Customer Reviews

Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is probably the more well-rounded of the two volumes of Bangs' articles and miscellaneous whatnot now available. The big issue I've been having with it is that it was clearly designed as an entry point for curious parties. "Main Lines" avoids being too obscure if it can help it - even Captain Beefheart seems to me part of the Popular Music Canon - and the pieces here are far more watered-down than the ones in "Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung." What I mean by that is that, aside from Bangs' juvenalia (which is briefly touched on at the beginning of the book), this book lacks much of the spirit of discovery that was so beautifully brought to the fore in the first. If you're a Bangs fan or a voracious reader of musical criticism, it wouldn't hurt to read this... but if you're new to Bangs and want to know why he's one of the best music journalists of all time, you should pick up "Psychotic Reactions."

The rock writer Joh Morthland has compiled a companion volume to Psychotic Reactions And Carburettor Dung, the first collection of the writings of Lester Bangs, rock `n roll's most influential critic and the one who defined the genre.

The book is divided into the following sections: DRUG PUNK, including previously unpublished writings on Andy Warhol and autobiographical ruminations on Bangs' adolescence; HYPES & HEROICS includes pieces on the MC5, Beatles, Bob Dylan, Grace Jones, Patti Smith's album Horses, Wire and Jello Biafra.

PANTHEON contains pieces on The Rolling Stones, Miles Davis, Captain Beefheart, Nico's Marble Index album, Brian Eno, Jim Morrison and Lester's famous review of Lou Reed's notorious Metal Machine Music album. TRAVELOGUES includes impressions of his trips to Paris, Jamaica, Austin and California.

The last chapter is titled RAVING, RAGING AND REBOPS and contains writings on the roots of punk, The Mekons (Bad Taste Is Timeless) and an excerpt from the previously unpublished All My Friends Are Hermits from 1980.

Lester's adrenalin charged writing has lost none of its appeal. He wrote with an enthusiasm that transcends the decades. I highly recommend this book to all rock fans that are passionate about the music. I also recommend the great biography by Jim DeRogatis, titled Let It Blurt: The Life And Times Of Lester Bangs and The Dark Stuff by Nick Kent.

Lester Bangs is back from the dead with a companion piece to the cult 1987 collection of his writings, Psychotic Reactions And Carburettor Dung. And this new collection is just as good.

MLBFABT eschews the tack that editor Griel Marcus took in PRACD, ie telling Lester's tragically truncated life story through pieces that explained his life and drug-fueled outlook. Here editor John Morthland simply includes new pieces that he thought should not have been missed out from PRACD - heretic pieces on Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, a great section of Lester's infamous cough syrup-enhanced teenage novel Drug Punk - and cobbles together an excellent new tomestone for Lester's incredible linguistics ability.

If you liked (or, like me, LOVED) PRACD you simply HAVE to have this new volume. You will love it - it's as simple as that. Jim DeRogatis, writer of Bangs bio Let it Blurt, complains on his site ... that there are many pieces not in this new chaotic emotional compendium that he would have included from Lester's estate. This simply says one thing to me: there is room for another volume after this one.

And I for one cannot wait for it.

Lester Bangs RIP, man. You could write like an inkspiller wordplayboy-a-go-go m'main manic maniac man.

This + PRACD = essential purchases for Lesterphiles. Trying to choose between the two is like trying to choose between "In a Silent Way" and "Fun House". or "The Ramones" and "The Clash". It's ALL essential. Be greedy.

i don't know what some other reviewers are talking about, this is better than Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, this book has some great early writing by lester about america during the time of bobby kennedy's assasination, also has some great writing about the evolution of the punk scene and what exactlly is punk, and his love (lust) letter to Cherie Currie is one of the funniest things i have ever read...

Its a rock n roll tragedy that it's taken this long for more Lester Bangs to be collected under a book cover. John Morthland's offering doesnt quite match up to Marcus' "Psychotic Reactions" in that it doesnt tell a(his) story;it's "The Best Of Lester That Wasn't In Psychotic Reactions..." instead. Which is not a bad thing at all;you get Lester's first review of the MC5's "Kick Out The Jams" album, scathing dissections of Bob Dylan and the Beatles' sociological signficance in the wake of their breakup,and his ironic pining for Anne Murray. Also on heightened display here is his utter negativity and despair during the seventies that characterized most of his output during that period. Im reading Meltzer's "Whore Just Like The Rest" now, and even though Im getting into it more, Meltzer may have been the firstest, but Lester was the bestest. Youngins who think rock selling out is a new concept better take a listen to Lester and realize the rock ship was sinking before she even got out of the dock.

Once at an allergist appointment to treat my asthma I had to use a nebulizer, a machine to help my medication get deep into my lungs. There were two end results: I started breathing better and was high on oxygen and I got more medication into me than normal and got high on that. Basically, I was high as a kite for an hour or two and then it wore off. But for that brief period of time, I was happy and did everything at warp speed and was lovin' life.

Lester Bangs, for those of you not familiar with him, was a rock critic who was lovin' life a lot of the time, but he wasn't being supplied with happy, legal drugs from his allergist. When you read his work, you don't have to be told, though he does tell you, that he often wrote under the influence of a myriad of things. Sometimes his reviews don't make a stitch of sense. Other times they are pure genius.

The bottom line is, if you consider yourself music savvy, you should know who Lester Bangs is. If you need an introduction to his work, Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader is a great place to get it. The reader is a collection of Bangs' writing, edited by friend John Morthland. Most of the reviews are written as Bangs must of spoke. In fact, I often found myself reading his work out loud because they sounded better than they read. He would write an accent - not in a Zore Neale Hurtson I-spell-out-dialect sort of way, but in a William Shakespeare rhyme-and-meter-are-everything sort of way. It's magic.

Some of the reviews in Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader are tedious and near impossible to get through. He often refers to music that is most likely inaccessible to you, because, let's be frank, the man was a music snob. Snobbery or no, he knew his stuff and his developed completely original creative ways to write reviews.

Bangs loved life a little too hard and died of an overdose in 1982. He is still remembered in movies like Almost Famous and his mark is left on music / rock criticism everywhere.

It would be difficult to argue that Lester Bangs is not the most influential (and for that matter the greatest) rock critic of all time. From the 1960s until his death in 1982 Bangs covered rock and all other types of music for numerous magazines, including the Creem, Rolling Stone and Village Voice.

As a writer, Bangs delivers his words honestly and clearly from the bottom of his heart. His influences, I believe, were Burroughs, Celine, comic books, and of course, rock and roll. In my estimation Bangs is one of the great American writers. That said, Bangs is not perfect and neither is 'Mainlines'.

What is great about this book:
For one, there is plenty of material about Lou Reed, the Stooges, the Stones, Black Sabbath, and Richard Hell. You really can't go wrong with Lester's Choice in music: this book is sure to introduce you to more than a few records that you've never heard of, but that you will be inclined to give them a listen and eventually will come to love them. Perhaps above and beyond everything else, Bangs is a superb rock critic. If you at all find you have a common taste in music with Bangs, then read anything of his you can get your hands one.

What is wrong with this book: First, it is that the material 'mainlines' simply isn't as good as it was in the first Lester Bangs anthology Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'N'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock 'N'Roll. Second, there is the problem of the editor, John Morthland. At the end of his measly four page introduction, Morthland notifies the reader that he believes Lester's work stands up well enough on its own. He proposes that Bang's writings (often articles/essays originally published in magazines) should not be given any sort of introduction or explanatory notes. I disagree with this idea. Often I have no idea what Bangs is writing about, what current events he is referencing, or even what album he is reviewing. Providing these essays/reviews/rants with an introduction would have been a great help and would have added immensely to my enjoyment and understanding of Bang's the writer. Also, the book needs an index.

In the title of this review I called 'Mainlines' a "necessary companion to 'Psychotic'." It may not sound like it, but I stand by my claim. 'Psychotic Reactions' is clearly the better of the two books. Read it first, and if you are left wanting more then you can be certain you will not be disappointed with 'Mainlines'.

Indeed while this book is essential reading for any rock fanatic it is somehow less interesting than the first tome (Psychotic reactions...). While he was able to write some really brilliant pieces (The Miles one) some of the other articles sometimes border on juvenilia (the one on Black Sabbath) and while they all have some good moments overall it does the book a great disservice since it does not provide a coherent vision of his writing like the other book did. I guess that if you are really interested in rock and in rock journalism you should get it, but after the first one.

This is a brilliant book, there's no doubt about it, brilliance is a given for Lester Bangs, but if I had to choose between the two, I'd go with Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung every time. John Morthland just doesn't have the sense of discipline that Greil Marcus had, to take what was important, revelatory, or just plain inspiring, even if it was a bland review of the latest Chicago album, instead he pulls out all the big hitters and lines them up in a row, so reading this book is a wee bit like being stomped on the head.