicates, The Transition is a six-month program for people with mounting credit card debt, etc., that promises to socially integrate them into modern society. Seems banal enough on the surface, until you realize how it’s really a eugenics program by another name. But, the discovery of that impetus behind the program doesn’t come along all at once.

    Like Karl, as he begins the program with this wife, Genevieve, you might take on a stance of amused detachment as you first learn about The Transition. After all, it’s kind of like they just get to continue working their same jobs (Karl writes reviews online of products he’s never used and ghost writes essays for high school and college students; Genevieve teaches elementary school), except some of their salary is garnished to pay back their debts. Oh, and they have to live with their mentors, a couple employed by The Transition who do a lot of hands-on forming of good habits and dispelling of bad habits in the form of employment, nutrition, responsibility, relationship, finances, and self-respect. The implementation of these lessons is where the more sinister elements begin to creep in. Karl and Genevieve need to write 500 words a day in a journal, read The Guardian and The Telegraph each morning, and take charge of cooking for all members of the house at least one night a week. This all seems well and good until Karl starts missing his writing targets and gets a demerit. Two more, and, well, he won’t want to find out what the consequence is.

    Even as he is punished, you may be wondering about the ecological validity of the consequence. Will punishing his missteps in the program really lead him to change in his “real” life outside of The Transition? What reason does Karl have to believe that? And, what does success look like once he has returned? Will he and Genevieve both succeed at making the Transition? What if one does and one doesn’t? Will they “fuck things up from the inside” à la that one dude’s plan in Ghost World? Kennard’s skillful exploration of the particulars of their participation in the program prompted these questions as I read.

    During an English lecture in my undergrad days, the professor argued that when an author has a character in a novel engage in the act (art) of writing, that is the author telling you their opinion about writing as a craft. So, when Karl’s mentors force him to read the papers each morning and he begrudgingly learns something about the world that he can then insert into his product reviews, that’s Kennard telling us how maybe he uses nonfiction to inspire his fiction. In a related moment of art imitating life, you get a sense of Kennard’s dim view of corporate trainings early on as well when Karl mutters “The medium is the message and the medium is fucking PowerPoint” (p. 29) during the introductory group lecture on The Transition. One of the most relatable things I’ve read in a novel, and an effective bit of foreshadowing.

    One of the ways the mentors in The Transition attempt to reach their charges is through a collection of parables in a mentoring handbook. Short stories meant to generate discussion with those in the program. Again, maybe this is Kennard telling us that we can learn from such stories. I found myself reflecting on those parables and the larger one of the novel as I read. Although I’ve had personal and professional setbacks, sure, they are nothing like the struggles of Karl and Genevieve. Thinking about their experience in this program gives me the space to think, hey “maybe things really aren’t so bad” with my life at this point. I appreciate that gentle moment of clarity as much as the humor and slices of life in the rest of Kennard’s novel.

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