New Lester Bangs anthology

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The new Bangs anthology is out now... am about a 3rd into it and, erm, it's not exactly revelatory. The early excerpts from his novels are great - in fact, i'd rather have read them in full - but the features and reveiws reprinted, chiefly the ELP feature, certainly aren't that remarkable, and wouldn't have sold me so thoroughly on his stuff as the original Greil Marcus tome back in the day...

Can't remember exactly what made me pick up Psychedelic Reactions and Carb Dung in 1997, when i was but a callow and ignorant fanzine writer - i certainly wasn't aware of Bangs' mythos, indeed hadn't even heard of him before picking up the book in a Waterstone's somewhere. But I totally and absolutely fell in love with that book and have reread it at length again and again. If I'd picked up *this* collection, I doubt my response would've been anywhere near as excitable.

I remember asking Everett True about Lester and whether he was an influence when I interviewed him back in 1997. To be honest, I didn't see any obvious influence save for the subjective prose approach, but he responded along the lines of, Anyone's stuff will read well if it's just the best bits collected together. And I remember Neil Kulkarni saying something along the lines of, Anyone could write Bangsian prose if they were given endless wordcounts to write to.

Maybe the book'll improve, but I'm disappointed. Any other thoughts?

― stevie (stevie), Monday, 18 August 2003 13:01 (twenty-two years ago)

it's an anthology about a magazine that is three issues old. woah. genius.

― deathnight, Monday, 18 August 2003 13:04 (twenty-two years ago)

He's dead and all the records he talks about are old so what's the point?

< /callow youth>

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Monday, 18 August 2003 13:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Hey. Wasn't Lester Bangs in Almost Famous? I dunno. I think I saw him on Hollywood Squares but am unsure.

― deathnight, Monday, 18 August 2003 13:12 (twenty-two years ago)

classic if only for LB's attempt to sexualize Anne Murray.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 18 August 2003 13:40 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, who is she? kinda got the impression that she *wasn't* exactly obviously working the hot mama approach, and that this was a figment of Lester's febrile imagination...

― stevie (stevie), Monday, 18 August 2003 13:43 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.johnkalodner.com/AnneMurray102173.jpg

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 18 August 2003 13:47 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, who is she? kinda got the impression that she *wasn't* exactly obviously working the hot mama approach, and that this was a figment of Lester's febrile imagination

why ... why ... she is canada's dearest lesbian ...

― deathnight, Monday, 18 August 2003 13:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh man, I have to read this book now; Anne Murray is so obviously NOT about being a sex object that it'll be interesting to see how he gets there. (Oddly, she's still going at it, singing her 30 years of fan favourites to appreciative seniors, with the playlist chosen by popular vote.)

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Monday, 18 August 2003 13:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Just for the record, what's the title of this new anthology?

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Monday, 18 August 2003 13:52 (twenty-two years ago)

you'll spend fifteen dollars american on a tiny book you don't really want

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Monday, 18 August 2003 13:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Anne Murray is definitely the prototype for Shania Twain. I mean, for all the navel-baring and leopard-print, Shania is awfully sexless. I mean, wasn't she even artificially inseminated? Or at least "reportedly" a.i.?
There seems to be this bizarre asexual sex object vibe to her.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 18 August 2003 13:56 (twenty-two years ago)

title's 'main-lines, blood feasts and bad taste'... is out in the UK in September; I just couldn't wait...

― stevie (stevie), Monday, 18 August 2003 14:00 (twenty-two years ago)

morthland pretty much admits that marcus had the pick of the pieces -> that said, i think "dung" is more ideologically clenched (of course by editorial choice) than morthland's, which is breezier and more relaxed, and primarily (i felt) emphasises what a nice guy bangs was (morthland was after all his best friend in life, rather than a co-ideologue)

(richard hell can be offered a bag of dicks then have them snatched away away before he gets the pleasure of eating them)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 18 August 2003 14:06 (twenty-two years ago)

the travel pieces are the best in here, I thought.
Though I was reminded of one of Meltzer's comments that to understand Bangs you had to read the bad stuff as well as the good. Where's the terrible detritus of Lester Bangs anthology? Huh?

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 18 August 2003 14:49 (twenty-two years ago)

I liked the long Miles piece quite a bit. But I got my copy free. If I'd paid for it (like I did with Psychotic Reactions...) I'd probably have been pretty bent out of shape (like I was with Psychotic Reactions...).

― Phil Freeman (Phil Freeman), Monday, 18 August 2003 15:01 (twenty-two years ago)

what mark s said: this book is less good, but somehow more enjoyable. "psychotic reactions" is mostly lester in full-blown ideologue/preacher/advocate of noise/morality mode, which can get tiresome after a while. i won't come back to the pieces in this book as often, but they're more fun. (also i think the type in this book is easier on the eyes)

the excerpt from the "blondie" book REALLY made me want to track that one down.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 18 August 2003 15:20 (twenty-two years ago)

"anyone's stuff will be as good as bangs if you just put all the best bits together" => everett true SO wishes.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 18 August 2003 15:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm half way through it so I won't make any judgements until i read the entire book. Any follow up to Dung will seem anti-climatic since most of us have lived with that book for almost a couple of decades now. Most of Bangs's top notch writings have appeared in Dung. But the new book still has hilarious moments. I loved the ELP story. He's still sadly missed and I try to read anything by him.

― Jeff K (jeff k), Monday, 18 August 2003 15:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Does it include the short story about John Lennon not really being dead? or Dylan hanging out with Elvis?

― Burr (Burr), Monday, 18 August 2003 16:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I will say that I would be a happier person today if I had never read chapter 3. I sort of question the editorial wisdom of tossing in something so horrifying, right before a goofy MC5 review.

― Sam J. (samjeff), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 23:22 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...

I'm halfway through the new book & I like it better than the first one (which I read a long time ago.) Pretty much for mark s's reasons -- these pieces are more relaxed & definitely a lot less gonzo/hipster. The writing seems more controlled & not trying so hard. I can actually say I like Bangs now (the new Bangs book also reinforces why I despise Meltzer.)

― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 23 October 2003 02:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Most impressed by the circa 1980 stuff -- he really DID mature as a writer. The pieces on Wire and the Talking Heads are v. OTM and I get the sense that he's learned to inhabit various different sorts of headspaces. I wish more people idolozed and learned from that bangs than mr. NOIZE.

The stuff when he begins to react to punk excess feels a bit preachy and didactic mainly coz its made superfluous in advance by the Laughner obit (which wasn't in the Marcus book either, I recall -- scandal!)

The california bit struck me as v. perceptive, and the excerpt from "All My Friends Are Hermits" more affecting and less "haha lookitme" than the one in the Marcus book.

Made me wanna re-evaluate IASW for sure via the Davis pieces.

The early "novel" is precocious and painful, everything wrong with Lester's earlier stuff that he spent years purging himself of.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 23 October 2003 02:08 (twenty-two years ago)

>the Laughner obit (which wasn't in the Marcus book either, I recall -- scandal!)

It certainly WAS in *Psychotic Reactions*.

― Dock Miles (Dock Miles), Thursday, 23 October 2003 02:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I stand corrected.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 23 October 2003 02:35 (twenty-two years ago)

i agree about the preachiness of the vicious obit - i think there was a reason it wasn't published when he was alive.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 23 October 2003 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Lester Bangs' writing goes over my head.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Thursday, 23 October 2003 15:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I loved the ELP story...

This, in a round'n'roundabout way, reminds me that I've always wanted to ask -- has Bangs witten anything about Yes? is there something on 'ILM's prog faves' in this new Bangs anthology?

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 23 October 2003 21:13 (twenty-two years ago)

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