a book
Get in the Van
Henry Rollins · 1994 · 303 pages
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 decided to revise this edition by adding a wealth of new photographs, a new foreword, and an afterword to include some "where-are-they-now" information on the people featured in the book. This new edition includes 40 previously unpublished black-and-white photographs from Rollins's private collection and show flyers by artist Raymond Pettibon. Called "a soul-frying experience not to be undertaken by lightweights" by Wired magazine, Get in the Van perfectly embodies what one critic called the "secular gospel" of one of punk and post-punk's most respected and controversial figures.
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Corey Taylor
“It’s tales from the road, and I read that right before I went out on my first tour. It kind of set my tone for what to expect, and the way that he roughed it, I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can fucking do that!’ It was so gnarly, it almost put me off touring! But I love that blend of isolation and yet solidarity, because that’s really what touring is. It’s coming together when you need to come together, but then you’ve got all those fucking hours just stuck in your own shitty head, to where you almost lose your mind. It’s hard to relate to certain people, and certainly to ‘normal’ life. For me, that was my taste of getting a glimpse of what touring life was like, and the psychology of what it takes to be able to tour.”↗