rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

Interview with an Empire: Lester Bangs Rides Again

Lester Bangs, American Writer, Drug Punk, avuncular avatar of the avant garde, taste shaper, trailblazer, raconteur, hell raiser, the conscience of a generation or two. From 1967, until his death from a reputed Darvon overdose in 1982 at the age of 33, Lester Bangs wrote intelligently and passionately about life and death, love and hate, man and woman and their responsibilities to one another as human beings. He wrote of God and devil and good and evil, all the major themes of Great Literature, except Lester hid his light under the bushel of the record review.

He wrote about an album’s soul, the soul he invested it with, seeing each new offering from....... whoever, the Stones, Bowie, Black Oak Arkansas, ABBA, it was all the same, as a link in a chain of forever, an expression of a spirit he held holy. He’d want to know what made the record tick, what, if any, were it’s motives and goals? Was it a Good Witch or a Bad Witch? He’d make you want to know, too, and he wrote so well he could make you care about music that didn’t even exist, as in ‘Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung’ his semi-fictional history of 60's garage band the Count Five. His writing dug until it found, if not truth, then at least more satisfying facts.

There is a very good biography of Lester Bangs available. It’s called ‘Let It Blurt’ by Jim DeRogatis. Buy it. There are also two collections of Lester Bangs’ various work from Rolling Stone, CREEM, Village Voice, etc available. One is ‘Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung’ edited by Greil Marcus and ‘Mainlines, Deadlines and Blood Feasts’, edited by John Morthland. Buy them both. Lester Bangs was one of the great writers of the late 20^th century. Period. He wrote about his passion, music, and in doing so, became a chronicler of a period of history when the mode of the music was changing, and shaking the city walls.

Here’s what happened when I went to my landlady’s cousin’s house. The psychic, remember?

I open my eyes and the woman’s gone. The adobe hut and the circling hawks are gone. Yet I can still feel the warmth of the walls and I can still hear the echoes of the great bird’s call. I’m standing in a completely white space, no ceiling or floor, no walls or windows or doors. I’m pretty sure there was no time. I sense a presence behind me and turn, expecting to be face to face, at last, with the great Lester Bangs.

Instead, there stood my father with a suitcase in his hand.

My father passed away in 1976. The last thing I had said to him was that I was going to kill him. I was drunk. Hell, it was the Fourth of July, the Bicentennial for chrissakes. In any event it’s safe to say that we had unresolved issues. I looked at the man who brought me into this world and asked him if he had seen Lester Bangs.

‘Lester doesn’t want to speak to you."

I was a little shocked at that.

‘I’m here to do an interview with him. I got this nifty new web site and I’m writing about rock and roll and I thought it would be cool to do like a ‘beyond the grave’ type thing, like he did with Hendrix....."

"Lester doesn’t want to speak with you."

"What are you talking about?" I cried, " I set this all up! With the landlady’s cousin or sister in law or something! This is my imagination talking! You can’t deny me my interview! I’m his biggest fan! I cut my teeth on Lester Bangs. He taught me how to think. Why, he was more of a fath..." I stopped, realizing how pathetic I sounded, how weak was the insult to this good man, how much I dishonored both good men. I started to sweat and my father turned to a yellow mist, which slowly reconstituted itself into the shape of my mother.

"Lester doesn’t want to speak with you." she said. She smiled my mother’s smile, the one I hadn’t seen since she passed away in’67. I was 11 when she died and I never forgave her. I denied that particular cliche under twisted logic. She didn’t mean to die, I can’t possible be mad at her for it. But in the instant I looked in her brown eyes I knew exactly how much pain I had been in for all those years, because I could feel it all melting away at once. The interview was slipping my mind.

"Lester doesn’t want to speak to you ‘cause the sucker’s old and tired," it was my Grandfather, Chris, his white hair righteously spiked, wearing the mantle of the punk rocker, a black t-shirt and a red Flying V. "He’s all Stones and Miles, And Miles and the Stones, and Iggy, Iggy, Iggy. No imagination anymore. Won’t even come into the Soundgarden."

‘You mean Soundgarden, like from Seattle?"

‘Heavens to quaaludes, no! The soundgarden is where you go to listen to the music of the spheres. It’s all the rage in Heaven."

"Is this Heaven, here?"

"No, John," he always used to call me John, "this is like you said. This is your imagination. A little space you created to work some things out, I suppose. Now who was it you were looking for, again? Oh yeah, Lester Bangs. Gonna do an interview. You know, old Lester gets about 100 of you guys at a time, wanting to do interviews. Something about ‘the gunslinger mentality’, I don’t know. That old goat can talk for days, with thousands of commas, can’t really follow what he’s saying most the time. What was it you were gonna ask him?"

"I hadn’t really given it much thought," I said, because I hadn’t. "I guess I really wanted to tell him something. Something like how much his work means to me. How I’m still finding things to think about in it and that I am thinking about things, and with the web site and the CD I’m putting out, I’m finally doing something with my thoughts and music and that his work helped me get to this place and that I’m grateful. I wanted to say thank you. Oh, I guess I’d ask him what he thought about the Afghan Whigs."

"Oh, hell, John," my grandfather laughed and started playing Gloria on his V, "He knows, and so do I and so do your mom and dad. We’ve all been keeping an eye on you, even Lester. He uses a lot of commas but he thinks you’re ok, and you’re absolutely right about the Afghan Whigs. We sent them for you special."

And with that I awoke to see Iggy Pop fronting Sum 41 on Lettermen. There’s a lesson in here somewhere.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 23:07 | link | comments (2)

Comments:

#1  07 July 2004 - 00:31

 

You may be interested in a very unique website (www.elvis-conspiracy.com), according to which the Beatles and Rolling Stones were involved in a conspiracy which was exposed and foiled by a secret society associated with Elvis Presley. Mention is also made of U2, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Don McLean, and Rush.

Anonymous

#2  09 October 2004 - 00:59

 

Tim, My dear friend,
I love all that you've written!!!! You are a very eloquent writer and your blogs are all top shelf!!!!

Please keep it up. Never ignore the word warrior that resides in you.

LOVELOVELOVE,
hyppymom aka Andrea

Anonymous

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