Henry Rollins debuts long-form KCRW show, ‘The Cool Quarantine’

Henry Rollins is going long.

Quarantined inside his home with a killer stereo system, stacks and stacks of records and CDs and enough energy to power a thousand ventilators, the screamer, actor, writer, former Black Flag member and longtime DJ has announced an online expansion of his KCRW radio show.

Called “The Cool Quarantine,” the new punk-rock block will run for about four hours instead of the normal two and will feature Hammering Hank juggling music, personal yarns and interviews.

Rollins in a statement calls the new production “kind of like the show we do on Sundays but without time constraints or worrying about FCC compliance. It’s an extra slice of pizza. It will be completely indulgent.”

Seldom at a loss for words, Rollins, 59, explained the impetus in a note to his listeners:

“For many years, I’ve had this idea for a long-form show. I mean really long-form. Like hours. To do it terrestrially would be difficult because I would be crowding other shows out. But if it was online, hey. It’s as many songs as I want, language issues are not a factor, and if anyone gets bored, they can just turn it off or mark the time they checked out and resume later.”

Referencing his longtime producer-engineer, Rollins adds:

“The idea is that you’re in your room and Engineer X and I come over with a bunch of records. We play you songs, I tell you stories, and we do time together. Now that many of us are under some kind of confinement, we might as well get some good listening happening.”

The first episode, which went live Tuesday morning, includes “live bootlegs of the Cramps recorded by Ian MacKaye, a story about the time Henry and Ian saw Led Zeppelin in 1977 (plus a bootleg recording from that performance), audio from original Joy Division album pressings, stories about the early days of Black Flag and Dischord Records,” and more, according to KCRW’s press announcement.

You can listen to the first episode here. It rocks.