Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste - Lester Bangs [0]
A Lester Bangs Reader
Lester Bangs edited by John Morthland
From 1969 until his death in 1982, Lester Bangs was one of the most prolific rock critics in America, writing for Creem, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone and pretty much every other music-oriented publication in the known world.
John Morthland, coexecutor of the Bangs literary estate, was a colleague of Bangs from 1969 until the author's death. He was editor of Creem in 1974-75. He is a writer at large for
Texas Monthly.
Also by Lester Bangs
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung edited by Greil Marcus
For Ben, Midge, Karen, Tom, and Matty
CONTENTS
Introduction and Acknowledgments
DRUG PUNK
from Two Assassinations and a Speedy Retreat into Pastoral Nostalgias
A Quick Trip Through My Adolescence
from The Great El Cajon Race Riot and Two Friday Night Parties
HYPES AND HEROICSDRUG PUNK
The MC5: Kick Out the Jams //
Charlie Haden: Liberation Music Orchestra
Canned Heat: The New Age
Dandelions in Still Air: The Withering Away of the Beatles
Blood Feast of Reddy Kilowatt! Emerson, Lake, and Palmer Without Insulation!
C’mon Sugar, Let's Go All-Nite Jukin’ with Wet Willie
Bob Dylan's Dalliance with Mafia Chic: He Ain’t No Delinquent, He's Misunderstood
Anne Murray: Danny's Song
Helen Reddy: Long Hard Climb //
Grace Jones Beats Off
Stevie Nicks: Lilith or Bimbo?
Art Ensemble of Chicago: Rated G
Ian Hunter: The Coots Are Alright
The Grooming of David Johansen
Patti Smith: Horses
Better Than the Beatles (And DNA, Too)
Dead Boys Almost Count Five
On the Merits of Sexual Repression
David Byrne Says “Boo!”
A Bellyful of Wire
Jello Biafra Is No Cretin
If Oi Were a Carpenter
PANTHEON
I Only Get My Rocks Off When I’m Dreaming: So You Say You Missed the Stones Too? Cheer Up, We’re a Majority!
1973 Nervous Breakdown: The Ol’ Fey Outlaws Ain’t What They Used to Be—Are You?
It's Only the Rolling Stones
State of the Art: Bland on Bland
Kind of Grim: Unraveling the Miles Perplex
Miles Davis: Music for the Living Dead
Captain Beefheart's Far Cry: He's Alive, But So Is Paint. Are You?
Deaf-Mute in a Telephone Booth: A Perfect Day with Lou Reed
Monolith or Monotone? Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music //
Your Shadow Is Scared of You: An Attempt Not to Be Frightened by Nico
Jim Morrison: Bozo Dionysus a Decade Later
Bring Your Mother to the Gas Chamber!
Eno Sings with the Fishes
John Lydon Across the Border
TRAVELOGUES
Killer Frogs in Transatlantic Blitz: A Franco-American Chronologue Starring Les Variations
Innocents in Babylon: A Search for Jamaica Featuring Bob Marley and a Cast of Thousands
Death May Be Your Santa Claus: An Exclusive, Up-to-Date Interview with Jimi Hendrix
from Notes on Austin
California
RAVING, RAGING, AND REBOPS
Admit It, You Like to Kick Cripples, Too (Especially if You Are One)
Everybody's Search for Roots (The Roots of Punk, Part 1)
Back Door Men and Women in Bondage
liner notes to It Falleth Like Gentle Rains from Heaven— The Mekons Story
Every Song a Hooker
Bad Taste Is Timeless
An Instant Fan's Inspired Notes: You Gotta Listen
Bye Bye Sidney, Be Good
from All My Friends Are Hermits //
Trapped by the Mormons
Permissions
Introduction and Acknowledgments
Though I loved and respected his writing as much as anyone, when Lester Bangs died, basically of a Darvon overdose, in 1982 I mourned the loss of a great friend more than that of a great writer. Truth is, I never read his work critically; I liked what I liked and if something else he wrote didn’t engage me, I just moved along to the next thing without giving it much thought. Hardly a day has passed since that I haven’t thought of Lester, but the hole his death left in my personal life dwarfs the loss I feel as a reader and colleague of Lester.
Yet here I have been these last few months, reading him very critically, making judgments right and left while agonizing to determine what I considered most worthy of inclusion in this book that hadn’t already appeared in Psychotic