RADIO BROADCAST #215
05-12-13

Fanatics. I would like to thank the girls from Honest Marquee for giving us one of their new tracks for us to play. I think it's a great one.

Sunday's show is packed with mix tape goodness and I think you're going to dig it.

I want to thank you for all the letters you have sent in about the radio show and its move to Sunday nights. The best part of the show is knowing that some people are listening and that they are getting something from it. As you can imagine, a lot goes into making the show happen week after week. It's never easy, always worth it.

See also: Henry Rollins: Thinking For Myself

I am writing to you from one of my favorite spots anywhere. I am at Dischord House in Virginia, home of the mighty Dischord Records, one of the ground-floor record labels in America.

Dischord is owned and operated by Ian Mac­Kaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi fame. His current band, the Evens, just wrapped up several SoCal shows. I have been visiting this place since Ian and some other Dischordions moved in here almost 32 years ago.

Ian is a few feet away from me, in his small office wallpapered with album covers, photos, letters -- some of these have been tacked up since the early '80s.

In the doorway that joins the dining room to the kitchen, there is an adjustable chin-up bar. This was mine from when I still lived in D.C. It is bent from the time the members of Rites of Spring collectively hung from it in 1984.

RADIO BROADCAST #214
05-05-13

Fanatics. I hope this finds you well. I am in the Washington D.C. area, working on some television stuff. We have a tremendous mix of music here that I hope you will like.

Thank you so much for the letters you have sent in over the last several days. This show is all about two things: the music and you. That's it, that is what it's all about. This fact keeps our priorities clear.

See also: Henry Rollins: Pride Getting the Best of Me

In my line of work, one needs to be adaptable -- very adaptable. My pursuit of employment has taken me many places, through many job descriptions. For the next few weeks, I will be doing some historical documentary work in the Washington, D.C., area. I apologize for being so vague, but contractually, that's about all I can say. It should be interesting, with lots of sleep-deprivation opportunities.

Before all this started, I had to pick up a rental car at Dulles airport and drive about 100 miles southwest, to Crozet, Va., for a couple days to sign the first edition of my new book, Before the Chop. They are stocked at MusicToday, the merch company that warehouses all my stuff. It was decided that I would unpack, sign, repack and stack almost 4,000 books in two days. No problem. It helps to be adaptable, if your life is one protracted improv.

RADIO BROADCAST #213
04-28-13

See also: Henry Rollins: Pride Getting the Best of Me

Fanatics. Presently stationed in Washington DC. I will be here for a few weeks, working on a documentary series. Contractual obligations do not permit me to elaborate at this time but when I can, I will let you know what I am up to.

I can tell you that I will be in the Hawaii Five-0 episode airing on May 6, I think it is. I was told today that it was going to air on the first Monday in May.

What is of the utmost importance at this moment is the music we have prepared for you tonight, or whenever are listening to this.

See also: Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Moves to Sunday Nights

I have come to the conclusion that it's a waste of time to have too much pride in anything. Perhaps it's good to have a sense of duty, a jealous zeal to protect or improve, but pride ultimately is only that which stands vulnerable to offense and degradation. Pride is a thing that I have tried to abandon completely. Try as I might, pride still creeps into many of the things I do.

Repetition and a dedication to consistency as a standard make me prey to pride. I, through some insecurity or unresolved/undealt-with issues, tend to overdo everything. I put a lot of time into all tasks I obligate myself to, perhaps too much.

A few nights ago, I did a show in the Midwest. The audience, whom I overcare about to the point of obsession, was great to me. After the show, the impact of three days of multiple flights, hotels, shows and not much sleep started to make its presence known.

KCRW BROADCAST #212
04-21-13

See also: Henry Rollins: Dead Children in Afghanistan

Fanatics! Our show has moved, or that is to say, has been moved by forces much, much greater than The Big Three and now we find ourselves on Sunday nights from 8 to 10 pm. The wisdom or lack thereof shall make itself known to us as time goes by.

As you might feel along with me, it's really not a Sunday night kind of thing we do and I don't know how it's going to fit at this new time.

For me, Sunday is a grim proposition. Monday looms and one must prepare for the week to come.

See also: Henry Rollins: Joe Cole and American Gun Violence

I use music to keep my life in check. Really, I do. I can get through almost any tough situation if I have the right soundtrack.

I become genuinely excited when I find out about a new release. I often pre-order the record or petition the label for an advance copy. Music -- listening, acquiring, discovering, the facts, the history, the minutiae -- it never gets old. I have been hooked in this way since I was teenage. I would like to think that I'm only getting warmed up.

Music helps me to fortify myself against the often depressingly grim realities the state of things currently offers.

KCRW BROADCAST #211
04-13-13
 
See also: Henry Rollins: Joe Cole and American Gun Violence

Fanatics! I hope you had a chance to listen to last week's show by now. Ian MacKaye was our guest and like last year, it was a great night that went by all too quickly. I didn't want to spoil the fun by putting what songs we were going to play and many of you Fanatics have written in, asking if we would put up the track list from the show. I think this is it, there might be an extra song in there that we didn't get to but this is pretty close:

Editor's note: Joe Cole was a friend and roommate of Henry Rollins' as well as a roadie for Black Flag and Rollins Band.

On April 10 of this year, a man named Joe Cole would have been 52 years old. On 12/19/91, this man was shot and killed in Venice while being robbed at gunpoint. I was a few feet away. Even though it has been more than 20 years since he was killed, I think of him often.

Joe Cole's murder gave me a powerful tutorial on guns and America. The United States is full of some of the most resourceful, generous and hardworking people I have ever encountered. Yet statistically, America is a nation of killers and the killed.

We Americans have a familiarity and fascination with guns, murder and those who kill. From soldiers to serial killers, we study, immortalize, fanaticize and fear them. Try driving the streets of Los Angeles without seeing a billboard depicting a film with a lead actor holding a gun. It's almost as if guns are harmless props used to bring out the cheekbones and jawline of the screen star. It is hard to think of a leading man who hasn't at one time posed with a gun. Guns are part of the American identity.

See also: Henry Rollins: George Bush's War Is Still With Us