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Black Heart Fades Blue - vol 1
If you’re looking for the events that inspired the lyrics to all my songs? Those stories are in this book. If you’re looking for what I did when I was younger? That’s in here. What changed me, made me stop hating and hurting? It’s all here. This is my story and I’m sticking to it. That’s the one thing I have, the truth.
Volume one of Black Heart Fades Blue, a three-part memoir by the founder and frontman for one of punk rock’s most notorious acts, Poison Idea.
In 1980, Jerry A. formed Poison Idea, a Portland-based punk band that gave voice to disaffected and disenfranchised youth for over 30 years. As happened to so many punk bands, Jerry A. and Poison Idea also went all in on drugs and drinking as they toured the country, spiraling out of control and blowing both the band and their lives apart.
Black Heart Fades Blue is not an apology or a nostalgic catalog of events, but a true reckoning with one's past and present. A memoir of a time and a place and a movement, as well as a deep conversation about the memories and moments we leave behind, Black Heart Fades Blue is a deep exploration of an unconventional life.
Volume one of Black Heart Fades Blue, a three-part memoir by the founder and frontman for one of punk rock’s most notorious acts, Poison Idea.
In 1980, Jerry A. formed Poison Idea, a Portland-based punk band that gave voice to disaffected and disenfranchised youth for over 30 years. As happened to so many punk bands, Jerry A. and Poison Idea also went all in on drugs and drinking as they toured the country, spiraling out of control and blowing both the band and their lives apart.
Black Heart Fades Blue is not an apology or a nostalgic catalog of events, but a true reckoning with one's past and present. A memoir of a time and a place and a movement, as well as a deep conversation about the memories and moments we leave behind, Black Heart Fades Blue is a deep exploration of an unconventional life.
- GenresMusic
256 pages, Paperback
Published February 8, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 4, 2022
Not giving this five stars because it’s a great work of literature but because it is so fucking readable. Especially if you live in Portland and know the people and places Jerry talks about. I can’t wait to get on to the next volume.
January 5, 2025
This review is dedicated to the memory of D.H. , the biggest Poison Idea fan I've ever known. I miss you, brother.
By the late 1980s, hardcore punk was starting to run out of steam. People were bored with three cord thrash so both bands and audiences began branching out into other styles that were punk adjacent. Punk/metal crossover was growing in popularity especially because thrash metal was making inroads into the mainstream. Around that time Poison Idea released their first full length lp Kings of Punk. The cover had a picture of lead singer Jerry A. after carving the band’s name into his chest with a razor. Poison Idea weren’t a crossover band, but they had a definite metal tinge to their sound that was harder, more brutal, and distinctive due to the better than average musicianship and outright sincerity in their expression of rage. While typical hardcore punk was falling out of favor, Poison Idea took the style to a whole new level. It had enough power to propel the band through more than a decade of touring and recording. The music was an overload of anger and some punks wondered just where exactly these guys were coming from. Now Jerry A. Lang has published a three volume autobiography called Bacl Heart Fades Blue and of course the first volume is all about his childhood.
Jerry A.’s parents were a couple of rednecks who had him when they were seventeen years old. Soon after, they had two more kids, one daughter and a younger brother. Then they split up. Jerry A. was bounced back and forth between the two parents, each taking care of him for about a year at a time. His father lived in Eugene, Oregon and his mother lived in West Bumfuck Montana. Though he had a deep love for the natural surroundings there, especially the rivers and forests, his mother was an alcoholic who went through a long string of loser boyfriends and the local cowboys bullied Jerry A. to no end. Eugene was a little nicer even though his father was a complete asshole. In Eugene Jerry A. discovered rock music, looked up to the local hippies, and started using drugs and alcohol before the age of ten. Back in Montana, he was also involved in troublemaking and that is where he learned how to fight. Rock music had always been an important part of his life, but when he discovered the Ramones and Sex Pistols, he knew he had found a key part of his identity, a part that would stay with him until the end. Throughout his childhood, he suffered from any kind of abuse or neglect imaginable. And yet he had an undying curiosity about the world and a touch of intellectualism that kept him going.
At the start of his teenage years, Jerry A. moved to Portland and got involved with the underground music scene. He sometimes played with the avant gardist noise band Smegma. This was in the transition period between first and second wave punk which combined political anger with nihilism in its lyrics and attitude. Darby Crash had died of a heroin overdose and the music was getting stripped down, more basic, and faster. Bikers like to chop their Harleys, removing all the unnecessary pieces to make them lighter for the sake of going faster; punks did the same thing with rock and roll, eliminating all the extras to emphasize the most basic elements that were played at maximum speed and volume. Portland, at that time, was a shithole of a city, nothing like the gentrified hipster haven it is now. So Jerry A. put together his own hardcore punk combo that took on the guitarist from another band called The Imperialist Pigs. That morbidly obese, record collecting, cocaine dealing guitarist was Tom “Pig Champion” Roberts, a man who later proved himself to be the premier genius guitarist of second wave punk rock. Some would say his style and ability surpassed other hardcore legends like East Bay Ray and Greg Ginn. Poison Idea was born and their music was simultaneously rough and smooth, chaotic and neat, and its anger was infectious to any punk who felt like they were being screwed over in life. With their growing popularity, Jerry A. drank heavily, did drugs like speed and cocaine, had lots of sex, and got involved in a lot of street fights. It was just the typical trajectory of an up and coming rock star. But despite his thuggish ways, he always had a taste for Leftist politics and social justice causes. As the band evolved, Jerry A. sank into a whirlwind of self-destruction and it was all so much fun.
This first volume ends around the time that Poison Idea’s classic album Kings of Punk came out. Like the music of punk, the writing is fast paced, direct, and to the point. It isn’t overly descriptive, but it is descriptive enough for the reader to see everything that is going on. Jerry A. tells his story with a clarity of self-perception that is unique. This is the kind of insight you gain when you are older and have looked back over your life with analytical eyes, trying to make sense of it all. Part of what is interesting is how he tells his story with the detached objectivity of a journalist. Despite how rotten his childhood was, he doesn’t indulge in self-pity and he doesn’t even express much anger at the unfairness of the life he was born into. This kind of calm self-reporting is what you get from a mature man who has made peace with that infuriating part of himself. Judging by what happens in the second volume of these memoirs, you can tell he really struggled to make sense of his life. Jerry A. doesn’t sound like he’s full of himself either; he doesn’t brag about being a survivor of a rotten childhood. If it had been up to him he obviously would have chosen a better upbringing, but he had the wits to stay alive and sometimes even benefit from his situation. He just doesn’t stand around shouting about how great he is for not ending up dead or in jail. He saves the shouting for his music.
If there is anything to criticize here, it is that some potentially interesting things were left out. Jerry A. doesn’t say much about how he actually met Tom Roberts and the other band members. He doesn’t say much about his siblings either, but to be fair, he does explain that he doesn’t want to tell other people’s stories for them, especially when they don’t have the opportunity or the desire to share their side of it all with the public. Most significantly, Jerry A. doesn’t say much about Poison Idea’s earlier records. He does talk about the Pick Your Kings ep and says a little about Kings of Punk, but he doesn’t even mention the Record Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes ep. It would have been interesting to hear what it was like to work with Pushead, the artist who did album covers for The Misfits and Metallica and put out Kings of Punk on his own Pusmort record label.
Black Heart Fades Blue Vol. 1 is a good, solid start to the autobiography of Jerry A. Lang. It makes Poison Idea less enigmatic and gives good insight into the source of the author’s anger as well as his impish sense of humor. If you think volume one is fascinating enough, you might as well get ready to read volume two. Beware though. What comes next in this series is a nasty and soul crushing story that might leave you with a touch of PTSD if you aren’t ready for it.
By the late 1980s, hardcore punk was starting to run out of steam. People were bored with three cord thrash so both bands and audiences began branching out into other styles that were punk adjacent. Punk/metal crossover was growing in popularity especially because thrash metal was making inroads into the mainstream. Around that time Poison Idea released their first full length lp Kings of Punk. The cover had a picture of lead singer Jerry A. after carving the band’s name into his chest with a razor. Poison Idea weren’t a crossover band, but they had a definite metal tinge to their sound that was harder, more brutal, and distinctive due to the better than average musicianship and outright sincerity in their expression of rage. While typical hardcore punk was falling out of favor, Poison Idea took the style to a whole new level. It had enough power to propel the band through more than a decade of touring and recording. The music was an overload of anger and some punks wondered just where exactly these guys were coming from. Now Jerry A. Lang has published a three volume autobiography called Bacl Heart Fades Blue and of course the first volume is all about his childhood.
Jerry A.’s parents were a couple of rednecks who had him when they were seventeen years old. Soon after, they had two more kids, one daughter and a younger brother. Then they split up. Jerry A. was bounced back and forth between the two parents, each taking care of him for about a year at a time. His father lived in Eugene, Oregon and his mother lived in West Bumfuck Montana. Though he had a deep love for the natural surroundings there, especially the rivers and forests, his mother was an alcoholic who went through a long string of loser boyfriends and the local cowboys bullied Jerry A. to no end. Eugene was a little nicer even though his father was a complete asshole. In Eugene Jerry A. discovered rock music, looked up to the local hippies, and started using drugs and alcohol before the age of ten. Back in Montana, he was also involved in troublemaking and that is where he learned how to fight. Rock music had always been an important part of his life, but when he discovered the Ramones and Sex Pistols, he knew he had found a key part of his identity, a part that would stay with him until the end. Throughout his childhood, he suffered from any kind of abuse or neglect imaginable. And yet he had an undying curiosity about the world and a touch of intellectualism that kept him going.
At the start of his teenage years, Jerry A. moved to Portland and got involved with the underground music scene. He sometimes played with the avant gardist noise band Smegma. This was in the transition period between first and second wave punk which combined political anger with nihilism in its lyrics and attitude. Darby Crash had died of a heroin overdose and the music was getting stripped down, more basic, and faster. Bikers like to chop their Harleys, removing all the unnecessary pieces to make them lighter for the sake of going faster; punks did the same thing with rock and roll, eliminating all the extras to emphasize the most basic elements that were played at maximum speed and volume. Portland, at that time, was a shithole of a city, nothing like the gentrified hipster haven it is now. So Jerry A. put together his own hardcore punk combo that took on the guitarist from another band called The Imperialist Pigs. That morbidly obese, record collecting, cocaine dealing guitarist was Tom “Pig Champion” Roberts, a man who later proved himself to be the premier genius guitarist of second wave punk rock. Some would say his style and ability surpassed other hardcore legends like East Bay Ray and Greg Ginn. Poison Idea was born and their music was simultaneously rough and smooth, chaotic and neat, and its anger was infectious to any punk who felt like they were being screwed over in life. With their growing popularity, Jerry A. drank heavily, did drugs like speed and cocaine, had lots of sex, and got involved in a lot of street fights. It was just the typical trajectory of an up and coming rock star. But despite his thuggish ways, he always had a taste for Leftist politics and social justice causes. As the band evolved, Jerry A. sank into a whirlwind of self-destruction and it was all so much fun.
This first volume ends around the time that Poison Idea’s classic album Kings of Punk came out. Like the music of punk, the writing is fast paced, direct, and to the point. It isn’t overly descriptive, but it is descriptive enough for the reader to see everything that is going on. Jerry A. tells his story with a clarity of self-perception that is unique. This is the kind of insight you gain when you are older and have looked back over your life with analytical eyes, trying to make sense of it all. Part of what is interesting is how he tells his story with the detached objectivity of a journalist. Despite how rotten his childhood was, he doesn’t indulge in self-pity and he doesn’t even express much anger at the unfairness of the life he was born into. This kind of calm self-reporting is what you get from a mature man who has made peace with that infuriating part of himself. Judging by what happens in the second volume of these memoirs, you can tell he really struggled to make sense of his life. Jerry A. doesn’t sound like he’s full of himself either; he doesn’t brag about being a survivor of a rotten childhood. If it had been up to him he obviously would have chosen a better upbringing, but he had the wits to stay alive and sometimes even benefit from his situation. He just doesn’t stand around shouting about how great he is for not ending up dead or in jail. He saves the shouting for his music.
If there is anything to criticize here, it is that some potentially interesting things were left out. Jerry A. doesn’t say much about how he actually met Tom Roberts and the other band members. He doesn’t say much about his siblings either, but to be fair, he does explain that he doesn’t want to tell other people’s stories for them, especially when they don’t have the opportunity or the desire to share their side of it all with the public. Most significantly, Jerry A. doesn’t say much about Poison Idea’s earlier records. He does talk about the Pick Your Kings ep and says a little about Kings of Punk, but he doesn’t even mention the Record Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes ep. It would have been interesting to hear what it was like to work with Pushead, the artist who did album covers for The Misfits and Metallica and put out Kings of Punk on his own Pusmort record label.
Black Heart Fades Blue Vol. 1 is a good, solid start to the autobiography of Jerry A. Lang. It makes Poison Idea less enigmatic and gives good insight into the source of the author’s anger as well as his impish sense of humor. If you think volume one is fascinating enough, you might as well get ready to read volume two. Beware though. What comes next in this series is a nasty and soul crushing story that might leave you with a touch of PTSD if you aren’t ready for it.
February 3, 2025
Some clunky writing but still very readable, crazy stories.
April 13, 2024
I came to this book – part one of a 3 Volume set - because I’m a fan of Poison Idea, the legendary U.S. underground punk band Jerry fronted for forty years, but I don’t think you’d need to approach Black Heart Fades Blue from that direction to find it an engaging read. I’ve been reading chapters before I head out to work this week, and I’ve been late in every day, such is the pull to read just a little more…honestly, despite the often bleak subject matter that makes up a lot of Jerry’s childhood years it’s a book that’s really hard to put down (and one you can’t wait to pick up again).
This is in part due to Jerry’s writing style. This isn’t some ‘pity me’ fest; it’s written in a pretty matter-of-fact style that doesn’t try to milk you for sympathy (although only the coldest hearted amongst us would feel none at all), and there are moments of joy too.
I don’t want to include any spoilers here, but let’s just say that if you’re a Poison Idea fan, the contents of this book has a similar feel to many of their lyrics; the mood of that band makes total sense when contextualised by this book. If you’re not a Poison Idea fan* you will still marvel at the extraordinary levels of disruption, chaos, and neglect the young Jerry had to deal with growing up and wonder how he ever managed to get to a better place in later years. His early life would’ve broken a weaker spirit, that’s for sure. His resourcefulness, demonstrated throughout these pages, seems to have been his saviour, along with punk rock of course (the saviour of many of us!).
I’ll be picking up Vols 2 and 3 ASAP. What a great read!
*Go and check out Poison idea
This is in part due to Jerry’s writing style. This isn’t some ‘pity me’ fest; it’s written in a pretty matter-of-fact style that doesn’t try to milk you for sympathy (although only the coldest hearted amongst us would feel none at all), and there are moments of joy too.
I don’t want to include any spoilers here, but let’s just say that if you’re a Poison Idea fan, the contents of this book has a similar feel to many of their lyrics; the mood of that band makes total sense when contextualised by this book. If you’re not a Poison Idea fan* you will still marvel at the extraordinary levels of disruption, chaos, and neglect the young Jerry had to deal with growing up and wonder how he ever managed to get to a better place in later years. His early life would’ve broken a weaker spirit, that’s for sure. His resourcefulness, demonstrated throughout these pages, seems to have been his saviour, along with punk rock of course (the saviour of many of us!).
I’ll be picking up Vols 2 and 3 ASAP. What a great read!
*Go and check out Poison idea
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December 9, 2023All the time I spent with this band, drinking and carousing and getting the shit bashed out of me in the pit was sheer magic... it was like being pulled across an invisible boundary, and into some sort of voodoo trance...
But I never would have *dreamed* Jerry could *write* like this. It's redolent of Lisa Suckdog's memoir "Drugs are Nice" - and she had the same kind of depraved childhood.
PI was this was one of the the best hardcore bands *ever*... and what a privilege it was to have known them all
But I never would have *dreamed* Jerry could *write* like this. It's redolent of Lisa Suckdog's memoir "Drugs are Nice" - and she had the same kind of depraved childhood.
PI was this was one of the the best hardcore bands *ever*... and what a privilege it was to have known them all
May 24, 2022
Required reading for any Poison Idea fan
A lot of stories about child abuse in the beginning. Pretty horrifying, especially if you're expecting a typical music biography. But a page-turner nonetheless...
I'm not sure this needed to be three separate books, volume one is only about 250 pages. But that's probably just me being cheap. 🤑
A lot of stories about child abuse in the beginning. Pretty horrifying, especially if you're expecting a typical music biography. But a page-turner nonetheless...
I'm not sure this needed to be three separate books, volume one is only about 250 pages. But that's probably just me being cheap. 🤑
April 30, 2022
Entertaining, thoughtful, honest, sad, funny come to mind spontaneously. Really enjoyed reading Volume 1 of Jerry A's biography. It's well written and had me often thinking about life and growing up. It's a great read, no matter if you are a Poison Idea fan or not. I myself am a big one :)
May 18, 2022
This is an amazing story of of someone who came from nothing and found himself fronting one of the most legendary and influential punk bands of all times. The vignettes and stories range from hilarious to tragic. A big thumb's up.
January 29, 2022
Jerry has always been a great songwriter, but is an even more powerful author. Reminds me of Max Gorky, but set in the Pacific Northwest. Jerry thanks so much for the book.
April 8, 2022
Chockerande i sin brutalitet. Poison idea kommer aldrig låta likadant igen. Det var verkligen en annan tid och en annan scen
December 30, 2022
Fantastic first installment from the legend that is Jerry A, if you think you had a tough childhood...
Looking forward to Vols 2 and 3!
Looking forward to Vols 2 and 3!
October 9, 2024
Superb and that's just volume 1. Poison Idea vocalist and hardcore punk legend. Some fucked up stories in this. No holds barred!.
January 4, 2025
If you like poison idea, you've will like this !!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews