Lester Bangs - Classic or Carburetor Dung?

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haha justyn i kill you with gun

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 1 August 2003 07:42 (twenty years ago) link

well I agree with justyn. what's the 'agenda' here? Lester was a good writer (loads of US ILXORS may not agree bcz of the copyists but that's not my problem).

I still kill him with gun tho'.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 1 August 2003 09:02 (twenty years ago) link

time to go pick up a book then innit?

I'm not going to read more just to check I'm as uninterested in it as I am in what I've already read.

I _am_ intrigued as to why he's so revered though.

― mei (mei), Friday, 1 August 2003 10:58 (twenty years ago) link

I'm not going to read more just to check I'm as uninterested in it as I am in what I've already read.

I _am_ intrigued as to why he's so revered though.

Gee, so I guess you just want someone to explain it to you? If you're not interested enough to try and find out for yourself . . .

― J (Jay), Friday, 1 August 2003 11:05 (twenty years ago) link

You're right in a way, I've read enough of him to know he's not for me, but I still don't know why he's so well liked.

I don't want someone to explian LB to me, but rather why they like him. In fact there are a few good answers like that above, so I think my question's answered.

While we're on the subject can someone explain the appeal of REM or U2?

― mei (mei), Friday, 1 August 2003 11:10 (twenty years ago) link

three years pass...

Interesting mechanism at work whereby the Count Five were, in part, great precisely because of their inconsequentiality and yet:

"Paul McCartney makes lovely boutique tapes, resolute upon being as inconsequential as the Carpenters...You could hardly call him burnt out--Band on the Run was, in its rather vapid way, a masterful album. Muzak's finest hour. Of course he is about as committed to the notion of subject matter as Hanna-Barbera."

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Lester Bangs was an overrated drug-addled Mark Prindle-wannabe. He wrote maybe three good articles.

― Mr. Snrub, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:20 (seventeen years ago) link

BUT WHAT ARTICLES THEY WERE

― Edward III, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:54 (seventeen years ago) link

and I think it's the inclusion of 'the white noise supremacists' that really rankles the ranks

-- nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Friday, 1 August 2003 07:27

Why did it rankle?

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:56 (seventeen years ago) link

all blount's saying is that that article is what people have in mind when they accuse marcus of editing the bangs' collection with an agenda in mind.

― Edward III, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:05 (seventeen years ago) link

i.e. if you expected the book to be a representative sample you might come away thinking he engaged politics overtly more often than he did?

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:07 (seventeen years ago) link

or that marcus is more interested in politics, even politics as banal as those in the white noise supremacist piece, than music?

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:11 (seventeen years ago) link

sorta, probably closer is that the book is more reflective of marcus' interests than bangs'.

or what tim said.

― Edward III, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link

it's not the same anthology of lester's writings that richard meltzer would have put together, let's say that.

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:15 (seventeen years ago) link

not that meltzer's book would have been better! in fact, given a whore like the rest, there's perhaps reason to think it might have been worse.

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:19 (seventeen years ago) link

With time I've realized I actually like Mainlines, Blood Feasts & Bad Taste better.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:20 (seventeen years ago) link

"Paul McCartney makes lovely boutique tapes, resolute upon being as inconsequential as the Carpenters...You could hardly call him burnt out--Band on the Run was, in its rather vapid way, a masterful album. Muzak's finest hour. Of course he is about as committed to the notion of subject matter as Hanna-Barbera."

I don't think this is a pan.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:22 (seventeen years ago) link

How can you tell?

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:23 (seventeen years ago) link

If I'm interpreting that piece right, Bangs does put McCartney on top of his list of the four Beatles in terms of descending credibility - meaning, I think, that he was the least offender at the time ('73-ish).

Whether it's an official pan or not, he makes particular criticisms. (Another is "If he was a little more gutsy, he might almost be Elton John." Lester must have written off Ram too easily.)

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:31 (seventeen years ago) link

(Because you can't hear "Monkberry Moon Delight" and say that, I don't think.)

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:32 (seventeen years ago) link

Or jeez, how about the vocal on "Let Me Roll It," which was on the then-current album?

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:36 (seventeen years ago) link

lester bangs is great if only for getting me interested in the stooges, the godz, velvets, tangerine dream and van morrison at the same time when i was 15.

― ian, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:40 (seventeen years ago) link

"if only?"

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:41 (seventeen years ago) link

How can you tell?

You can't! The ambiguity's the most interesting element.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Right, I was being jokey.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:50 (seventeen years ago) link

lester bangs is great if only for getting me interested in the stooges, the godz, velvets, tangerine dream and van morrison at the same time when i was 15.

-- ian, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:40

Me too! plus Black Oak Arkansas and Sir Lord Baltimore

― Stormy Davis, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:54 (seventeen years ago) link

shouldn't you guys be thanking GREIL MARCUS

― Edward III, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 19:04 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.galaade.com/img/auteur/liste/greil-marcus-174x112-NB.jpg

"You're Welcome!"

― C. Grisso/McCain, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 19:09 (seventeen years ago) link

http://fumettidicarta.interfree.it/Farenheit451/LESTER_BANGS/bangsles.jpg

"Whadda 'bout me? I WROTE the stuff!"

― C. Grisso/McCain, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 19:13 (seventeen years ago) link

He got too depressingly moralistic and fogeyish in his Village Voice daze (too much booze, not enough speed), but EVERY article/review/profile/whatever he wrote for Creem had at least memorable (or unforgettable) turn of phrase or cracked simile or (yes) dope-addled pronouncement, or even the occasional bit of insight for those who value that sort of thing. Plus he was damned funny (always a good thing in my view), even if not as consistently hilarious as Meltzer or (especially) Rick Johnson. Basically I just plain liked how the guy's prose looked on the page, more than I can say for his hero Jack Kerouac. And finally, it was Bangs who (from beyond the grave!) turned me onto the Stooges/Velvets/Beefheart, not to mention Mingus and the rest of those cats, for which I thank him. Doesn't matter that he'd certainly hate 40% of the music on my personal shelves and hard drive, or how immature and self-destructive an asshole he probably was. I never let such trivialities concern me.

― Myonga Vön Bontee, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 19:14 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.galaade.com/img/auteur/liste/greil-marcus-174x112-NB.jpg

"Quiet you!"

(x-post)

― C. Grisso/McCain, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 19:14 (seventeen years ago) link

racism's "banal," huh?

― Matos W.K., Tuesday, 17 April 2007 19:21 (seventeen years ago) link

uh oh

― Edward III, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 19:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Saint Cough Syrup

― Gorge, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 22:15 (seventeen years ago) link

i don't know, the inclusion of the White Noise article in Caburetor Dung seems to me pretty necessary, if you're looking at the anthology as a portrait of Bangs -- which I think is how Marcus set it up. There's a lot of liberal guilt hand-wringing and self-flagellation in the article (which Bangs acknowledges) but it strikes me as an honest attempt to address some of the blatant and not-so-blatant racism that the punk scene contained. it's by no means a perfect article, but I don't think there was anyone else at the time actually attempting to deal with that stuff. I'm sure that within the NYC scene then, it caused a bunch of controversy, but it also may have caused some people to rethink their casual racism.

anyway, i definitely don't lionize Bangs, but I do think he's an often perceptive writer -- and most of all extremely funny, when he wanted to be.

― tylerw, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 22:25 (seventeen years ago) link

I always thought it was cool that Marcus was such a huge supporter of Bangs since their writing styles and really, the whole essence of what they seemed to get out of rock music, seemed to be at completely opposite ends of the spectrum. Which isn't to say that Bangs didn't sometimes stumble onto the cerebral - he just surrounded it with a lot of hubris which was fine.

There was a phrase in baseball about how an unworthy successor to some superstar's throne "couldn't hold his jock." I often used to say that one day I would welcome being only so good as to hold Lester Bangs' typewriter and I know for a fact I ain't there and probably never will be, but it's a noble goal nonetheless.

I also think Bangs was the first Blogger as much of his output is so personalized it predates the Blogosphere that since came to redefine criticism.

Oh, and for the OP: Classic without a doubt.

― NYCNative, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 23:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Matos, no, that's not what I was saying. More so that Bangs' ruminations about it in that article were maybe a little banal? I don't know - I'd have to read it again.

― Tim Ellison, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 00:15 (seventeen years ago) link

I can see that, though as someone else just said, I think the writing itself was really terrific in that one. Maybe the conclusions were banal, but I think the ways he got to them were perceptive.

― Matos W.K., Wednesday, 18 April 2007 00:28 (seventeen years ago) link

I dunno, I like the openended soulsearching of "the white noise supremacists." and the honesty. he doesn't just walk around pointing fingers, he pulls his own bigoted skeletons out of the closet for examination, too.

look, the guy wrote "of pop and pies and fun" at the age of 21. that alone blows my mind.

― Edward III, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 02:33 (seventeen years ago) link

21!

Part 1
Part 2

― Edward III, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 02:36 (seventeen years ago) link

I hate myself. Same damn thing last year, this year, on and on till I’m an old fart if I live that long. Shit. Think I’ll rape my wank-fantasy cunt dog-style tonight.

Classic.

― ian, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 02:40 (seventeen years ago) link

I find his style unbearable.

― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 02:41 (seventeen years ago) link

The whole affected talky thing - it's like reading Thomas Friedman

― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 02:53 (seventeen years ago) link

you read a message board all day and complain of "the whole affected talky thing"?? mindboggling.

― ian, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 02:54 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, zing, I know. But it works fine for a message board, and not as well for essays.

― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 03:28 (seventeen years ago) link

motherfucker didn't have no message board, you schmuck.

― chaki, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 09:25 (seventeen years ago) link

ian and myonga OTM -- reading bangs reviews of lou reed's TRANSFORMER and RAW POWER by teh stooges in stereo review when I was 15 turned me on to THE PATH and I'll always revere him for that. when carburetor dung was published in the mid 80s I was working at r0llin $toned where I combed the archives and read everything lester wrote for the rag (no wonder I got fired)anyway I was shocked because contrary to the conventional wisdom bangs wrote some of his best stuff there, breathtaking essays like "the carpenters and the creeps" and a stinging indictment of the counterculture in the wake of janis/jimi's deaths along w/runofthemill LP reviews that would just OPEN UP into streams of postbeatnick sartori and wizdom at the drop of a roachclip.

anyway I think his best work remains unanthologized. greil marcus didn't do lester any favors by printing the failed fiction, breakdown-period rants and lonely-guy musings in the second half of that book, put it that way. and I've always thought that anti-racism article was the precise moment when les "jumped the shark" turning into another self-righteous/hypocrite baby-boomer lecturing the young folks.

the second lb anthology was a huge disappointment, which I don't blame on editor john morthland (who's an lowkey genius writer/critic himself)but on the transitory nature of journalism , y'know how it's tied to the time it was written in. so reading about wet willie makes more sense in 1974 than it does now DUH. still the shocking thing about this book is how dated it feels. take the stuff on miles davis' electric funk -- arguably the most prescient influential and rich music of the 70s and gotdamn if lester didn't get it either he just blabs on and on speculating about miles' emotional state or whatever. bummer.

bottom line: I'm forever in his debt but I think lester bangs' memory/legend has been held up for so long that he's become a negative or even destructive influence, like w/pauline kael in film criticism his ghostly & intimidating presence hovers over the next generation of writers effectively scaring them off of finding their own voices and forging a fresh approach. at the end of the day thurston moore was right you've got to KILL YR IDOLS and find out the new goal.

― m coleman, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 10:35 (seventeen years ago) link

bangs on sabbath. so damn perceptive to peg them as moralists.

Part 1
Part 2

I've always thought that anti-racism article was the precise moment when les "jumped the shark" turning into another self-righteous/hypocrite baby-boomer lecturing the young folks.

but that's part of the history isn't it? laughner dies, bangs rejects r. hell's "never grow up" philosophy. it's not like he stumbled blindly into obsolescence, he was making some decisions about the kind of person he wanted to be. he recognized he wasn't gonna stay 21 forever and struggled with it and wrote about it, directly, openly. and I'd rather get lectured by bangs, who was decent enough to be forthcoming about his own foibles, then just about any other rock crit. (btw you're 100% otm about everything else)

it would be great to see the complete works of bangs published.

― Edward III, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 14:28 (seventeen years ago) link

i dont get the complaints about his influence on writers. i'd like to see some examples cited. at least people were biting someone whose style is readable.

m coleman OTM as usual though i've never read any super old rolling stones. i didn't read him until i was 18, HOLY SHIT did i think he was awesome and an equal of Hunter S. Thompson who i had read when i was 15.

― artdamages, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 14:33 (seventeen years ago) link

i dunno, i kind of liked that Lester completely missed the boat on Miles' electric stuff (xpost) -- shows just how way the fuck ahead of its time it was -- not even Lester "I Love Metal Machine Music" Bangs could see it for what it was. He really struggles with it and you can see that he's just on the verge of accepting and loving it (wouldn't be surprised if this happened later on, but he just didn't write about it).

yeah, a complete works would be cool (i'd buy it!) -- I guess I figured that the best stuff was in the two anthologies...but i guess not? What are some of the good unanthologized pieces?

― tylerw, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 22:48 (seventeen years ago) link

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