Jeremy Pallant

I certainly haven't. I did take a look at the Satanic Verses, after and because the fatwah was declared, but frankly found it so boring I couldn't bring myself to read it any further.

Arvel Joffi

Same here. Gawd awful book. I mean, it was wonderfully blasphemous and all that, but I didn't like it.

philechat

I read The Midnight's Children. His writing style is pure magic at times, though he could be a bit loose on plot constructions. Certainly worth a read in my opinion.

Corwin

For the musically/socially challenged....

Henry Rollins = Jello Biafra with muscles.



(Ok I'm exaggerating.... but you get the general idea...)

August Spies

Well its one thing to not know "get in the van", its another thing to not know henry rollins..... but if you dont' know who black flag is I dont' think you can call yourself a rock fan. Especially not a rock fan from the 1980s. sorry.

Ray K

hmmm... what's that phrase I'm looking for? oh yeah, FUCK OFF.

I have at least over 100 rock CDs from the 1980s, but apparently I wasn't part of the Henry Rollins in crowd. Did Black Flag get any radio airplay, or was this a word-of-mouth phenomenom?

I must admit, though, you piqued my curiousity. I rambled around to a half-dozen coworkers, age 25 to 40, and asked them if they had ever heard of Henry Rollins or Black Flag.

0 for 6, although one guy recognized Black Flag as a punk band but never listened to them. Of course, being a punk band would explain why I never heard of Black Flag.

I'm leaning towards the theory that this guy is not as famous as you think he is.

Tom Sawyer

I have to agree with Ray K here. I was a teenager during the '80s and listened to a lot of music. I can't remember ever hearing of this guy before in my life though - either him or his band Black Flag.

This leads me to believe that he was either not famous enough for me to have heard of him or not famous enough for me to have remembered ever hearing of him.

BTW, I consider myself to be a rock fan and I did so in the 80s as well. I base that definition on my being a fan of rock music, not on whether or not I've heard of some seemingly obscure band.

Deadend

I was there too small world... or country, yeah, definitely small country, tiny country, come to think of it. I�m sorry, I�ll try that again;

I was there too tiny country...

That�s better. As for the opening post, I�m not particularly proud of being an atheist, I guess I�m more Happy to be an atheist.

August Spies

Well I guess you just listen to a lot of really bad rock music then.

as for your questions, yes. Of all the hardcore bands of the 1980's Black Flag was probably the biggest, maybe second after Dead Kennedys. They had songs on the radio and even a video on MTV (for the song TV party).

of course this was 1980s hardcore, so it was more of a word-of-mouth thing... or a scene thing. But even then, Black Flag have been almost universally cannonized as one of the most important 80s bands. For example, Rolling Stones but Black Flag on their 200 most important rock CD's list a couple years back.

Of course if you never listened to hardcore you wouldn't know black flag probably. I would recommend checking them out.

p.s. 100 cds is not bad, but it certainly isn't so many id be bragging about it.

Vorhis the Wolf

Thats an easy answer. Henry Rollins is more interesting than Salman Rushdie.