Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag

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Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag

4.11 of 5 stars 4.11 · rating details · 3,443 ratings · 166 reviews

As a member of the seminal punk band Black Flag, Henry Rollins kept detailed tour diaries that form the basis of Get in the Van . Rollins's observations range from the wry to the raucous in this blistering account of a six-year career with the band - a time marked by crazed fans, vicious cops, near-starvation, substance abuse, and mind numbing all-night drives. Rollins dec...more

Paperback, 256 pages

Published November 18th 2004 by 2.13.61

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Mar 15, 2009 matt rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: musicalities, biography

Best story:

Rollins writes about how he and another guy in his band (might have been Greg Ginn) are out on the road in some godforsaken place, have no money and are starving and want to go to this Wendy's type establishment to eat. There's a salad bar there where the price is three dollars for all you can eat. Their eyes light up and they run over, stacking mound upon mound of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc 'till the plate is three feet high.

The manager comes over and kind of pokes his head o...more

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Feb 14, 2010 J rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: music-bios, travel

I've wanted to read Get In The Van since it was published sixteen years ago. Getting around to it after all this time has proven to be a loopy experience. When I was a teen, I was all about Black Flag. I thought they were incredible. Damaged, their first LP, was hard to take in and an immediate favorite. Each chapter after that was an education. Black Flag ruled. I identified with the sum of the parts in a variety of ways. I found it frightening as hell, too. These guys were like demons to me, l...more I've wanted to read Get In The Van since it was published sixteen years ago. Getting around to it after all this time has proven to be a loopy experience. When I was a teen, I was all about Black Flag. I thought they were incredible. Damaged, their first LP, was hard to take in and an immediate favorite. Each chapter after that was an education. Black Flag ruled. I identified with the sum of the parts in a variety of ways. I found it frightening as hell, too. These guys were like demons to me, living in a small town in the late 80's, having no reference. Their music spoke to me and spooked me at the same time. I identified with and was intimidated by the anger and the intellect. I still listen to Black Flag a lot. Reading Get In The Van was a revisitation. A weird rewind.

Rollins' recollections of his time in the Flag are absolutely enthralling. It was difficult not to skip his leaps into the abyss at the end of many entries but the rest of it, from sitting in the shed in the Ginns' yard to touring the world really pulled me in.

In fact, I wanted to know more. Having read this and Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life, I find myself wanting very much to read a proper bio of Black Flag. Azerrad's chapter on the Flag is a solid overview but lacks substance by its very nature as an overview. Get In The Van is Rollins-centric and there is almost no reflection of what anyone else was thinking. I'm pretty fascinated by Ginn and Dukowski and there were a bunch of characters involved with Black Flag over the years. Maybe an oral history would be the way to go. That would be a killer book!

The photos in Get In The Van are great. You don't get shorted on imagery with this one, folks.

A lot of people say Rollins is/was an asshole. I can see why, given the nature of the statements and stances he's taken over the years. I just don't agree. I identify with Rollins' attitudes and reactions. I would have felt the same way on a tour. I wouldn't get enough time to myself, would get sick of everyone and would start to withdraw. I'd be disgusted with people's behavior. I'd be tired, pissed off and angry. I believe, given the nature of the life he lead at the time, his background and upbringing, he did his best. You can see him struggling right in the pages of this book, trying to figure out how to deal with the circumstances he was part of. And, y'know, this guy didn't react to the pressure by eating a bunch of drugs or blowing his head off. He started a literary career and a publishing company, another band, did some acting. I mean, I find that inspiring. That's cool as hell.

Rollins is a hero to me and this book cemented it. "Get in the van" is my new mantra. Get In The Van is great. I read it so fast I'm going to have to read it again. Lookin' forward to it.(less)

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Apr 27, 2008 Lauren rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: punk rockers

So Henry Rollins is someone I want to spend the rest of my life with.Some think he is a complete asshole, which he is, but that does not bother me much bc it's henry fucking rollins!

Anyways if you had a childhood/teenage blah blah life similar to my very own you love Black Flag. Maybe you even have the bars tatted up on you.

Their painful coolness is what punk rock dreams are based on, but this book shows you in some instances the mundane existence of a touring punk rock band from the 80s. there...more

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Oct 16, 2012 Doug rated it 3 of 5 stars

There's a moment early in "Get in the Van" where Henry Rollins recalls listening to Black Flag as a fan and both loving and hating the music. Loving it because it was urgent, energetic and evocative of his own pent-up feelings of alienation and boredom. Hating it because, reflexively, the band's very do-it-yourself existence combined with the music to show the young Rollins what he was not - free and self-realized.

What follows is Rollins' account, almost all of it pulled from his own journals,...more There's a moment early in "Get in the Van" where Henry Rollins recalls listening to Black Flag as a fan and both loving and hating the music. Loving it because it was urgent, energetic and evocative of his own pent-up feelings of alienation and boredom. Hating it because, reflexively, the band's very do-it-yourself existence combined with the music to show the young Rollins what he was not - free and self-realized.

What follows is Rollins' account, almost all of it pulled from his own journals, of what happened when he became the vocalist for the band that he both loved and hated. And perhaps appropriately, I left the whole things feeling satisfied and sad.

The satisfaction comes from the fact that this is a damn good read, and, in a rare instance, an even better experience as an audiobook. Yep, the Grammy Rollins earned for his narration was well-deserved, as the book comes through the speakers like Rollins' best moments as a vocalist and spoken-word artist - intense, hyper-introspective, standoffish and funny.

The sadness? Probably like a lot of readers in their 30s and beyond, I picked this up in the spirit of re-visiting something. Black Flag had long since broken up when I heard my first punk record and immediately felt I was being spoken to directly. But just as I embraced the bands I was exposed to in the 90s, I wanted to hear their influences and their influences influences. That led me to the early moments of American hardcore punk, bands like Minor Threat and, of course, Black Flag. And I loved them just as much, if not more, than the generation of bands that came after.

Like a lot of 31-year old former punkers, I've moved on musically and intellectually. Despite a steadfast love for Bad Religion (still my favorite band,) I only occasionally dust off my old CDs. I think everyone goes through brief spurts of musical nostalgia.

Yet, like I said, I was hit by sadness midway through "Get in the Van." Because going through the (mis)adventures of Rollins and Black Flag - constant poverty, broken-down vans, sleeping on floors, infighting, dustups with skinheads - I could only think "Christ, that sounds miserable."

But Rollins isn't writing about misery. He's writing of the joy of the music and how it superseded all else at that time in his life. And that was when "Christ, that sounds miserable" turned into "Christ, I've gotten old." Because Rollins is talking about a moment in life most of us are thrilled to have behind us - the early 20s, where most of us were embarrassingly passionate and/or embarrassingly poor. I realized that while I was hopefully done with poverty, I was almost assuredly done with that kind of passion. And that made me sad.

That's the crux of "Get in the Van." Rollins, 20 years old and miserable despite a "straight job" that gave him money in the bank, embraced the desperation of traveling and playing in Black Flag in a way an adult couldn't embrace. There are numerous ways Rollins shows this desperation - the band's roadie advises him that dog food and white bread is a great cure for hunger, so long as you get it down before tasting it - but there are just as many mentions of the other side. Often, a story of some degrading moment is ended with "but we got to play."

In fact, that may be the only fault of "Get in the Van." It commits the ultimate punk rock sin - it lags. Rollins seems especially intent on describing the band's routine misfortune on its European tours. All the stories of being put down by terrible bands or being attacked by anti-American skinheads or getting no response from too-cool-for-school English audiences...all of it blends together into a narrative that could easily be half as long.

The real thorn in Rollins' paw is Rollins, and it makes for the best part of the book. Through Rollins' own words, we see a wide-eyed kid living the dream of singing in his favorite band turn into an alienated, surly, inward-driven young man. Is it the solitude of the road between gigs? The violent conflicts with skinheads? The lack of food, money and shelter? The creative tug-of-war between Rollins and bandmate/foil Greg Ginn? Yes.

It's a bit hard, really, to pick at the flaws of a book considering most of the words written were never intended to become a book. It would have been better, narrative-wise, to have less regarding the drag that is Bavarian touring and more on Ginn, the yin to Rollins' yang both musically and in regards to worldview. It would have been better to have had a less-abrupt end, or at the very least something insightful from the young Rollins to show a transition from his inner conflict.

We don't get that, though. "Get in the Van" is jumbled, imperfect and unbalanced. LIke any satisfying punk song.(less)

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Jan 30, 2012 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: research

I've been toying with my review of this book for about three weeks now. Every time I write it, it inevitably turns into a meandering treatise on my inability to understand why, exactly, so much gratuitous pseudo-intellectual post-punk disdain is aimed directly at Henry Rollins. I'm going to try my very best to avoid that here; I will, however, say this: I like Henry Rollins -- a lot, in fact -- and this book has something to do with it.

I've read Get in the Van about five or six times now (most r...more

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May 03, 2010 Greg Swallow rated it 4 of 5 stars

First off, I'm biased. I've seen Henry Rollins with and without his backing band live over 25 times. I never missed a tour until the last couple of years.

How I got to the ripe old age of 34 without reading this book is beyond me. That I never cracked the cover of this book other than to glance through it casually is the same phenomenon as never owning copies of those oh-so-many "crucial" albums that were put out in your youth -- you know, there were just so many other alternatives that you had t...more First off, I'm biased. I've seen Henry Rollins with and without his backing band live over 25 times. I never missed a tour until the last couple of years.

How I got to the ripe old age of 34 without reading this book is beyond me. That I never cracked the cover of this book other than to glance through it casually is the same phenomenon as never owning copies of those oh-so-many "crucial" albums that were put out in your youth -- you know, there were just so many other alternatives that you had to explore, instead of buying something that was painfully obvious and would always be around.

This book contains Henry's first (I presume) writings, and it shows. Henry Rollins isn't the greatest writer. Even today, you can read his "dispatches" for free and most of them are as mundane as Facebook posts. Furthermore, most of the abstract content in the book -- the fictional (or pseudo-philosophical) content -- displays his amateur mastery of his writing style, but in late 1985, early 1986 his writing gets a lot better.

Some of this book is downright depressing and self-righteous, but it is what it is. Mr. Rollins could have gotten laid and maybe cooled out a bit during 1984, or at least gotten over himself. The book is what it is, though: had I kept a journal in my 20s it would have read a lot like this book (save that I was never a successful musician on tour). We all go through teens/twenties angst and we all mellow with age.

What's extraordinary about this book is how it captures how little "success" meant, and how it makes the obvious point of how special Black Flag really was in the 1980s. The band's music is timeless, to those people who understand it. And how few people actually understood it is even more amazing. It's like being able to see the core of a star: Black Flag was the unreachable white-hot epicenter of the self-immolating scene that was punk rock. To the outsider, what shone from the surface was often vainly offensive, self-destructive, violent, mindless and temporary. Again, such is youth. As Black Flag burnt out, so did American punk rock. Bring on the Glam Rock. The Poisons, the Motley Crues, the Bon Jovis. The cases of cheap beer, bales of skunky weed and back seats full of pussy. Bring on the oceans of girls with "mall bangs" and long-haired guys in patched up jean jackets.

No, thank you. And to our benefit, the vacuous musical wasteland that was 1988 collapsed under its own excess, while Black Flag's influence underlaid the brief "alternative" respite (that, thankfully, soured and collapsed under its own weight in record time) in the early 90s.

People who make good music in today's "post-cool" era know what's up. Without the Flag, there would be no "small record labels." Without the DIY ethic of Black Flag, you wouldn't see small bands show up hundreds of miles from home in broken down vans at small clubs to play their hearts out in front of 150 people. So, Mr. Rollins, Mr. Ginn, et al: thank you for setting the ball in motion. I have had access to a lot of great music growing up, all because of you. And special thanks for capturing what life was like forging the path for all the good bands today in your tattered notebooks from cargo areas of Ryder trucks. (less)

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Oct 07, 2010 Jake rated it 4 of 5 stars

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Nov 08, 2011 Mrnotarides notarides rated it 3 of 5 stars

You are a 20 years old and you work at an ice cream store and your favorite bands asks you to quit your job, leave your friends, sell everything you own, move to LA from DC and become the lead singer- you say yes of course. That is what happen to Henry Rollins in 1981. He was asked to join Black Flag. I read this book when I was 16 years old. I had to mow 7 lawns to save up the money and sell my Walkman (for the younger people wikipedia walkman to find out what it was). In many ways this book ch...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Chris Pariseau rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was originally picked up as a tanger while reading Azerrad's *This Band Could Be Tour Life*. I read the chapter of that book chronicling the life and death of that band, remembered my youthful love affair with all things Henry Rollins, went on a library search and Bam! I was nose first into theirs coupleof pages watching Henry serving Haagen Daas and thinking something was missing when he would come back from the city after seeing his favorite bands tear it up. When he decides to get u...more

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Oct 05, 2011 Russell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I finally got around to reading this during the Spring of 2002. And it was all by chance. I went into our library to kill some time before my next class, and I saw this on the shelf next to me. I checked it out and devoured it over the course of the next several weeks while I was by coincidence also in the van, or bus. In my travels as a collegiate track and field athlete I read each page and studied each picture on those hour to three hour drives. It starts with Rollins traveling with Ian MacKa...more

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Oct 04, 2012 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: punk-books

This is one of those books that almost everyone seriously into punk has read. Rollins has done a lot to solidify Black Flag as one of the few bands in punk and indie circles that has a well established narrative comparable to that of the Beatles in the way it is commonly understood among people in the subculture.

With that said, a lot of this book is behind the scenes details of Black Flag, and if you are not interested in them or punk in general, it might not keep your interests. However, there...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Josh rated it 5 of 5 stars

First of all, I'm not a fan of Black Flag. I don't dislike Black Flag, and I think their history is really interesting. Being in a band myself, I feel like there's a whole lot that I can learn from their work ethic and desire to push their own limits. Musically, they're just not my thing. Henry Rollins, however, is very much my thing.
I came across this book in a roundabout way. I'm a massive fan of the book World War Z by Max Brooks (READ IT!), and I've listened to the audio book numerous times...more First of all, I'm not a fan of Black Flag. I don't dislike Black Flag, and I think their history is really interesting. Being in a band myself, I feel like there's a whole lot that I can learn from their work ethic and desire to push their own limits. Musically, they're just not my thing. Henry Rollins, however, is very much my thing.
I came across this book in a roundabout way. I'm a massive fan of the book World War Z by Max Brooks (READ IT!), and I've listened to the audio book numerous times. While browsing Wikipedia, I found out that Henry Rollins reads one of the characters in the audiobook, so I read up on Henry Rolllins. I found out that Henry Rollins was the dynamic, crazy frontman of the legendary Black Flag, so I read up on Black Flag. I found out that Black Flag has a really interesting history, and I found out that Henry Rollins has a book of his time in the band. The very next day, my roommate (the last person I would suspect of knowing anything about Henry or BF) told me that he found some really interesting videos of this crazy guy named Henry Rollins on YouTube. That was an interesting coincidence, so I decided to try and get a hold of some of Henry's material. I was talking to the drummer in my band and brought up my recent discoveries, and he immediately grabbed his copy of Get in the Van, shoved it in my face, and said "READ IT."
Naturally, I was immediately hooked. It's interesting to me to trace my thought process throughout reading this book. It began with something along the lines of admiration/awe. Here's a guy who idolized the band that was the driving force in his favorite genre, and he seized all opportunities to experience what they do. Eventually, he got to be a part of that driving force. I also admired what it must have taken to put out the energy that he did, show after show and tour after tour, all while living either in a shed or a van. The next thought process, as the journal entries become more personal, was more of a desire to sit down and have a regular conversation with this normal guy who was in an abnormal situation. While "normal" doesn't do much to describe Henry Rollins, we get a repetitive look at how people would regularly treat him like a either a mythical figure or a piece of trash and how much it wore on him. After reading his intense personal thoughts, I felt like I had the insight to walk up and start a conversation that we would both enjoy. That desire grew out of my perception that he didn't have anyone like that around him, and that it had an effect on what I consider the next section.
We eventually get to a really dark point in his journal entries. His thoughts get very abstract and somewhat twisted as he's home from tour for longer periods. My thought process here was sort of an intensified version of the previous one, but mixed with a growing desire to not interact with him, but to sit back and continue observing. While his entries get pretty depressing at times, his moods and thoughts are fascinating. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during this time, viewing his interactions with band members, fans, publicists, interviewers, etc. to see how much he kept inside versus how much his state of mind showed. The book comes to a close before he gets too far out of this darker place.
I view Henry Rollins as an intensely positive person. When you watch his speaking sessions, it's clear that he wants to learn as much as he can from the world around him while giving everything a fair shot. He definitely wasn't like that his whole life, and it's really fascinating to read Get in the Van and see his growth as a person during that time. While my thoughts on Henry were continuously changing throughout the book, there was a common theme that strung them all together, which was "Man, I can learn so much from this guy." While he may be the complete opposite from me in terms of spiritual views, political views, etc, I continuously have the feeling that he hits the nail on the head in so many areas.
To sum up, read this book.(less)

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Feb 17, 2013 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars

Rollin's story of how he joined Black Flag is a microcosm as to how a lot of people get their real start in life: they make an impression on some loose connection and then they get to join the group, whether it's a punk band or a job at Google. Next are journal entries of hard work, problems with cops, and violent people who came to the shows.

While everyone won't have quiet a dramatic life as a Black Flag member, the anecdotes are pretty applicable to everyone. If you want to get anywhere in li...more

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Jan 23, 2012 Matt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, diary, black, flag, hardcore, punk, music

I grew up a huge Black Flag and Rollins Band fan and my wife bought this for me for Christmas. While I enjoyed the nostalgic romp through late 70s early 80s punk/hardcore scene I found this book difficult to finish. There are times where I found Rollins to be too much of nihilist for me to finish reading his thoughts. Now don't get me wrong I am very much a pessimist (my wife is the optimist) but wallowing in negativity tends to get you no where and that it is what I recall about this diary turn...more

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Mar 29, 2011 Benoit Lelievre rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

If you like Rollins, even just a little, you owe yourself to read that book. I have a paragraph from page 120 tattooed on my right forearm.

The initial inception must be pure. All energy must be put to use. The end must never leave your sight. Complete destruction must be had. You must maintain drive that goes beyond obsession, beyond purpose, beyond reason. Every movement must be in the forward direction. When in the woods, seek the clearing. The path shines so bright it's almost blinding.

It's a...more

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Oct 27, 2010 catechism rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, biography-and-memoir, music, on-my-hard-drive, on-my-shelves, punk-rock

There is a reason most of us do not publish the diaries we keep when we are teenies, and that reason is paragraph after paragraph about how the world is cold, no one understands me, maybe I'll cut myself for a while, everything is terrible, I hate the whole world and they hate me back, my girlfriend just broke up with me long-distance and I will be ALONE FOREVER. I spent a lot of this laughing and thinking to myself, CRY MOAR, HENRY ROLLINS.

That said! I enjoyed the hell out of it! It's a great l...more

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May 23, 2009 Brian Fanelli rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you want a really honest, detailed account of what it was like to front a punk band in the 1980s, then check out Henry Rollins Get in the Van, a collection of journal entries from his time as Black Flag's front man. The book addresses the excitement of fronting a band, but also the boredom of being on the road constantly. The entries also detail some of the most brutal fights between the LA police and the punk rockers. Rollins' journals serve as a reminder that punk rock was not always so saf...more

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Oct 27, 2012 Tim Greathouse rated it 5 of 5 stars

Get in the Van is a no-nonsense glimpse into the beginning of Henry's start with Black Flag, the 80's underground punk scene, and the inner workings of one of the most daring pioneers in music. These same experiences sent other musicians into drug abuse, obscurity, the grave or all three; they sent Rollins on a path to success, where success is defined by himself and no one else. Fuck Stand By Me - Get in the Van is a coming of age story that will leave feeling like you got more than a few teeth...more

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Apr 15, 2013 Tyler Giesa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I once had dreams that I too could some how be in a band. Rollins was a particular inspiration due to his lack of vocal range, and just being the sort of embodiment of "well you asked, sure Ill try" ethos of starting a punk band. This book knocked any sense of the glamour of touring or recording out of my head. It's a brutal reality of the mundane and crazy making aspects of a band and probably closer to the realities of 99.9% of the bands out there that aren't Led Zeppelin or the Beatles. This...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Daniel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Great memoir of Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins detailing the insane life on the road touring with the band in the early 80s. Pretty much the godfathers of hardcore music Black Flag's shows were as legendary as they are. Rollins and the brilliant Greg Ginn as well as the other Flag members endured countless chaotic shows that constantly resulted in violence and their being spat on by fans.

What's most impressive is the passion for the music displayed through their relentless touring, ferocious...more

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Jan 01, 2009 Mark Desrosiers rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: music, memoirs

As a misanthrope and a solipsist, young Henry Rollins is the midpoint between Gene Simmons and Arthur Schopenhauer (with whom he bears more than a passing resemblance). This book chronicles his transformation from an insecure D.C. ice-cream sales associate to a self-absorbed glossolalia Cardassian. Compassion, malice, and egoism (the nascent traits that Henry calls his "Discipline, Insanity, and Exile") are vividly enacted here, everything from skinheads interrupting Henry's taking a shit to his...more

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Nov 24, 2010 Shane rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, music, read-in-2010

This book totally rocked on audio but now I have the real book and it has TONS of pictures. So it's a "bathroom book". Reading it again just reminds of how much fun it was the first time.

I didn't start going to hardcore shows until 1987 so I missed out on all this (and that really sucks) but reading about it and seeing all these pics is the second best thing. Quotes like "I dove off the stage and landed hard on this guy pinning him to the ground - it ended up being Jello Biafra - sorry chief." J...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Art rated it 3 of 5 stars

"Life on the road" with Black Flag; constantly being beaten up, abused, spat and pissed on. Town to town, bring me your skinheads, your punch junkies, your huddled masses. Utter contempt and poison in Rollins' voice as he recounts day after day of this (I listened to the audiobook). It gets a bit tiresome hearing him complain so much about a lifestyle he obviously wouldn't have any other way. But I guess that's what punk rock is all about. I never did get into all that stuff. Badass book, though...more

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May 07, 2012 Brad rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: music, non-fiction-and-bio-memoir

A brutal read. For me, the most interesting sections were the retrospectively-written 1981 section about Rollins joining the already influential band and the final two years where Rollins starts to shine more as a writer vs. writing merely to document. Most of it is a soul-punching depiction of the violent, nameless crowds encountered on tour written with the madness of a macho, self-destructive Travis Bickle. But I have respect: it is because of bands like Black Flag that touring has improved f...more

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Feb 17, 2008 Joseph rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: punks, hippies, metal heads, jazzers and everyone else

Shelves: works-of-great-importance

I've owned this book since the late '90s, when I was a teen getting into punk rock. Black Flag's "Who's Got the 10 1/2" was the fourth punk record I ever bought and made me a fan for life. When I bought "Get in the Van" in early 1997, the history of punk rock (especially American Hardcore Punk) was still spoken in whispers. It was very hard to find out more about punk rock bands than it is today. This book is Henry Rollins' journals while he was the fourth and last singer of the great Black Flag...more

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Jan 01, 2010 Cory Rayborn rated it 3 of 5 stars

I can't believe I've never read this before now (despite having heard the audio book version several times - a much longer story than is worth going into here). i really love all of the tour memoir type of stuff - very fascinating - but i massively tire of the increasingly crazy psyche of rollins. totally worth reading but i found myself skipping past most of his totally depressed / depressing / dream sequence entries out of a lack of interest. ha.

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Sep 13, 2009 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: music, biog-autobiog

Not the version I am aware of as i went with the 2CD author's spoken word version which was truly interesting and defines a period of rock history unlikely to happen again given the different marketing opportunities for bands these days and lack of smaller venues...anyhow I digress.
The advantage of the book is the pictures theirin which add to the excellent narrative...it's the story of a band struggling and falling out of love with one another!!!

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Jun 14, 2009 Patrick rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm a fan (somewhat fascinated) of Henry Rollins, so when I got this for Christmas a few years ago I was really psyched. It starts out well but as it goes on it's obvious that either Hank is losing his mind or the road took its toll on his writing. In any case, this book was harder and harder to get through. It's a real insight into life on the road and a real insight into "middle America" in the 1980's, but it's not an easy read towards the end.

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Dec 04, 2008 Nate rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: music, modern-non-fiction

I can't really take too much of Henry's self-mythologizing, but this book chronicles the work that he'll be known for forever: fronting Black Flag. Working on Greg Ginn's farm wasn't easy and Henry's story is funny, bracing, and paints a staggering picture of young men overcoming unbelievable obstacles to push their rock band out into a very hostile world. A must read for fans of 1980s American rock.

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Jul 17, 2012 Dusty Henry rated it 4 of 5 stars

Well, I didn't actually read it but listened to the audiobook. Rollins' journal is so insightful - less about Black Flag and more about himself. I loved hearing his stories of touring in Europe and the sacrifice of touring as a punk band knowing you'll never likely make it mainstream (and little desire to either). Great to hear about a time when it was just about the music. Very conversational.

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About Henry Rollins

Henry Rollins (born Henry Lawrence Garfield; often referred to simply as Rollins) is an American singer-songwriter, spoken word artist, author, actor and publisher.

After joining the short-lived Washington, D.C. band State of Alert in 1980, Rollins fronted the Californian hardcore punk band Black Flag from 1981 until 1986. Following the band's breakup, Rollins soon established the record label and...more

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Books by Henry Rollins

Smile, You're Traveling: Black Coffee Blues Part 3

Do I Come Here Often?: Black Coffee Blues Pt. 2

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“I've said it before and I say it again: "A man's got to do what a brainless idiot's got to do.” — 1 person liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/88269.Get_in_the_Van?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328699035l/88269.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/88269.Get_in_the_Van?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag by Henry Rollins[/url]

Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag

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