Rating: 
Summary: If it hurts - let it blurt
Review: I can't judge whether this tome (or the newer release, "Mainlines") is a truly comprehensive and accurate portrayal of Lester Bangs, since I only became aware of his work long after his death. What I can say is that "Psychotic Reactions" is an endlessly fascinating, hilarious, depressing, sardonic, joyful, frightening, and unique collection of material from one of the greatest non-fiction writers of our time.Greil Marcus, faced with the incredible task of creating a compendium of Lester's thousands of works, arranged them in a way that tell a story, and provide an autobiographical arc. Lester was a rock and roll fan in the purest and most heartbreaking sense - he romanticized it completely, and idolized those who took the most romantic (read: tragic) rock and roll stances. People like Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Richard Hell. As a writer who was a fan, he was destined to be let down, but he knew that, and saw the humor in it. More importanly, though - the man could WRITE. His articles, and even fragments, are thorougly entertaining, and stand up to multiple readings. And while Marcus has been knocked for his arrangement, he should be praised for presenting the growth, and growing sadness, of a fan as he became alienated from his love of music. "Psychotic Reactions" gets my strongest recommendations. I have two copies, because I'm always loaning one out - and it never gets returned, which doesn't surprise me in the least.
Rating:
Summary: THE BIG BANGS!
Review: I love Lester Bangs' unrestrained style: the passionate torrents of words, the extravagant metaphors and the unique insight. Above all, his contagious enthusiasm serves to drive one back to the music - to listen, enjoy and appreciate again and again. Apparently this book does not contain all of his best work but I intensely enjoyed the tales of his various encounters with Lou Reed, the pieces on No Wave (Reasonable Guide To Horrible Noise), Peter Laughner, David Bowie, Kraftwerk, as well as his hilarious warnings against James Taylor and Barry White. Just sometimes, he loses me when the writing becomes impenetrable and he goes off on too many tangents, as in pieces like "Fragments 1976 - 1982" and "Ten Post-Lib Role Models for the 80s" from the chapter titled Unpublishable. Where I do not agree with him, as in his (perhaps tongue-in-cheek?) endorsement of Reed's "Metal Machine Music," he still makes me laugh. Bangs would also have made a great novelist as is evident from the excerpt from Maggie May (1981). To understand Lester and the background to this compilation, I recommend reading Jim DeRogatis' excellent biography "Let It Blurt" at the same time, as it also contains an impressive bibliography of his work and articles about him. I look forward to more Big Bangs - more of his remarkable writings being made available in compilations.
Rating:
Summary: Lester Bangs and "Psychotic Reactions"
Review: I never actually met the guy. But I devoured every published word of his between 1974, when I first discovered his work in CREEM , to his untimely passing in New York in 1982. He was the last of a sorely-missed breed, a writer who played the English language like a honking saxophone, launching into soaring solo avalanches of prose and jamming all over the place like John Coltrane on a good night. Through his work in CREEM and later Rolling Stone and the Village Voice, he influenced and inspired me to create my words with a rock & roll attitude, with my mental amp turned all the way up to 10, operating with total disregard for the niceties of style and conformity and making a big noise on paper. Lester taught me that a guy with a typewriter can jam just as well as a guy with a guitar and a Marshall stack. I remember laughing my ass off at Lester's legendary "feud" with Lou Reed. I remember being slightly pissed at his negative reviews of ELP, but the sheer exuberance in his writing more than made up for it. He taught me how a tune by Miles Davis could be just as musically valid as one by the Sex Pistols. I remember snatching the latest issues of CREEM when they hit the newsstands, eagerly flipping through them for the latest anything from Lester. On two occasions they actually published my letters in the letters section, which just made my day and gave me a taste of what it was like to have one's words in a national publication. His witty replies to reader's letters were of Oscar Wilde quality, and he was largely responsible for the demystification of rock stars, providing my star-struck generation with our first clues that rock stars were fallible humans just like the rest of us. Lester claimed to have invented the term "punk rock". He certainly had his own laundry list of personal failings too, but don't we all? He was a critic whose lifestyle was similar to his audience's, speaking TO his readers like confidantes rather than AT them, often at a level of unexpected personal intimacy. He refused to be swayed by record-company hype. Reading a Bangs review was like hearing somebody discussing their favorite band in a bar. He made a point of listening to the records he reviewed on regular crappy K-mart stereo systems, the better to connect with how the regular folks heard them. Musical genius, he realized, would shine through any playback medium. His level of integrity and honesty in his writing will not be seen again. All I have left of Lester's work now is a stack of ancient yellowing CREEM magazines and a hard-cover collection of his best work, edited by Cameron Crowe, entitled Psychotic Reactions & Carburetor Dung, which I highly recommend to anyone who realizes rock & roll can exist in a place other than an audio recording or a stage. The title is borrowed from the Count Five's ("Psychotic Reaction") debut album. It is a glimpse inside the soul of a man for whom rock & roll was the fuel of life. To read it is to be transported to a higher level of understanding and enjoyment of the sounds coming out of your speakers, much the same way you feel when you're in the presence of a band which is really cookin' onstage. The links below are to pages containing the reviews and articles which made Lester so much more than just another hack PR scribe. He died in New York City in April of 1982 of the flu (of all things) checking out of this life at the eerily prescient age of 33, just ahead of the advent of MTV and CDs. You have to wonder about the timing, but one thing is for sure: he left us much too soon.
Rating:
Summary: The style everyone copied, The passion no one had...
Review: If the meaning of a song, any song,ever equaled more than the sum of its parts, and creates a new way to think, not a way to dance, or clothes to copy, but changes way you exist, you must read this book. Lester was a True Genius, mixing crass observations with true beauty, going into the mystic to describe why The Stooges were important, why Astral Weeks was literally other-worldly, and especially, why Rock Stars are full of ****. He had vision and passion.He believed in stupid ,stupid things like others have faith in God, and defended his right to have this faith. It changed my life, truly.
Rating:
Summary: This is rock'n'roll!
Review: If you're a fan of rock'n'roll, you've got to read this. Although some of his pieces are quite absurd (and quite funny), Bangs has the ability to make every single word sound true and believable. After reading the piece on the Count Five, I searched all over the internet to find out about all these crazy records that they supposedly recorded. Of course, they only recorded one album, Psychotic Reactions, and records such as Cartesian Jetstream and Carburetor Dung don't exist, however much we wish they did. His piece on the Godz is entirely true however. Yes, there exists a song called "White Cat Heat" in which the band members are "yowling like a pack of alley cats in a fur-flying brawl." Bangs also have the ability to create highly moving pieces of work, such as his review of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and the piece titled John Contrane Lives. Add to that his great pieces on the Stooges and Lou Reed, and you've got one of the best books about music. Bangs was truly a gifted writer, and his early death was a great loss to all of us who love rock'n'roll.
Rating: 
Summary: what all rock criticism should be
Review: It's not a little ironic that Lester Bangs died in 1982, the year of the final (real) Clash album. Did passion in rock die the same year as passion in rock criticism? The great thing about Bangs - much like the Clash - is that it's blatantly apparent in everything he does that he cares deeply and fundamentally about the power of music. He's not just doing this for the paycheck; he's doing it because even though he knows it's totally irrational, it really does matter to him. So you've got politics, humanity, compassion, wit, and some damn fine writing masquerading as "mere" rock n' roll reviews. There are loads of revelatory, eye-opening passages in here: the brilliant dissection of why the Stooges were an important rock band, the hilarious review of Lou Reed's unlistenable Metal Machine Music, the touching reflection on racism in punk, and of course, the 40 pages about the magic of touring England with the Clash. Only about half of the article is really about the Clash, but it doesn't matter. The other half is a sad and telling commentary on the very society bands like the Clash were supposedly raging against. Fantastic stuff, a real page-turner. You'll nearly be convinced that Count Five were a better band than Led Zeppelin. Everyone who writes music reviews for a living should be required to read this. It's a shame he's not still with us, it would have been fascinating to hear his thoughts on rock in the 90's. Has this decade been another hideous rock drought akin to the one he condemns in the early and mid-70's?
Rating:
Summary: the greatest writings ever written on rock & roll, and more
Review: just finished reading this for the fourth time. bangs' is absolutely, incontrovertibly the most passionate voice ever to lend itself to rock crit. but it's more than that. these writings show a passion for living - uncompromising and unflinching works that deal with every aspect of american life. bangs was perceptive, angry, sensitive, violent, sentimental, brave - and he literally lived for rock and roll. his legend would suggest that he was a bit insane, but his writings reveal one of the most coherent and intelligent minds ever to grace our earth - if only for a short while (always works that way, doesn't it?). these writings are so consistently interesting that one can pick up this book, flip it open to any page, begin at any paragraph, and become fully engulfed in seconds. the bible of rock and roll.
Rating:
Summary: the greatest writings ever written on rock & roll, and more
Review: just finished reading this for the fourth time. bangs' is absolutely, incontrovertibly the most passionate voice ever to lend itself to rock crit. but it's more than that. these writings show a passion for living - uncompromising and unflinching works that deal with every aspect of american life. bangs was perceptive, angry, sensitive, violent, sentimental, brave - and he literally lived for rock and roll. his legend would suggest that he was a bit insane, but his writings reveal one of the most coherent and intelligent minds ever to grace our earth - if only for a short while (always works that way, doesn't it?). these writings are so consistently interesting that one can pick up this book, flip it open to any page, begin at any paragraph, and become fully engulfed in seconds. the bible of rock and roll.
Rating:
Summary: How to Rip Off Lester Bangs Without Trying OR Lou Reed Kills
Review: Lester Bangs got it right. He was the only rock critic who wrote with the rhythm of rock 'n' roll and felt to his absolute core every note. He was absolutely insulted by blandness in music, and therefore, never wrote a bland review. His critics often criticize his "digressions," but they're missing the point; after all, great rock and roll is a digression from most socially acceptable behavior. Consequently, this book is absolutely essential for anyone who cares about rock 'n' roll's past, present or future. Read Lester to get to the heart of rock, then read Greil Marcus to come to terms with its uneasy mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Bangs was an over-rated hack
Review: Lester Bangs is enormously over-rated. Perhaps among rock critics he was above average, but as a writer he was a hack. His style is one of the most annoying I've ever encountered. The funny thing is, I wrote just like Bangs when I was 14 -- and that's not bragging. Rather, it suggests that Bangs wrote like a whiny, pretentious, pseudo-intellectual, neurotic, self-satisfied, egotistical 14-year old who neve grew up. The style is a sort of uninhibited stream-of-consciousness which becomes tiring very quickly. Plus, it's not very funny.
On the other hand, I did appreciate the historical aspect of some of the articles, particularly the perspective they provide on early punk. Ultimately, however, there is, as they say, as little point in reading about music as in tap-dancing about painting.
|
