Lester Bangs - Classic or Carburetor Dung?

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I do wish Lester had lived to write about Flipper. They were working his side of the street in more ways than one.

If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Thursday, 19 April 2007 00:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Also, good non-anthologized pieces include "Free Jazz Punk Rock" from a 1980 Musician, and a long interview with Brian Eno in the same magazine.

If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Thursday, 19 April 2007 00:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Cranky manfulness = authentic

Hurting 2, Thursday, 19 April 2007 00:11 (seventeen years ago) link

?

Tim Ellison, Thursday, 19 April 2007 00:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Also, good non-anthologized pieces include "Free Jazz Punk Rock" from a 1980 Musician, and a long interview with Brian Eno in the same magazine.

Supposedly he was planning on writing something along the lines of A.B. Spellman's Four Lives In The Bebop Business, with Eno as one of the...um...four lives.

Sara Sara Sara, Thursday, 19 April 2007 02:08 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah I would've loved that, I think.

BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 19 April 2007 02:59 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah those Musicianpieces were great. the classic "stone" stuff by Lester Bangs that I can excavate from the canyons of my mind:

"The Carpenters And The Creeps" (1971) a live review of the Carps that incorporates autobiography and actual music criticism, becoming a tour-de-force summary of then-current pop scene. Tightly written, too.

review of some Jack Kerouac paperback reissues around the time of his death, a hommage to beat at the height of hippiedom (1969)

the Janis/Jimi riff (late 1970) I think may have occurred during a piece abt something else, but it was definitely the only moment in the history of the publication where the virutes/values of the counterculture were questioned.

and his record reviews 1969-71 were the main event, not only for the writing but musical insight, at the point Lester was like his disciple Xhuxk Eddy in this respect: he listened to everything w/fresh ears including a lot of stuff that other critics didn't take seriously.

that's another reason post-1976 Lester bums me out, he's so jaded.

I've got xeroxes of this stuff but they're BURIED in storage bin :-(

but hey, I forgot that my all time favorite Bangs piece is included in Mainlines:"Bob Dylan's Dalliance With Mafia Chic."

m coleman, Thursday, 19 April 2007 10:57 (seventeen years ago) link

ha ha, yeah the "Mafia Chic" story is amusing because Lester spent about 100 times longer thinking about "Joey" than Dylan did.

I think that the Eno piece is on Perfect Sound Forever...

Who were the other "lives" Bangs was planning on covering in his proposed "Four Lives" book. Quine, maybe?

tylerw, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:25 (seventeen years ago) link

I think Marianne Faithfull was one of them. There was a list in the foreword to PR&CD, which stated that three of the four lives were set and the fourth was up in the air.

C. Grisso/McCain, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:27 (seventeen years ago) link

three years pass...

From "Lester Bangs - Last Interview" by a then-17-year old Jim DeRogatis:

Do you think there's a danger of rock 'n' roll becoming extinct?
Yeah, sure. Definitely.

What would there be to take its place?
Video games.

NYCNative, Tuesday, 8 March 2011 10:42 (thirteen years ago) link

now if only JDR had taken this^ to heart...

gravity tractor VS asteroid B612 (m coleman), Tuesday, 8 March 2011 11:33 (thirteen years ago) link

seriously,"video games = death of rock" was a popular music-biz meme ca.1982

gravity tractor VS asteroid B612 (m coleman), Tuesday, 8 March 2011 11:35 (thirteen years ago) link

Now that the music-playing game genre has been declared dead, I wonder how many adherents moved on to actual guitar playing.

bendy, Tuesday, 8 March 2011 12:03 (thirteen years ago) link

Have to say I never cared for either his writing style or, all too often, his musical tastes.

Lee626, Tuesday, 8 March 2011 12:22 (thirteen years ago) link

one year passes...

A couple of posts on Facebook alerted me to the fact that it's the 30th anniversary of his death. I'm guessing there are one or two older posters here who can say they met him. I interviewed Chuck and Marcus in '86; I'd like to think that if I'd started a little later or he'd lived a little longer, I would have tried to interview Bangs (and succeeded, I imagine--he seemed extremely accessible). I didn't start reading Creem till '80 or thereabouts, so I'd read very little by him before the first book came out--really only some Rolling Stone reviews in an early-'70s collection, and some RS reviews later in the decade, when Paul Nelson was publishing him regularly. I tried to write like him early on, and of course it was egregiously wrong. Blaming him for the misdeeds of people like me makes no sense.

clemenza, Monday, 30 April 2012 22:43 (twelve years ago) link

three months pass...

Haven't read it yet, but a New Yorker contributor on Bangs's influence on her:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/08/how-lester-bangs-taught-me-to-read.html

clemenza, Thursday, 23 August 2012 13:51 (twelve years ago) link

that is a really, really fantastic article. i don't think i've ever actually seen anyone else -- apart from marcus in his intro to the bangs collection -- actually pin down what i love(d) about bangs's writing so much (haven't read him in a while): even at his silliest, he was a genuinely thoughtful, reflective writer. likening him to DFW is really inspired: i don't know why i didn't think of that before.

(The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 25 August 2012 05:08 (twelve years ago) link

one year passes...

I didn't think this was great, but I am glad it got made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyDBcmNDyOc

Early on, I found the cutting of the interviews way too fast; I had doubts about the voice-over excerpts all the way through. (I don't know if it was just the way they were read, or whether it wasn't going to work regardless.) Bangs's friends back home are a very likeable group.

clemenza, Thursday, 26 December 2013 04:02 (ten years ago) link

Thought young Lester looked like Jake Gyllenhaal.

http://sandiegotroubadour.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Lester-Bangs-YEARBOOK.jpg

clemenza, Thursday, 26 December 2013 05:51 (ten years ago) link

one year passes...

Wonder if Mark Shipper wrote that ballot -- he did the "From the Cloud of Lester Bangs" notes in PR&CD.

Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, 1 January 2015 17:23 (nine years ago) link

wish Robert Quine's I Heard Her Call My Name Symphony was a real thing

Rallsballs@onelist.com (stevie), Thursday, 1 January 2015 18:24 (nine years ago) link

eight years pass...

From the Creem mailing list:

LESTER BANGS AT 75

Lester Bangs is more than a genius, a savant, a beautiful soul, and the north CREEM star in the nighttime CREEM sky: he is also the rock critic that people, gun to their head, can name. In tribute to both his unfettered brilliance, and his name recognition, CREEM is celebrating Bangs in the way that he would appreciate most: hyperbolic praise, borderline slanderous revisionism, and by attempting to sell enough t-shirts riffing on our dead friend to fund a statue of Lou Reed made entirely out of ketamine.

Do we come to praise Lester Bangs? Bury Lester Bangs? Or did we just run out of money for the year and needed to bring in our December issue for under ten grand, and some Lester Bangs hoo-ha seemed the smartest way to do it? (The dead don’t do much, but they do work cheap.) And if it’s the latter, how did Lester Bangs know to plan his 75th birthday at the same time to save our asses yet again?????

Find out when The Lester Bangs Issue starts shipping December 1.

Until then, subscribers can log in to read all of Bangs’ original CREEM writing in our archive. Study up.

he is also the rock critic that people, gun to their head, can name

highly suspect there's only ppl who can name several music critics and ppl who can name none, not ones who can only name Lester Bangs

Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 18 October 2023 09:44 (one year ago) link

Bangs is the only one who appeared as a named character in a hugely successful movie, though

Yngwie Azalea (stevie), Wednesday, 18 October 2023 10:25 (one year ago) link

I'm having trouble thinking of a rock critic who has appeared as a named character in even a low-budget indie straight-to-vhs bomb.

henry s, Wednesday, 18 October 2023 13:04 (one year ago) link

Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs
Birthday party, cheesecake, jellybean, boom

Bangs is the only one who appeared as a named character in a hugely successful movie, though

I could be annoying and say those ppl could then probably also cite Cameron Crowe but point taken.

Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 18 October 2023 13:33 (one year ago) link

and Ben Fong-Torres (is he a critic? I dunno). I didn't recall that Bangs showed up in that movie, too

Chavez video on MTV, July 1995 (morrisp), Wednesday, 18 October 2023 13:42 (one year ago) link

Yes but did Lester Bangs ever knock on stranger's door and ask to inspect their underwear do commercials for washing powder like Danny Baker did?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF4FVzLcWD4

The First Time Ever I Saw Gervais (Tom D.), Wednesday, 18 October 2023 13:42 (one year ago) link

I could be annoying and say those ppl could then probably also cite Cameron Crowe but point taken.

This is true, but the character in Almost Famous isn't actually Cameron Crowe, even if he is clearly an analogue for the writer/director of the movie. Forgot about Ben Fong-Torres and now reminded of his reference to his "old lady" in that movie.

Yngwie Azalea (stevie), Wednesday, 18 October 2023 13:58 (one year ago) link

"Best" appearance by an erstwhile rock critic playing a fictional role must go to Jann Wenner's performance as Mark Roth in Perfect.

Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 18 October 2023 14:05 (one year ago) link

It's news to me that Creem is even around

jmm, Wednesday, 18 October 2023 14:34 (one year ago) link

It was relaunched last year by the son of the original guy, and some other folks.

Chavez video on MTV, July 1995 (morrisp), Wednesday, 18 October 2023 14:36 (one year ago) link

It's also a pricey, subscriber-only boutique magazine now.

They advertise on Instagram a lot

Chavez video on MTV, July 1995 (morrisp), Wednesday, 18 October 2023 14:44 (one year ago) link

It's also a pricey, subscriber-only boutique magazine now.

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, October 18, 2023 9:37 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah i think walgreens shrinking magazine section would be a tough go business wise

Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 18 October 2023 14:47 (one year ago) link

The best part of the revival is for a lesser subscription fee than for hard copies of the new mag, you get access to high-quality scans of issues and specials from the original run.

yeah that's super cool i need to do that

Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 18 October 2023 14:56 (one year ago) link

i had this complete rolling stone CD-rom box set that was every page of every issue, not sure if it would still work on a modern computer

Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 18 October 2023 14:57 (one year ago) link

I believe the Playboy Interviews set doesn't work on modern computers. Not sure about the Mad Magazine set.

Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Wednesday, 18 October 2023 15:03 (one year ago) link

XP I don't think they will. I checked out remaindered copies of that RS collection at Half-Price Books shortly after I got a new PC laptop before Xmas 2010, and it was already too advanced an OS for those discs.

That laptop initially ran Windows 7, and iirc the Rolling Stone discs topped out at XP or Vista.

Not sure about the Apple requirements, but c'mon man...

On a related note, a friendly reminder that scans of every regular issue of Spin are on Google Books: https://books.google.com/books/about/SPIN.html?id=kic4tNzhZF8C

I never got into Spin; I think I was just a little too old to be in its target demographic.

OTOH, Musician was in my sweet spot during the same era.

immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 18 October 2023 17:39 (one year ago) link

I remember Lester did an article summarizing various drugs. I was about 12 at the time, it felt so subversive.

immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 18 October 2023 17:41 (one year ago) link

i had this complete rolling stone CD-rom box set that was every page of every issue, not sure if it would still work on a modern computer

I have this installed on Windows 10 and it works. I had to copy all of it to my hard drive rather than use the CDs, and I believe archive.org has a slightly updated/patched version of the .exe file. This thread may help out a bit: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/rolling-stone-40-years-of-rolling-stone-magazine-on-3-searchable-dvd-roms.889870/

(I just use "print to PDF" rather than using the application interface anyway).

blatherskite, Wednesday, 18 October 2023 21:26 (one year ago) link

To state the obvious, Bangs would have a hard time navigating the waters today. Unless he'd be someone to adapt quickly--there were signs of that later on. So really, no idea.

clemenza, Wednesday, 18 October 2023 21:29 (one year ago) link


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