A few days ago, I was sitting backstage at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, in the same area where I was with Black Flag, touring Europe with the Minutemen in 1983. Preshow, I often sit in that room and focus on a spot where I remember watching D Boon and Mike Watt talking about their set. We had yet to play. We had a rough night on that stage -- beer, skinheads. I turned 22 onstage. The next night, we were in Bremen, Germany, and The Fall were at the Paradiso. I still have the poster.

As you can imagine, there is a lot of history in some of these venues. In Hamburg, Germany, there is a venue called the Grosse Freiheit, or, in English, the Big Freedom. In the basement, down the hall from the dressing rooms, you can walk through a door and sit in the Kaiserkeller and look at the small stage the Beatles played on in 1960. At the Löwenbräukeller in Munich, Adolf Hitler staged his famous Putsch in November 1923. The backroom where he tried to intimidate the Bavarian prime minister is a dressing room for performers.

See also: Henry Rollins: The Column! Hands Are Groping Me, Breasts Are Pushed Into Me

Fanatics! Coming to you from freezing Scandinavia! I am on a rare night off in Copenhagen, Denmark. Some amazing records stores up here, Fanatic!

Last several days have been fruitful on the endless record hunt. Holland, Belgium and Germany were very good to Road Manager Ward and I. Cosmic Jokers, Brigitte Fontaine, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Takehisa Kosugi, A really clean first UK pressing of Low by David Bowie, My Cat Is An Alien, Suicide's first album, German pressing -- never saw that one before.

I thought my present geographical location was the perfect jumping off point for a bit of a concept show and if you scan the tracks that we have for you, it is easy to see that we have done our level best to keep it all in Scandinavia.

Time becomes fluid and is then smashed, compressed, elongated by miles and then slammed into a wall and rearranged. It is force-fed periodic sleep, border crossings, long nights onstage, visits to the gym and a never-ending series of small rooms to spend time in before and after the shows and told to keep going. Some of the venues I have been in and out of for literally decades, and the familiarity I feel in them is a hard-earned currency that, while worthless in the real world, is a valuable asset out here. I crossed the line of 10 shows a few shows ago and now I am officially on tour and there is no separation between me, the audience, the road -- it's all on all at once and it never closes. That's the number I have in my head. You have to do 10 to know you're doing it, and then from there you go deeper and deeper.

I am in Bristol, England. The cold outside has permeated the walls of the utilitarian backstage area where I am waiting before I walk out onstage. I have an electric heater pulled in front of me and occasionally warm my hands over it so I can keep writing.

The cold backstage is one of the things you can count on this time of the year in England. These rooms have a spare and austere build that seems to say, "Comfort, like success, would only lead to your downfall." It may sound strange, but not only have I grown used to these often less-than-cheerful environments, I don't mind them at all. If you can thrive in these conditions and hit the stage every night, you're good to go.

It is the relentless grind of rooms like these, travel, erratic sleep opportunities, meals that are often less than great and myriad other destabilizing factors that send many touring performers back to more tolerable environs with a more predicable continuum. Basically, this isn't for everybody. Unfortunately, many of the people who find it objectionable have to live like this for more nights a year than they would like.

See also: Henry Rollins: The Column! Are You Collector Scum?

Fanatics! Sitting on the tour bus here in raining Wolverhampton UK. I am well into the Long March Tour and things are going well. I am sorry to put you Fanatics through a pre-taped show but we made them as fun as possible and have added the presence of the very talented Young Will Bentley into the mix, so hopefully, you will derive some enjoyment from all of this.

Tonight, being that I am in England, I thought it good that we should play a whole lotta music from England, so I set out to make a play list of songs to do just that. I don't there is anything on the menu tonight that will occur to you as unfamiliar, so while it's not the most exploratory gathering of tunes, they are great nonetheless. As to pioneering new sonic territory, we have plenty of time for that and you bet will be doing a lot that in 2012.

Limited-edition, colored vinyl, 7-inch single with a non-LP B-side? Wait, it gets better. The first of three singles all featuring the same A-side but different B-sides. Hold on -- the 12-inch version comes with a live track and a demo version of the A-side, but not the non-LP B-side that's on the 7-inch. To hear it all, you have to get all six releases. If you are someone burdened by a real life, all of this is boring and yet another example of the cruel and unusual machinations of predatory capitalism.

You would think the fans would be angered by their favorite band taking advantage of their devotion by such wallet-thinning acts, but quite often the only complaints you hear are from those who didn't get theirs in time.

Fanatics! As you know, I am on the road and will be for some time. Engineer X, the Young Will Bentley and I got together recently at the Auxiliary Wing of the Jasonic Temple and put together a fine show for you all. As you can see below, we have a few songs from Scotland as I will be onstage in Glasgow Saturday night.

We are taking in another play of last week's Vum track, I think it's a great one. It's been awhile since we played something from the Bark Bark Bark record, so I thought it was time to get back into that one.

Weeks ago, my L.A. Weekly super editor Ben Westhoff asked me about my plans for 2012. I told him I was about to start one of my typical tours where I would be spending several weeks on the road going from stage to stage, city after city, country after country.

He asked me how long this tour was. I told him that it would start to show signs of fatigue around the end of February 2013. "Would you write about some of the places you'll be, and perhaps send some old war stories from past deployments?" he asked.

Stories from the road? Moi?!

That's one thing I have. I have been touring for more than 30 years. It's what I do. My time off the road is full of anxiety and restlessness. The days in Los Angeles are only the countdown before I go back out into the world. I would rather be there, doing a show every night; the pressure of it keeps me tense and alert.

Fanatics! Just so you know, this set was specifically engineered and put together with great care in order to bring you the maximum enjoyment as we gather together live for the first time this year.

2012 promises to be interesting to say the least and we will be doing our level best to keep you motivated and buoyant through a year which will no doubt be regarded as "one for the books." You betcha!

Tonight we are live in the Jasonic Temple, this would be 89.9 FM KCRW -- the station that Jason Bentley built.

Jasonically speaking, to borrow and mangle a phrase, I would like you to leave this paragraph momentarily and look below at what lies in store for you. When you're done, come back up here, I'll wait. Nice, right? This is a great way to start our 2012.

For many years I tried to make New Year's resolutions. I made lists and shot for great heights: I would show altruism and exert moral strength, patience and all those other great attributes.

For a few weeks I was able to hang in there, be disciplined and do good, as the resolutions dictated. Then, invariably, real life crept in. I would do things like forget to sit up straight, and I went back to the way I was in the previous year.

The only thing I have done consistently for decades is to listen to music damn near every day. I am sure there have been days when I didn't listen to music, but I can't remember any of them at this moment -- they must not have been all that great.