Get in the Van by Henry Rollins

I’m a fan of Rollins music and Spoken word work. I saw the Rollins band several times in the late 80s/90s and also saw him speak on several occasions. I’ve been meaning to read this for a while and finally got around to it. This book is excerpts from his journal from when he joined Black Flag (1981) and became their singer. The initial part isn’t directly his journals (as they didn’t exist) so he’s working on memories for those sections.

Rollins started off in a steady job (an Ice cream salesman of all things) with a steady income, but gave that all up once he saw Black Flag and had the chance of joining the band. I found this book a lot more difficult to read than I would have thought. The journal entries feel like snippets and Rollins either reports that any gig was great or we get descriptions of the violence and racism present throughout the Punk scene at the time. Frequently the journal entries fall into self loathing and nihilism. I know if we all looked back at our 20 something selves there would be far different attitudes but the journal entries seem to imply a very troubled person with series depression and self esteem issues.

I found very little bright points within the text as we went from gig and violence to gig and violence interspersed with some misogyny, after so long reading this sort of text it starts to grate a bit. For those interested in the music and scene at the time there is little to latch onto but there are a few bright spots with mentions of Jello Biafra’s (The Dead Kennedy) wedding and meeting Nick Cave.

Memoirs and journal entries when complied rarely work in my opinion unless the author puts some context around them. I think if some context and history had been put around these entries it would have made reading this far more relevant and interesting. One bright point is the addition of original Black Flag posters and flyers.

I personally would only recommend this to hardcore Rollins fans or those interested in the punk scene at that point in time.

I only give this book 2 stars (it’s more like a 2 ½) just because I personally wouldn’t put myself through reading this again and the way I rate a 3 is a book I would return to.