As Promised

UPDATE: This post was re-uploaded 08/07/2014.
Enjoy, NØ.

Nathan Nothin' here with...

Henrietta Collins: Snuggle Notes

We were in the studio cutting
'Animal'. We heard that
Henrietta Collins & his band
were on the island also, doing
some dates as well as
interviews & a broadcast for PCP 1.

Henry is a Collins fanatic from a long way back.
When he found out that maybe he could actually meet "The Man" (? -ed.) in person, he went nuts. We could hardly contain him. I got on the phone with Henrietta's people & set up a meeting.

The meeting took place at the Leeds Hilton. Poolside. It was October, it was cold, it was insane. Well, the two of them hit it off like they had been friends for ages. Henrietta suggested that Henry drop by the studio where Henrietta & the Wifebeating Childhaters were cutting some tracks. Henry was thrilled.

He went down to the studio & didn't come back for a few days. We didn't worry too much about him, to tell you the truth, we were glad to have him off our hands for a while.

The sessions came out better than they thought they would. Rollins & Collins really hit it off, as you'll hear on these hot tracks. The A-side is live from the PCP 1 broadcast. The B-side is pure studio magic. There's two duets on the B-side, you'll hear Henry & Henrietta trade riffs on "Hey Henry" & the poignant "I Have Come to Kill You"

This is a crucial record. I think Henrietta said it best as he saw us off at the airport. He looked up at the sky for about two minutes & then looked at us & said, "There's a lot of people thinking a lot about a lot of things going on in the world today & I think that this is gonna say something to a lot of the people that are thinking about those things."

What it boils down to is this: When you're talking Henrietta Collins & the Wifebeating Childhaters, you're talking rock & roll.

Louis M Face
Bakersfield, CA 1987

Henrietta Collins: A Tribute

I walk these mean streets, I look around & I see that I'm surrounded by utter bogosity. (Prime, high-grade bogusness -ed.) I say to myself, where can I go, who can I turn to to tell me the righteous word? I looked high, I looked low. I looked in between. All was dark. From the urban glade steps a man, a real man. A man who walks with conviction, a man who looks upon the world with an intense gaze usually reserved for gods & maniacs. A man who wears a dress, a man named...Henrietta Collins.

Sure, just a name, a face, a nice set of legs, a tremendous jaw line, a quick wit, a hearty laugh, a broad & accepting smile, a wig, why Henrietta? Why was he designated to speak for a generation? The winds of destiny? The sands of fate? The long stringy things at the bottom of a Coke bottle? I don't know. I think it's big, I think it's real big, bigger than you & me.

All I can say is I worked with the man on the now legendary "Drive By Shooting" ep. I felt honored to be in the presence of such a powerful vision & body odor.

I'm going to leave you to Henrietta now. I hope he gives you half of what he gave me. (I'm still getting shots, but it's starting to dry up"

Henry Rollins
Malibu Beach,CA 1987

Henrietta Collins & the Wifebeating Childhaters - Drive By Shooting, Texas Hotel 3, 1986.

Side 1 -
Drive By Shooting (Watch Out for That Pig)
Ex-Lion Tamer

Side Two -
Hey Henrietta
Can You Speak This?
I Have Come to Kill You
Men Are Pigs

Drive by shooting. Now this is something special:
around the time Rollins recorded Hot Animal Machine with Haskett, Wandel & Green, they also did a bunch of novelty songs which would make up this EP, which has absolutely nothing in common with anything he did before or ever since.

Credited to Henrietta Collins & the Wifebeating Childhaters, this EP contains a variety of stuff, none of which you would expect from Rollins, certainly not after his career in Black Flag (where things were usually kept serious - it’s only during the past few years that he’s been making “fun” on his non-spoken word releases). For that reason alone, this is a document worth having, but fortunately the actual stuff is often also weirdly funny & so deliciously un-correct it’s almost incredible this was really released at the time.

The first side immediately starts off with some great stuff: the opening song recycles some ‘50’s surf/instrumental riff (something like “Hawaii 5-0”?), while the bubblegum lyrics you would expect are replaced by a hilarious celebration of urban violence (“We’re gonna get in our car, we’re gonna go, go, go, gonna drive to a neighborhood, kill someone we don’t know”).

Next up, a surprising highlight on the album is a faithful take on Wire’s “Ex-Lion Tamer” (from the seminal Pink Flag (1977)) that sounds a bit less “mechanical” than the original & stretches the ending a bit longer. An unexpected choice, but therefore twice as interesting.

The second side of the EP contained the true novelty stuff, because none of the songs is an actual song, they’re more like bits of spoken word fulminations during which Rollins is backed by a dragging racket in the background or a repeated riff. “Hey Henrietta” is a fucked up dialogue between Henrietta and Henry with supercharged & violent lyrics (“Henry, what would you do if I told you I raped a police woman?”).

Equally disturbing & perverse – but in a sick way also hilarious as hell – is “Men Are Pigs,” in which Rollins offers a nice solution for women who are all too often obligated to perform oral sex (key words are “knife” & “envelope,” you can figure out the rest).

“Can You Speak This?” sounds like an absurd short story (about murder by decapitation & other joyful subject matter) backed by a repetitive sludgy riff, while the lengthy “I Have Come to Kill You” steals the drum pattern of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” & replaces those lyrics with “I Have Come to Kill You.”

Like on the other three songs, Rollins provides some semi-rapped lyrics about domestic violence, but in this case the joke goes on for a bit too long. One of the most unlikely releases, Drive By Shooting is an anomaly in Rollins’ catalogue & an anomaly in modern rock music. Although Rollins would contribute to some more hard to find material (like a cover of AC/DC’s “Let There Be Rock” with Australian punk band The Hard-Ons), this is the first one to check out, & since it’s included on the reissue of Hot Animal Machine,
…. what’s keeping you?
Go, go, go!

Enjoy
NØ