Henry Rollins Shocker : He Prefers 7" Singles Over People!! - L.A. Weekly 4/2/15

From the 4/2/2015 issue of L.A. Weekly :
http://www.laweekly.com/music/henry-rollins-i-like-records-more-than-people-5463618

People are a strange bunch. If you stare at them for a prolonged period, they sometimes get angry. If you look at them with a magnifying glass and start taking notes, they get offended. “What the hell are you doing?!” they bellow. They want answers. Don’t we all.
This is why I prefer records to members of our species. Don’t get me wrong; we are fantastic and without us, there would be no records. But I like records more, almost as much as the music they contain. Allow me to explain as I try to climb out of the anti-social pit I have just so earnestly dug and eagerly hopped into.
I’ll use The Buzzcocks out of Manchester, England, as an example. I think their recordings on the United Artists label are about as good as music gets. This includes their first three studio albums and a slew of singles that were released after the perfect four-track Spiral Scratch EP with which they debuted on their own New Hormones label. I can’t live with only one copy of each of these records.
This might be misconstrued as casually dating The Buzzcocks’ catalog. Nope, not nearly obsessive enough. I have a relationship with these songs so severe that, if it wasn’t mere vinyl and paper, I would be slapped with a restraining order that would chain me to a chair. I need a copy of every one of these records from every territory they were pressed in. And, whenever possible, a test pressing and (be still my beating heart) an acetate of each one, as well.
Take the band’s excellent two-song single “What Do I Get”/“Oh ****,” released in early 1978. Shouldn’t the sheer greatness of the two songs, rendered on a single copy, be enough?
Not for me. I have pressings from Germany, France, Portugal, Holland, Belgium and England. The Belgian is one of the rarest — only a few hundred pressed — and the Dutch one of the more interesting, because they mistitled the A-side on the cover as “What Did I Get.”
United Artists saved its best moves for the U.K. version, which includes solid center and push-out center, one-sided and two-sided white label test pressings, and A-label promos both one- and two-sided, too. (Well played, UA, well played.)
These singles also have different writing and catalog numbers scratched into the matrix, or “dead wax,” by the label. Don’t worry, I have two magnifying glasses with which to read them.
All of this is probably of zero interest to you — and I can’t explain how happy that makes me! I am fine going on this mission with as few others in the way as possible. You are mildly amused that I am strange and I am ecstatic that you are lightweight and uncommitted. Win and win.
Now, imagine needing to do this with almost every record you own. Actually, don’t — just count yourself lucky if you don’t share my obsession.
In Frank Zappa’s song “Muffin Man,” found on the blazing Bongo Fury album, the Muffin Man proclaims the muffin to be the “prince of foods.” I proclaim the 7-inch disc to be the prince of records.
I think the “single” is the most romantic, poetic and completely perfect delivery system for a potentially dizzying, poignant, all-too-brief musical embrace. As the great Skip Groff, owner of the legendary Yesterday & Today Records store in Rockville, Maryland, said to me almost 40 years ago: On a single, a group is trying to tell you everything about themselves with only a few minutes to make their strongest possible case. They are going to put their entirety on the A-side and maybe give you a glimpse on the B-side of what they get up to when the record company isn’t breathing down their necks. Obviously, this can’t be true all the time, but I have been unable to dislodge this idea since Skip laid it on me all those years ago.
The limitations of the single necessitate almost constant interaction with the actual record itself. Once put on the turntable and started, in only a few minutes, it will require that you either play the side again, turn it over and play the B-side, or put it away.
Listening to singles in a group setting is a great way to share and experience music. If everyone takes turns putting on singles, you’re never forced to endure something you don’t find favorable for too long. Ian MacKaye and I used to burn hours of our youth in his mother’s attic listening to singles. We still do it now.
And to make it all the more fleeting and fascinating, dig this idea: Some bands had only a few songs. If they had to make an album, it would be riddled with covers and filler, thus making the good songs stand out like diamonds in mud, but also lessening their effect, dulling them with the mediocrity of what surrounds them.
The single is often a perfect snapshot of the few minutes a group truly connected with one another and with something bigger than themselves. I live for those blink-and-you-missed-it cracks in time.
I will leave you with one more example of a local band that used the 7-inch medium to maximum effect. The Weirdos never released a proper album. Singles, EPs and later, compilations, which all completely scorch — but never an album.
It doesn’t matter in the least. The Destroy All Music EP they released on Bomp! in 1977 has three songs: “Destroy All Music,” “A Life of Crime” and “Why Do You Exist.” The total clocks in at a few seconds over 5½ minutes and it will kick the ass off at least half of your record collection.
Singles rule.
To be continued...

 

Oh man; I always thought Henry was a genious. But this elevates him yet more.

 

I used to shop at the Yesterday & Today Records in Rockville, MD Henry mentions - Henry actually worked there a bit as well. That was THE place to go to pick up all those cool import and indie 7" singles in the late 70's and early 80's - a collector's paradise. I miss that place like you wouldn't believe.

 

HR gushing over the experience of records, rarities and singles somehow doesn't surprise me, from listening to his dialogue in the small bits I have heard over the years he has never ceased to entertain. I went on a bit of a utube jag a few weeks ago listening to his stories and all I can say is this guy knows how to tell a story and make you laugh.
His sarcasm may be a little harder to glean in the written form, but live he is damn funny.
I can totally relate to the Buzzcocks binging, for me just the original UK UA lps are enough, but I am still looking for that Spiral Scratch.
He never fails to eloquently express just about anything about himself or life in general.

How long has he been writing for LA Weekly?

 

I think since 2011. I've enjoyed these recent articles by him so much I went to his site and ordered the 2 compilations he's released of his articles for LA Weekly, "Before The Chop" Volumes 1 and 2. They are the full articles he wrote before LAW edited them down for publication. They're signed, too.

http://21361.themerchcollective.com/henry-rollins-before-the-chop-l-ll-bundle/

 

That's a pretty sweet bundled deal!

 

I prefer Henry Rollins over people.

D.D.

 

Great article and so true! I have tried to convince some friends on the beauty of the 7" using many of Henry's same arguments. Throw in great artwork, on either the sleeve, the label, or both) and the fun is endless. And don't even try to sway me by pointing out that it is annoying to flip the record over every few minutes.....I need to get my exercise somewhere, right?

 

Rollins definitley does love 45 singles! Used to see him at the Record Collector in Trenton NJ (now in Bordentown, NJ) in the late 80's. He'd carefully peruse through them, and one time had even ripped a single out of my hand (a Devo single). I took it out to buy, he saw me grabbing it and snatched it saying "i'll take this!"

Dick move, but it was Rollins. You'd see him walking around Trenton occasionally, he didn't want to talk to anyone as he was pretty well known at the time. Trenton, NJ was home to the punk club City Gardens, so lots of the youth there were hip to who Rollins was.

 

I took the first few lines with a few grains of salt. I bumped into Henry at a show at the Rat in Boston in the 1980's - in his big Mickey Mouse shoe looking boots - and didn't stare at him, but do you have any idea what he would have said or done if I had? "Hi, I noticed you looking at me. Do we know each other?"

No.

It would have been more like: "You find me attractive, huh? What are you, a F***ing F**gott?"
And he would have spat out hate and threatened me. That's who he was. He's changed a lot, for the better. He was a roughneck and sometimes a real knucklehead.

Now, he's complaining about being on the other side? Give me a break.

The rest of the article is great. But those first few lines which are supposed to put it in a context are bs.

My guess is he's staring at girls who don't know who he is and, sadly, don't give a fruck.

It's time to grow up and butch up Henry.

 

I wonder what henry's girlfriend thinks of this view and is he put his records above her?