Lester letters, pt. 2
Vancouver Sun readers respond to Bangs’s John Lennon obituary, Dec 23, 1980. Continue reading Lester letters, pt. 2
Category: Lester
Poe, Einstein, Bangs et al.
For Lester Bangs, on the 40th anniversary of his death. A letter to the Charlotte Observer, July 19, 1982. Continue reading Poe, Einstein, Bangs et al.
“what even is a review?”
A formidable question, posed by Mark Sinker at Freaky Trigger, and a fetching/daunting examination of its many contours and contradictions. The surgery begins with a complaint (from a friend of Mark’s) about Nick Tosches’ review of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid in Rolling Stone, I think because Tosches seems to not address the record itself. Which leads to a trail of thought that includes Flaubert, the Grotesque … Continue reading “what even is a review?”
Lester on Ringo & George (Hi-Fi Stereo Review)
The above appeared in the June 1975 issue of Stereo Review (formerly Hi-Fi Stereo Review), now archived here. The letters are in reference to a Bangs twin review, from March ’75 (one I’ve never seen before) of Harrison’s Dark Horse and Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna (a “metal-flake glow-in-the-dark music box”). More links to HFSR stuff ahead. Continue reading Lester on Ringo & George (Hi-Fi Stereo Review)
Lester’s One-Man Show
Amanda Petrusich in the New Yorker on “How to Be a Rock Critic,” a new one-man play starring and co-written by Erik Jensen. Continue reading Lester’s One-Man Show
Lester Bangs on stage
Play About Lester Bangs to Have World Premiere in California Based on the life and words of Lester Bangs, How to Be a Rock Critic is by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, the husband-and-wife team behind The Exonerated, a play based on interviews with death row inmates. The play will be staged by the Center Theater Group in Culver City, California from June 17-28, 2015. … Continue reading Lester Bangs on stage
Interview with Raul Sandelin (dir. A Box Full of Rocks)
Because he’s so closely identified with Creem magazine and Detroit on the one hand, and New York City and post-punk on the other, it’s easy to forget that Lester Bangs’s roots lie somewhere else entirely, in the small-ish (current population less than 100,000) town of El Cajon, CA, just outside of San Diego. Raul Sandelin’s feature-length documentary, A Box Full of Rocks: The El Cajon … Continue reading Interview with Raul Sandelin (dir. A Box Full of Rocks)
Lester & Philip
That night, after I interviewed Hoffman, I went back to my hotel room and had a dream about Lester, something that happens with some regularity. In every dream, he isn’t dead, but instead has been hiding out somewhere. Waiting. This time, I asked him where he had been. He told me Florida. “I’ve just been waiting for you to get it right,” he told me. … Continue reading Lester & Philip
Critical Collage: Metal Machine Music
“This record is not for parties/dancing/background romance. This is what I ment by ‘real’ rock, about ‘real’ things. No one I know has listened to it all the way through including myself. It is not meant to be. Start any place you like. Symmetry, mathematical precision, obsessive and detailed accuracy and the vast advantage one has over ‘modern electronic composers.’ They, with neither sense of … Continue reading Critical Collage: Metal Machine Music
Lou Reed
I’m not embarrassed to say — and hardly alone, I suspect – that my first meaningful encounter with Lou Reed was via Lester Bangs. I had heard of Reed before then, was familiar with “Walk on the Wild Side,” which I thought was just a slightly more offbeat radio song than the dozens of offbeat radio songs then dominating the airwaves (though something or someone … Continue reading Lou Reed
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