I am currently reading Henry Rollins’ Black Flag memoir, Get In the Van. I really like his diaristic approach. I have kept a journal for a long time—we’re talking decades.
Flint had a fairly strong underground punk rock alternative bands scene (among other musics) in the 80s when I was a teen and would have been delving into punk rock (a bit of which is captured in my 80s coming-of-age novel, Your Silent Face), but truth-be-told, I did not get into punk rock a whole lot. Just a bit. I went to some local shows but never saw a big traveling band like Black Flag. I liked BF, though, and Naked Raygun, from Chicago, the Angry Samoans, Dead Kennedys and The Crucifucks, from Lansing. A few others. I was more into New Wave.
I was a skinny dude who always knew he would get hurt in the mosh pit. I had some angry energy that needed to be exercised, but I always seemed to exercise it on myself, and never actually dared to attempt some stage diving. There was a bit of slam dancing at safe, organized dances, where me and some of my friends were the most punk rock thing in the house, but there are no photos of me deep in the mosh pit or diving off the stage at a punk show in Flint or anywhere else. When I did get to a show, I hung back in the wings and observed.
I have probably listened to more Black Flag lately than I did in my whole adolescence. Why the renewed interest? I am not sure, but part of it definitely arises from reading about it. So why am I reading Get In the Van now? I’m not entirely sure about that either, but I think that part of me is drawn to it because I have become a D.I.Y kind of artist/writer as an older adult, and that was something that BF totally stood for. I was surrounded by some musician’s and creatives in my last year of college at the house I was living in (Bleak House) who were totally immersed in the D.Y.I. culture, but I still had ideas of being “discovered.” When I look back, I do wish that I had been rocking a zine in college, or arranging poetry readings, or trying to sell art postcards, or whatever. However, I did get there. I am here. I make my own art, and I push it myself, as well, because there is no longer any time to wait on being discovered. So I have doubled back to read about some of the 80s pioneers of this aesthetic, I guess.
I totally recommend Get In the Van from a historical and sociological sense and because of its easily digestible, note-booking prose. I like how Rollins wrote this memoir.
To be sure, that were factions and aspects of punk rock that terrified me, and still do, but I did try to keep my ear and mind open when it was happening in the 80s. I remember spiking my hair with Vasoline one Halloween and putting on a sleeveless surfer shirt. In hindsight, the Vasoline was a bad idea.
I was never a punk rocker, though.
Rollins perspective of society is interesting. Five out of five stars.
#blackflag #flint #punkrock #getinthevan #henryrollins #80s #80smusic #doityourself #DIY #DIYaesthetic #postpunk #newwave #yoursilentface #contemporaryartist #contemporaryart #diary #memoir #blog #blogging #bleakhouse #MSU #lovelansing #thecrucifucks
