Now that punk has been wrapped up and put in its historical place by commentators such as Jon Savage, whose excellent England's Dreaming rigorously chronicled the phenomenon on this side of the Atlantic, it is amusing to see the commercialism which the revolution initially opposed taking its final revenge. As a Bret Easton Ellis character observes in The Rules of Attraction, yuppie couples can now own Sex Pistols records on compact disc. So it is perhaps not such a surprise that Henry Rollins's Get in the Van, detailing his life on tour with the American anarchist punk band Black Flag, is actually a coffee-table book, liberally decorated with glossy black-and-white photographs surrounded by generously sized type. Even the cover, in which a venue of a Black Flag concert is being approached not by fans but by armed policemen, seems like a forlorn gesture to public order.
Rollins's gigs were indeed violent. In an average night, he would be spat on, punched in the groin by punk girls, showered with urine-filled beer glasses, and quite possibly not be paid. Running with police and hooligans were common; days of hunger and sleeplessness saw Henry unwashed and lonely, and led to a misanthropy equitably balanced by self-loathing; at the same time they offered an escape from a job in an ice-cream store.
Rollins is not always interesting to read or listen to; what sets him apart, perhaps, is his dedication. He is, after all, still touring (with the Rollins band and, briefly, with the engagingly titled Henrietta Rollins and the Wife-Beating Child-Molesters), non-stop. Today he writes not in journals but on a lap-top computer (which he has also helped to design); he has set up a publishing company and a record label. He works out intensively, and has never taken drink or drugs. As he said in a recent interview: "I'm a workaholic . . . I don't do much relaxing. I go 'til I'm exhausted." Rollins has lived most of his adult life under this punishing regime, as if running from his own demons – although what these demons could be, apart from a disciplinarian father who was in the US military, is far from clear.
In a 1983 entry, he observes, "I cut myself up with a piece of broken glass to get ready to play tonight. I don't know if anyone would understand that." Self-mutilation, of course, is not that uncommon in Rollins's chosen milieu; Iggy Pop was doing it on stage in the 1970s. Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers once carved "4 Real" into his arm when accused of faking the nihilism of his music. There is in that gesture a parallel with Rollins's struggle for self-styled "authenticity", though, unlike Edwards and sundry unhappy teenagers, Rollins seems to punish the body to toughen the soul. He writes, with some scorn, "Bands don't live like we did. Many reach platinum sales on their first album. It might be interesting to see which bands today would still be around if they took the Flag route. It doesn't matter. I know some things they'll never know."
Despite that bravado, and the puerile machismo exhaustively celebrated in this account, Rollins is painfully honest about his insecurities, and often pokes fun at masculinity, his own and others'. His failure to relate to girls is candidly explored. There is frequent unintentional humour in his intensity. Having seen the film Mishima, Rollins notes enthusiastically: "He thought that a man should kill himself at the peak of his physical life so he would not have to die in a pathetic, withering state. There's something very perfect and self-respecting about such a violent act. I need to go check this guy out. I'll try to find someone who has read his books so I can get some advice on which to read first.” Few punk-rock singers show such po-faced autodidactic diligence. Rollins's audience, by their dress and behaviour, supposedly set themselves aside from bourgeois commercial society, yet the man himself is nothing if not a symbol of the old-fashioned work ethic; not so very different from his father after all