T Arts & Entertainment iSjggs.
Henry Rollins to appear at Duffy’s Sunday
By Charles Lieurance
Senior Editor
In 1983, just after the release of
“Everything Went Black,” Black
Flag was to play a large Quonset hut
in Denver. The Rocky Mountain
chapter of American skinheads had
assembled en masse and were waiting
for Henry Rollins and company to
recreate live one of the greatest
rock’n’roll albums of all time,
“Damaged.”
As it turned out, the police broke
up what was apparently a spontane
ous concert during the first few notes
of the sound check and Black Flag
loaded their gear up and, with a trail of
cars and vans behind them, set out to
find a new place to play. After driving
around half the night, the band found
a dark, sinister hole in which to un
leash the classics of “Damaged,”
r~ ■ —f—
“T.V. Parly” and ‘‘Rise Above.”
Washington D.C.’s Henry Rollins
will appear Sunday at Duffy’s Tavern
for an all-ages show. He’s come a
long way since those first SST shows,
since leading a pack of dissipated
teenagers around a mulitude of face
less cities in search of a venue the
police don’t know about.
As one of the first people to realize'
the power and potential of loud, fast
rules, he was also one of the first
people to realize the genre’s inherent
limitations and jump the hardcore:
boat before he became walking self-'
parody like Fear’s Lee Ving and the:
Circle Jerks’ Keith Morris, affcclingi
pubescent angst and anger with slimy!
Vegas schmaltz.
While the other perpetrators of the
L.A. hardcore revolution spun out
fossilized three-chord riffs and
shockingly lifeless Stooges homages,
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Rollins moved on to more leruie
ground. Although he’d spent most of
his life proving he was a vulgar pis
sed-off idiot, Rollins made a bid for
the dubious title of punk’s poet laure
ate, replacing the hibernating, do
mesticated Patti Smith.
He appeared on MTV’s “Cutting
Edge” reciting hipster Bukowski
esque Beal noodlings. He was seen
hanging around Bill Burroughs. He
and John Giorno had lunch. Sud
denly, there were more pocket vol
umes of Rollins’ verse than Black
Flag albums. Instead of demanding a
case of Heinckcn in his concert riders,
Rollins began demanding bean curd
and mineral water. My God, the man
who penned the lines, “We’ve got
nothing better to do/than watch T.V.
and have a coupla brews... we don’t
wanna talk about anything clsc/wc
don t wanna know/ we re jusi dedi
cated to our favorite shows . . .
Gilligan’s Island! Saturday Night
Live!” was becoming a regular hip
pie.
Rollins’ solo albums even had
tinges of the Grateful Dead (“where
have all the skinheads gone? long
time passing. . . “) spread liberally
throughout the grooves in the form of
long, slow guitar mcandcrings. And
all those Black Sabbath licks Rollins
spent his youth sabotaging with intel
ligence and humor began to appear in
straightcr, less ironic, forms. There’s
still enough anger in Rollins to “Rise
Above,“and because he isn’t mired in
one overwrought format, the anger
rarely seems pul on. It’s never been
particularly easy to listen to Rollins in
any format though. In Black Flag,
Rollins’ vocals were shrouded in a
mm m
toilet dowi mix mat Doraerca on me
unlistenablc more often than not. His
solo outings, for all the advantages of
adequate production, arc no less
troublesome. Rollins, like most of the
greats in punk rock, is more of a
presence than a talent and his recent
attempts at sophistication succeed
more because someone as hulking
and menacing as Rollins would seem
to defy sophistication in favor of get
ting schooled in driving the big rigs
cross country from some T.V. com
mercial tech school.
Rollins is a legend, and unlike his
peers, he still warrants veneration. So
what if Rollins can’t sing or play an
instrument very well. My God, the
man wrote “T.V. Parly.” I’d still fol
low him around thccity half the night.
The cover charge has not yet been
announced.
Chapman aipum in own category
Tracy Chapman “Tracy
Chapman” Elektra Records
Actually listening to (not just as
background noise) Tracy Chapman’s
self-tilled album will reveal the true
beauty and originality of it, an origi
nality which defies categorization.
The beauty of the album comes
from her lyrical handling of current
suect subjects such as prejudice, dis
crimination, wife battering and the
unfair division of wealth, making
them real to those who do not experi
ence them every day.
Chapman’s ucalmcnt of these is
sues is not to complain, or even be
especially sentimental, but rather to
starkly express strong concern, and to
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