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Before his death aged 33 in 1982, Lester Bangs wrote wired, passionate pieces on Barry White, Iggy Pop, The Clash, John Lennon, Lou Reed: 'I always wanted to emulate the most self-destructive bastard I could see, as long as he moved with some sense of style. Thus Lou Reed'. To his journalism, he brought the talent of a great fiction writer. As Greil Marcus writes in his introduction: 'What this book demands from a reader is a willingness to accept that the best writer in America could write almost nothing but record reviews'
From the Back Cover
Collected work of Lester Bangs, the passionate, brilliant, and inspirational writer, who was immortalised in the film Almost Famous.
Psychotic Reactions collects Lester Bangs' most wired, passionate writing on legendary figures in music history, including Barry White, Iggy Pop, The Clash, John Lennon, and Lou Reed: 'I always wanted to emulate the most self-destructive bastard I could see, as long as he moved with some sense of style. Thus Lou Reed.'
To his writing he brought the talents of a great novelist and became one of the most celebrated writers in the history of music journalism. Immersed in the rock 'n' roll lifestyle about which he wrote, Bangs died tragically young in 1982 at the age of 33.
'Pure Bangs in full effect ... [He] wasn't the greatest ever rock critic because he split away, way beyond rock criticism. These are the places he went.' Uncut
'A superb collection ... Wild and funny and unpredictable. Lester Bangs was a great American writer who happened to write about rock 'n' roll.' Rolling Stone
'Bangs was one of the best writers ever to appear on newsprint ... When he died American culture lost one of its most astute, ornery, funniest and most soulful observers.' New York Times
'One of the most significant books ever written about music. 10/10.' Loaded
'A swaggering, scary, defiant, superhuman piece of writing.' Q
'A marvellous collection ... It will unquestionably teach you more about rock music and the appreciation thereof than a two-year subscription to all of the current British rock papers and mags.' Time Out
'Bangs created a grand philosophical gesture from the dynamics of fandom.' Wire
'One of life's great gurus.' Julian Cope
Lester Bangs started his career in music journalism as a record reviewer for Rolling Stone. He went on to write for and then edit the magazine Creem, before moving to New York and covering the burgeoning punk scene, writing in daily newspapers and the Village Voice.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
After many nights of heated discussion about music and the place of critics, I was given this book to read. As was intended, this selection of Lester Bangs' writings, taken from both published and unpublished material, opened a new vista of Critique as Art for me.
Bangs' writing is straight from the stream-of-thought school of Beat. Although he specialises in tangentially searing past his original point of any piece, or indeed sometimes coming nowhere near it in the first place (to the degree that it takes a few pages to work out what he is actually reviewing), he does it in style with imagination and wit. Although I quite like the breathless un-punctuated page-long ranting-past-the-point sentences, on the infrequent occasion Bangs' writing does get too thought-disordered for me to stomach; and he himself displays some insight into this, in one of his comments that he was "trying to be Bukowski".
However in short, Lester Bangs is funny, and most of the time interesting.
Although some of Bangs' writing might open up new perspectives on previously dismissed music, a cautionary word is that one mustn't take his opinion as anything to base your selection of music on. This is entertainment and as someone once said, "the critics have their audience too".
Bangs' writing is straight from the stream-of-thought school of Beat. Although he specialises in tangentially searing past his original point of any piece, or indeed sometimes coming nowhere near it in the first place (to the degree that it takes a few pages to work out what he is actually reviewing), he does it in style with imagination and wit. Although I quite like the breathless un-punctuated page-long ranting-past-the-point sentences, on the infrequent occasion Bangs' writing does get too thought-disordered for me to stomach; and he himself displays some insight into this, in one of his comments that he was "trying to be Bukowski".
However in short, Lester Bangs is funny, and most of the time interesting.
Although some of Bangs' writing might open up new perspectives on previously dismissed music, a cautionary word is that one mustn't take his opinion as anything to base your selection of music on. This is entertainment and as someone once said, "the critics have their audience too".
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you like your rock journalists to be more out-there than the so-called stars that they write about, then read Lester Bangs. By turns abusive, reverent, irreverent, witty, humane and incisive, this man was the greatest rock hack of them all. This collection is a must-read, and the arrangement of the articles gives the reader the sense that Bangs was growing up, but was not losing the plot by any means. It's a sad loss that he is not still with us. Read this book, feel your enthusiasm for music be rekindled and then go and tell all your friends about it. Brilliant.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a compelling, though in places quite challenging, compilation of Bangs' articles for Creem magazine, The Village Voice and other publications throughout the 70s and early 80s. His style of writing was almost like the music he reviewed, at times in short and punchy riffs, in other articles going off on extemporised sequences where he expresses himself using incoherent hippy jive language straight from the streets. He confesses to writing one article for 12 straight hours and you can feel it in the language, like it was written on amphetamines so he could finish it to deadline. Although, like most rock journalists he was prone to hyperbole in his assessments of major artists and their records there is a lot of intelligent and astute observation about the rock business in this book. The chapters on his love hate relationship with, and searing criticism of, Lou Reed provide the most humorous sequences for me. For example, Bangs interviews Reed in his hotel room with a transexual and observes " ...it was almost unmistakably a guy. Except that behind its see thru blouse, it seemed to have tits. Or something. It was beyond light and shade. It was grotesque. Not only grotesque, it was abject, like something that might have grovelingly scampered in when Lou opened the door to get the milk and papers in the morning". Bangs is also capable of endearingly irreverent wit, for example describing Barry White as "nineteen pounds of pure lumbering animal who makes Leslie West look like Steven Tyler". Indeed his article on Barry White's schmoozy stage show is so close to the bone its stone cold brilliant. Now and again he also throws out a few life affirming profundities such as "we're all stuck on this often miserable earth where life is essentially tragic, but there are glints of beauty and bedrock joy that come shining through from time to time to remind anybody that there is something higher than ourselves. And I am not taking about putrefying gods but about a sense of wonder about life itself...". Finally my other favourite passage is in an article on John Lennon where he writes "The Beatles did lead but they led with a wink. They may have been more popular than Jesus but I don't think they wanted to be the world's religion. That would have cheapened and rendered tawdry what was special..."
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great value for money
I need this book for uni. I cannot believe how cheap it was on here. Great value for money and excellent service. :)
Published 3 months ago by JessB
Best rock anthology of all
This is some of the best writing about music, if not THE best, compiled in one essential volume. Bangs is funny, wise and incredibly perceptive about the music he loves. Read more
Published on 8 Feb 2010 by Dave Gilmour's cat
The Master of Rock Writing in full swing!
I love Lester Bangs' unrestrained style: the passionate torrents of words, the extravagant metaphors and the keen insight. Read more
Published on 1 Mar 2002 by Pieter
It's only rock and roll
As a reviewer I expect a weekly dose of Lester Bangs would have been entertaining. But a whole book of the stuff was a bit too much for this reader. Read more
Published on 10 Nov 1998
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