Man, was I asleep at the wheel.
When I recently pulled a quote from the Wristwatch Bandcamp page that was from Henry Rollins, I of course had to go listen to the most recent KCRW show. I sat in Abbey’s dining room and was jamming to an Iggy inspired show where he played all the tracks from “The Idiot” (a great one) and while listening I drifted to Henry’s official site.
What?! Stay Fanatic !!! Vol 3 was out. Ching. Purchased.
I would SWEAR that I have extolled the virtues of the STAY FANATIC books before, but when trying to find a link to a past post to put here… I couldn’t find one. Could I have bought 3 of these and never wrote about them?!
Well, I know I have written about Henry Rollins many times before. Do a search and you will find them, about seeing him live, e-mailing him, his radio show…
I think it was Kris B. at Erdman that really turned me on to Henry Rollins. I think I had awareness of him being in Black Flag, but never knew anything beyond that. Kris brought in his copy of “Get In The Van” that he had signed to show me. It was cool to say the least. I was always jealous of that.
I love Henry and his spoken word stuff, accumulating a fair amount of live recordings.
I know for a fact that I have written about “Eric The Pilot” my all time favorite of his spoken word stuff.
https://auralretentive.com/2021/09/12/henry-rollins-in-eric-the-pilot/
I also experimented with some of his books. He has poetry, but it was the books of his travels and commentary on music that I love.
The one that solidified my view of Rollins in the world was “Smile, You’re Travelling”.
This book is a world view and packed with cool stories and an insight into the mind of Henry that some imagine full of just his Black Flag persona. He is both worldly and educated and sympathetic. I would not only not hesitate to recommend it, I think it may be required reading. Particularly in this day and age.
I picked up that copy at The Frugal Muse, but I eventually learned about Henry’s official website
and in particular the books page.
I discovered that I could get my own signed copy (though I think Kris stood in line to have it signed personally and he will always have that!) and I ordered it.
Oh yeah.
This was followed by my discovery of Henry’s radio show archive and massive downloads ensued. Then THIS was followed by me discovering that there was a book that essentially was a companion book to the shows. Which I then ordered, signed of course!
The contents of this magnificent 300+ page book are a music lover’s dream. There are set lists to the shows…
Images of hard to find and interesting record labels…
Lots of photos…
and even a tape cover or two to round things out.
I love the way he writes and obviously he has a lean towards punk, but his tastes are across the board and he talks about all kinds of music and has personally turned me on to lots of new stuff I had never heard of. Amazing stuff.
This particular volume is now missing from the Books page of Henry Rollins website. Glad I got mine when I did. But… that’s right. There was a Volume 2!
and as mentioned above… a volume 3!
This is where my asleep at the wheel comes into play again. Evidently this one, though it is from THIS year, is already in a second printing.
Sigh.
Get this! I just discovered that the Stay Fanatic series follows a Series called simply “Fanatic” of which there were at least 3 volumes! Sorry I missed out on those. There are some high priced copies on e-bay, but I may have to let those be. Further, there are people selling copies of the current series (which you can currently buy signed for $40 on Henry’s website) for double that. Those rat bastards.
It’s not too late to jump into the Stay Fanatic!!! series.
Get you some!
The Aural Retentive 