Rollins Band

This is pretty funny, and pretty sad. But I recently bought a record simply because I liked the vinyl colour. Well, kind of. In fact, it was partly because I liked the colour, and partly because I had never seen the record on coloured wax before. And this swung me to buy it, even though I wouldn't have wanted it otherwise. It's an album by the Rollins Band:

This is on an interesting pink vinyl, although not sure I have captured it too well here:

I've never been a big fan of this band. Truth be told, the Rollins Band was just a huge disappointment after Black Flag. I bought "The End Of Silence" when it came out circa 1992, but I never really had an urge to check anything else out. But at the moment I'd rather spend my money buying old records rather than new, since most new stuff seems pretty samey and uninspiring. Or maybe I'm just getting old. But anyway, I have seen a few Rollins Band records over the years, and all seem to have really bad covers, and look like nobody could be arsed to spend more than two minutes doing artwork. They just look like cheap, rushed jobs to be honest. But all of a sudden this kinda appeals and makes them cool. Check out this back cover:

I like how the biggest thing on the back is the announcement that it was produced by Ian Mackaye. I can almost imagine them sitting around thinking "how on earth are we gonna persuade anyone to buy this crap? Ah, I know... let's increase the font size and trick people into thinking it's a Minor Threat record". Haha!

Anyway, I also noticed on the credits that it says it was recorded in Leeds, UK. Now, since this is where I lived for 13 years (until 2 years ago or so), I was intrigued. I had heard rumours over the years about Henry Rollins living in Leeds at some point. I was never really sure if it was true or not though. I read a couple of his books and it was never mentioned. But after seeing this LP sleeve I thought I check the internerd, and I found something written by Henry that confirms this is true. It seems like he stayed in Leeds for a while (on more than one occasion) to record. And he lived only a few minutes from where I used to live. Not that I lived there in 1987 though, and not like I was into hardcore back then anyway (I was 12). But there could have been Black Flag fans living in Leeds at the time. Did anyone have any idea that Henry was living in town? Did anyone ever bump into him in the streets? I'm curious. Even better, Ian Mackaye also came over to record them at some point. This seems pretty funny to me now. I like the idea that, back in 1987, you could have gone to the Co-op on Burley Road to buy some bread and bumped into Henry Rollins and Ian Mackaye. Crazy.

Anyway, I thought I'd just paste in the info I found. It's pretty interesting stuff. Enjoy...

From 1981 to 1986 I was in a band called Black Flag. In late summer of 1986, the band broke up and I had to decide whether to stop or try to keep making music. Years before, Chris Haskett, an old friend of mine, and I promised each other that some day we would record together. We were both in DC at the time so I called him and told him that my schedule was suddenly extremely open. Without missing a beat, Chris went right to work and assembled a band: Bernie Wandell on bass and Mick Green on drums.

At the time Chris was living in Leeds UK and he headed back there because his gear and Mick were there. Bernie and I were to fly out when he got things set. It was a strange time in my life. I had grown used to being in a band, going on tour and being handed a schedule telling me where I was going all the time. I couldn't see ever making another record. Chris would have none of it. There was no doubt in his mind that things were going to go great and he really picked me up. In October I flew to London and took a bus up to Leeds and went to 52 Harold Mount where Chris lived. I had never met Bernie or Mick so it was strange at first but we hung out that night and it was cool. We had practice time booked and both Chris and I had some song ideas. We went in the next day and started work. I think one of the first things we played together was Suicide's "Ghost Rider." From there we worked on covers that I had wanted to do and Chris showed us some of the riffs he had written.
From practice we would go back to 52 Harold Mount and eat. After that, Chris and I would work on song writing. Perhaps it was a grand combination of new association, excitement and a good dose of fear of failure, but whatever it was, we wrote like men possessed and came up with a lot songs in a short time.

Life Time is the first studio record by the Rollins Band. We did our first practice on April 7, 1987 and went out on a long tour of America and Europe. On the road we wrote songs and got them put them into the set. By late October we finished the shows in London and went up to Leeds where Chris had a place to live and booked time at the same place that he and I did the Hot Animal Machine recordings a year before. I had no producer for this record and feared that since everyone in the band had strong opinions on how it all should be done that if we tried to do it ourselves we would do more harm than good. I called Ian MacKaye and asked for help. He got on a plane and came right out. That's Ian.