Archive for the ‘Lester’ Category
Tesco Vee, Abba, and Lester Bangs
Posted by s woods on October 24, 2011
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Bangs Bronzed
Posted by s woods on October 17, 2011
English Dept. to celebrate alumnus who became rock critic
GROSSMONT COLLEGE (Press Release) — The English Department’s Creative Writing Program will pay tribute to a deceased rock `n’ roll critic and former student as part of its Fall 2011 Reading Series. The third annual Lester Bangs Memorial Reading will be held at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 19 in Building 26, Room 220. Admission is free and the public is invited to attend… Bangs is considered the most famous writer to attend Grossmont College, and is believed to be the only author to actually mention Grossmont College in a piece of internationally published literature. In 2010, Bangs was inducted into Grossmont College’s Walk of Fame, a permanent display of bronze plaques embedded in concrete that feature names of distinguished Grossmont College alumni. The Walk of Fame program, which began in 1989, raises money for educational programs at the college.
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Lester Bangs in Billboard
Posted by s woods on July 26, 2011
Not something one comes across every day. (Sadly, one of my singles-reviewing heroes, Ken Barnes, is sliced by a scanner.)
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Real Time Results for ‘Lester Bangs’
Posted by s woods on June 17, 2011
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Bangs in Belfast
Posted by s woods on June 8, 2011
Horrible Noise: The Sights and Smells of Lester Bangs
“A new [now old - ed.] play about gutter rock journalist Lester Bangs, written by Ray McGahan and Paul Doran, charting Bangs’ meteoric rise to the very middle and his glacial slide back to rock bottom.
“Based around some of Bangs’ finest writings, and some of his worst scribbling, Horrible Noise brings to life the mysterious creature behind the collections Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung and Mainlines, Blood Feasts and Bad Taste.” (There’s a terrific flyer for the event here.)
Damn, can a Broadway version of The Aesthetics of Rock be far behind? Where can I audition to play the unknown tongue?
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Favourite Music Reads of the 00s: #4 (Noise Boys)
Posted by s woods on November 9, 2009
The RISE and SPRAWL of HORRIBLE NOISE
- Mark Sinker, 2001
“The actual real word for ‘ugliness’ that Excites My Ears is ‘beauty,’ of course. Except I daren’t say this, for fear of ultra-cool avant-hipsters telling me I’m the Culture Industry’s Bitch. So I invoke-invent-insist on some nice squares somewhere to find my beauty ugly, and shore up my shameful pleasures with new undisrupting safer rescue-meanings. What if declaring yourself unfooled, frantically stripping yourself of all possible idiocy, also murders all possible capacity to challenge anything much, yourself, your foes, your world? You see, some passersby don’t even get noticed in the noisewars: not punks, not hippies, not squares, not freaks, just harassed middle-aged working-class women on their way to clean up after someone’s stupid pogo party…. If NOISE is yr god, does this mean noise to ‘them,’ poor trapped prole boobies, or noise to YOU, self-walled up in your aesthetico-political Pigfuck Palace?”
Posted in 2000s Roundup, Lester | 1 Comment »
Meme of the Day: Lester Bangs Wannabes & Imitators
Posted by s woods on October 9, 2009
- “The question [Bruce] Sterling brings up here has nagged Bangs-the-original and Bangs-wannabes since the first rush wore off: It’s got a good beat and I can dance to it, but is it art?”
- Ray Davis - “Too many [Pitchfork writers] are Lester Bangs wannabes, though each has less than half of Bangs’ talent for being interesting while not actually talking about music.”
- miguelsanchez - “Though [Chuck Eddy's] Lester Bangs wannabe style is slightly interesting, as a guide to picking music this guy is strictly an amateur who I can’t take seriously.”
- Amazon customer review of Stairway to Hell - “For nearly twenty years, the word ‘indie’ has been used by record company executives and pseudo-intellectual Lester Bangs wannabes, to the point that it’s lost all meaning. Since the term was originally used to describe punk rock, ‘indie’ should apply to all of its diminutive forms, but it doesn’t.”
- samhuddy, What is Indie - “IMHO, it’s populated by a bunch of how’s-my-hair Lester Bangs wannabes who are better qualified to write reviews of the latest slim-cut jeans.”
- VicAjax on Pitchfork‘s decade-end list - “This Chicago-based online apparel store relies upon the collective creativity of its diehard members to produce quirky t-shirt designs. The ‘Music Snob’ tee name-checks faux music genres (children’s hardcore or Dixieland techno, anyone?) that’ll trick any Lester Bangs wannabe.”
- Rea McNamara, Gifts that Click (Eye Weekly) - “I’m not confused like you, twit
You Lester Bangs wannabe
There’s something wrong with you
There’s nothing wrong with me
There’s nothing wrong with me”
- Lyrics to Of Montreal’s “There is Nothing Wrong With Hating Rock Critics“ - “United States Representative Thaddeus G. McCotter (MI) is Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee and a Lester Bangs Wannabe“
- A Health Dirge Night: President Obama’s Lefty Health Club Band (Must click link to see best doctored Sgt. Pepper cover ever) - “Quite frankly, who needs us anymore? Do you honestly need to follow a Lester Bangs wannabe to tell you what’s cool when the entirety of music history is immediately available on Myspace, Wikipedia and your average MP3 blog?”
- Impboy, message on Boing Boing post - “I could make up some metaphors involving edged weapons to describe the guitar work of John Reis and Rick Froberg, and some bludgeoning similes to express the crashing assault of Gar Wood’s bass and Mario Rubalcaba’s drums. But I’d just come off looking like a Lester Bangs wannabe, and quite frankly, what’s the point when I could just repeat what I said about the Camden Underworld gig and be done with it – Hot Snakes kick the shit out nearly every punk rock band you’ll see this year.”
- Nick Cowen review of Hot Snakes - “In short, we’re fans and collectors (well, I’m the collector) who like to pass along information about the artists we enjoy. We’re not Lester Bangs wannabes out to shock and awe, and we’re not too-cool-for-school music snobs that lambaste everything in sight. There are plenty of sites that nitpick musicians and authors, so we’ll let them do their thing, and we’ll keep doing ours.”
- “On Negative Reviews and Turkish Rap“ - “As a wannabe Lester Bangs for the teen section of the local paper, I kept my feet still, listening for the beat. Roth, too, remained steady, his neck grooving slowly with the rhythm, his lips softly mouthing along the words. ‘Isn’t this amazing?’ squealed the girl next to me. I nodded. This was good.”
- Robert Costa, “Asher Agonistes: The Suburban Rise of Asher Roth” (PopMatters) - “Morthland, for one, disagreed with my assessment of modern rock critics being sorry Lester Bangs imitators; he said the imitation was much more prominent in the 1970′s, when there was less of an established tradition. ‘It’s really common for rock critics of the last couple decades to say they were heavily influenced by Lester, tho’ I’ll be damned if I can see it in their writing.’”
- “The Ghost of Lester Bangs“, by Ethan Stanislawski (Perfect Sound Forever) - “I am always perplexed by the fact that, whenever anyone weighs in on Lester Bangs, they feel the need to do a horrible Lester Bangs imitation. While it appears Mr. Leonard has been doing yeoman’s work covering the many different ways the Man is trying to keep you from your Internet, both his style and his interests seem out of synch with commenting effectively on L. Bangs, particularly a work of essentially speculative fiction on the subject of L. Bangs and what he might think of music today.”
- Squiny McGuinty, “The New Ships“ - “And while there have been plenty of Bangs imitators over the years, Let It Blurt proves that there was only one Lester, whose stream-of-consciousness gonzo humor and drug- and drink-fueled prose was balanced by a rare thoughtfulness.”
- Jim Walsh, Blurt review
Posted in Lester, Meme of the Day | 14 Comments »
Lester Talks Over Clapton
Posted by A.C. Rhodes on May 7, 2009
Truth be told, when it comes to Lester Bangs – and I don’t think I’m alone here – I just can’t get enough. That’s why weathering through footage of Eric Clapton is worth it in this clip. That and the fact that he looks more like Richard Thompson (who would have been preferable) and is more tolerable when he’s high, which it looks like he is here. Ironically, this is the subject Lester hits on during his time on-screen. There has to be more video out there; footage that wouldn’t be taken down by WEA.
Posted in Lester, YouTubes | 4 Comments »
Question of the Week: Lester Bangs; Man, Myth or Mix?
Posted by A.C. Rhodes on December 2, 2007
Music writers, rock mag enthusiasts and musicians alike have revered him, scorned him or thought, “eh.” So, what are your thoughts?
Anyone making jokes about cough syrup mixture will be cyber-spanked, however understandable the temptation.
Posted in Lester, Question of the Week | 27 Comments »
Lester Bangs vs. Bryan Ferry (YouTube)
Posted by s woods on September 19, 2007
Footage taken from a seventies British documentary called All You Need is Love.
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Bangs links restored [update]
Posted by s woods on August 28, 2007
See, it’s not so bad, kids… everything will come back in due time. Here’s the Lester Bangs links page. I’ve rid the page of all the bad links (of which there were several), will try and find where some of those links have moved to–and of course, will add any new ones as I see them.
UPDATE: More links added, more restored… and special thanks to Glorious Noise for organizing such a great collection of Bangs’s scribblings in Rolling Stone.
Posted in Lester | 1 Comment »
