Lester Bangs
Lester Bangs
Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangswas an American music journalist, critic, author, and musician. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines and was known for his leading influence in rock music criticism; Jim DeRogatis has called him "American's greatest rock critic"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth14 December 1948
CountryUnited States of America
american-critic none
No, I see it as meaning very little at the moment because none of the groups are about anything.
absolutely age-and-aging best creative dream fashion good license outrageous people represents utopian
At its best New Wave/punk represents a fundamental and age-old Utopian dream: that if you give people the license to be as outrageous as they want in absolutely any fashion they can dream up, they'll be creative about it, and do something good besides.
views anxiety nerves
Look at it this way: There are many here among us for whom the life force is best represented by the livid twitching of one tortured nerve, or even a full-scale anxiety attack. I do not subscribe to this point of view 100 percent, but I understand it, have lived it. Thus the shriek, the caterwaul, the chainsaw gnarlgnashing, the yowl and the whizz that decapitates may be reheard by the adventurous or emotionally damaged as mellifluous bursts of unarguable affirmation.
shining culture pieces
The whole point of American culture is to pick up any old piece of trash and make it shine with more facets than the Hope Diamond.
attitude writing thinking
Good rock 'n' roll is something that makes you feel alive. It's something that's human, and I think that most music today isn't. ... To me good rock 'n' roll also encompasses other things, like Hank Williams and Charlie Mingus and a lot of things that aren't strictly defined as rock 'n' roll. Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life.
laughing funeral life-is-precious
Realizing that life is precious the natural tendency is to trample on it, like laughing at a funeral.
different form dies
Nothing ever quite dies, it just comes back in a different form.
boys people parent
A young woman is dead. I don’t care. You probably don’t care. The police don’t care. The papers don’t care. The punks for the most part don’t care. The only people that care are (I suppose) her parents and (I’m almost certain) the boy accused of murdering her.
attitude writing rocks
Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life.
understanding may reign
Sexual chaos reigns currently, but out of chaos may flow true understanding and harmony, and either way Elvis almost singlehandedly opened the floodgates.
always-believe left
I've always believed the New Left is rank.
popular-music particular
I don't see that there are any particular changes in popular music.
guarantees agree one-thing
I can guarantee you one thing, we will never agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis.
accept almost america american-critic best book demands reader record writer
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.