Words & Music

While I usually aim to post more than just links to other sites, there are a few recent items out there I happily recommend:

•  The Detroit News profiles blues guitarist Johnnie Bassett today. The article includes info on some of his upcoming appearances but fails to mention that he’s slated to sit in this evening (7 pm) at the M.L. Liebler-orchestrated Detroit Tonight Live event at the UDetroit Café (1427 Randolph Street) along with the RJ Spangler Trio. Andrea Daniels, Steven Gulvezan, Zilka Joseph and I will also read some poetry. Bassett’s latest record kicks off with “Proud to Be from Detroit,” which I look forward to hearing.
• This past weekend, The Free Press ran a long piece on saxophonist James Carter that also merits a look. Having seen Carter perform many times in various places over the years, I definitely consider myself a fan.
• Poet Terry Blackhawk has a moving piece on the power of poetry over at Huffpost Detroit.
• Vanity Fair spotlights two of my favorite writer via an excerpt from Christopher Hitchens’s introduction to George Orwell’s Diaries.
• Finally, my article on the Downtown Boxing Gym can be read in the summer issue of Critical Moment and on the paper’s website.

Read Full Post »

Henry Rollins, Heavyweight

Henry Rollins in an interview with a newspaper in my old hometown gave a glimpse of the reason why I included an essay about him in my book Fighters & Writers.

While in Michigan for an Iggy and the Stooges show in honor of late band member Ron Asheton, Rollins in April told the Detroit Free Press of his decision not to use drugs or alcohol:

I’ve always been very ambitious, just trying to get somewhere, and I’ve always been a live performer, making my name onstage. It was never going to be record sales with a guy like me. It’s going to be proving it every night…. Every night is the big one; every single night. So why would you go into a heavyweight boxing match drunk and expect to win?

In a piece called “Rollins on the Road,” I note that the former Black Flag and Rollins Band frontman “maintained a fighter’s physique” into middle age and that he likened his preparation for touring to a boxer’s training regimen. I also mention that Rollins compares himself to the Muhammad Ali of 1974’s Rumble in the Jungle in his book A Dull Roar, where he writes: “The show is George Foreman. I am Ali. I am going to take a beating but I will prevail.” In another essay in Fighters & Writers I point out that Ali similarly attributed his success to never smoking or drinking.

Then again, Rollins in the same Free Press interview also calls Iggy Pop “the heavyweight champion of rock” despite Pop’s rather different approach to living.

Read Full Post »