Henry Rollins
Florida is a crazy place, and I have played some of the wildest shows of my life here.
We Americans are hard on almost everything. We are hard on our vehicles, our marriages and our heroes. Mostly, however, we are hard on ourselves.
Songs sung under duress are often very powerful.
Rock n' roll unchained a nation and revolutionized radio and the record industry, not to mention the motion picture business.
In the summer of 1991, I was on the first Lollapalooza tour. Nightly, I would watch Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell go out in front of a sea of people and within minutes have all of them in the palm of his hand. I have never seen anything like it since.
Certainly, there are huge, multiplatinum bands whose singers command their audience's attention. Sadly, much of the time they have little to say.
I spend several days at a time without enough sleep. At first, normal activities become annoying. When you are too tired to eat, you really need some sleep. A few days later, things become strange. Loud noises become louder and more startling, familiar sounds become unfamiliar, and life reinvents itself as a surrealist dream.
There are records that, in my opinion, only reach their full potential when the listener is disoriented.
There's something about being under-rested and knowing that the situation is going to remain that way for quite some time that makes things more meaningful.
People will remember that the Tea Party was co-opted and funded by billion-dollar corporations, and that it was supported by Fox News and other outlets with the same vigor with which they attempt to denigrate the Occupy protesters.
I urge you to read the Occupy Manifesto, written by the New York City General Assembly. It is unavoidably clear. This is not directionless action. If it were, the media would have moved on.
For many, an album is no longer a considerable feat of an artist but just sounds to be half-listened to while one is halfheartedly engaged in something else.
If you are a musician who has released albums, it would perhaps be morbidly interesting to know how much you would be owed if everyone who now has your music had actually bought your record.
Music files and downloading have indeed changed the currency of music to a great degree.
I know that collector types can be a pain in the neck and seem perpetually frozen in time - or at least in their parents' basement - but someone has to look out for the past, lest it slip away forever.
Whenever any great song or album gets lost in the ether, someone is deprived of the joy of hearing it, and the great effort of those who created and recorded the work is damaged.
I have been curious about Haiti for many years. The history of the country is as fascinating as it is turbulent.
I plan to be a part of Haiti's reconstruction and future.
'The Great Gatsby' is a book I have read a few times, and it seems to get heavier every time I come to visit.
Each year, every city in the world that can should have a multiday festival. More people meeting each other, digging new types of music, new foods, new ideas. You want to stop having so many wars? This could be a step in the right direction.
August brings into sharp focus and a furious boil everything I've been listening to in the late spring and summer.
The Internet, the camera cellphone and the like have not only sped up the world's information uptake, but they have cheapened that which they capture.
A text conversation is a short exchange of often grossly truncated language that corresponds to a thought made all the more shallow by the process.
It is only our humanity that can deliver us from the brutality of our achievements.
Sleep is for squares.
I don't mind bees and think we are all the better for having them around. I like the taste of honey.
Rock is ironic in that, up to a certain point, you can get better and better at it if you don't mind possibly looking more and more ridiculous.
A country that has been through as much as Vietnam has to have some crazy music somewhere.
You could split hairs and bring up words like 'doo-wop' and terms like 'soul' or 'R&B', but I think pop music is what you want it to be - that's why it's pop.
One of the nice things about a favorite pop song is that it's an unconditional truce on judgment and musical snobbery. You like the song because you just do, and there need not be any further criticism.
Seasonal change in Los Angeles is often a very subtle thing. It's not as if we finally stop having to shovel the snow out of our driveways and can put our parkas back in the closet.
To my ears, jazz sounds better in warm weather and after the sun has gone down. While I will listen to some of my favorite jazz records in cooler weather, it's the warmer nights that really make them come alive. Something about those sounds and the heat of the night really makes it happen for me.
I have been listening to the Stooges' self-titled first album for well over half my life, and it remains one of the most exciting and essential records I have ever had the good fortune to come into contact with.
To burn a CDR of music you like to give as a gift to someone you wish to become closer to is a cold, moist-palmed, mouth-breathing bummer.
Technically speaking, there is no music whatsoever on a CD. Lots of information, but no music.
I remember when Martin Luther King was assassinated. I was up early watching television and watched the announcement. I didn't understand what the word 'assassinated' meant.
When I am in Africa, I realize I don't know much, have not seen much, and there's a lot to be done.
For me, returning to Los Angeles annihilates the memories of where I have just been with an astonishing speed.
If the death of Osama Bin Laden brings any peace to those who lost loved ones on that awful day in September 2001, that is a great thing. It is more likely, however, just a painful reminder of what was lost.
I think more airtime should be given to Donald Trump and Orly Taitz. They should run for office together. They should open for Charlie Sheen.
Of course same sex marriage is constitutional! The right to be yourself, to pursue life, liberty, and property, is protected several ways over several amendments. John Boehner should know this.
I don't believe it mattered to Timothy McVeigh who was president or who his congressional representative was when he blew up the Murrah Building in 1995.
If American forces leave Afghanistan, the Taliban is going to do what to America? Don't say you're worried about what they will do to the Afghan people. If that was America's concern, America's operational presence there would be much different.
If an American company has a drop of patriotic blood coursing through its system, then surely it would set up in America and employ Americans, right?
Juan Williams is a very sharp guy.
That Newt Gingrich or any mainstream Republican has the nerve to look down from what they perceive as their moral mountaintop at anyone is laughable.
The only thing worse than the Pastor Terry Jones scheduled Koran burning is the fact that he canceled the proposed event.
When people make my country look bad, I can't stand it.
As the middle class is predated upon with an ever greater malicious intensity, their children stand to lose more and harder than their parents ever did.