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Thursday, October 16, 2003 Books: The school of rock
By Mike Prevatt
Ask any fledgling pop journalist who his biggest nonmusician inspiration was, and instead of naming a hometown rock critic, he'll likely let Lester Bangs or Hunter S. Thompson fall out of his mouth--whether he's truly familiar with either of the two drugged-out hacks or not. And it's not usually because of their analytical genius, either. There's something empowering about an unhinged geek who's essentially given carte blanche to shamelessly use the first person in anything he scribbles down, swallow whatever pills come across his line of sight and tear fresh assholes on any figure who fails to reinvent the wheel. Besides, no one wants to be an academic like Greil Marcus. Bangs in particular enjoys the biggest cult following among rock writers, mostly because of the notion he could say anything and still maintain respectability, but he was also a brilliant writer who manipulated sentence structure and vocabulary to embolden his zeal. Some of his most inspired--and sometimes thematically irrelevant--material was compiled by Marcus in 1988's Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, and editor John Morthland--a co-executor of Bangs' estate, as well as a former colleague--has unearthed many of the critic's lost gems for the recently published Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader. This compendium of acerbic reviews, vivid profiles, autobiographical passages that would exhaust Dave Eggers and loosely defined travel essays gives a broad overview of Bangs' writing, starting with his previously unpublished, alarmingly introspective pieces as a teenager, and ending with the last works before his drug-overdose death in 1982. During that time, he came of age as a writer just as the first generation of rock critics flourished. He aligned himself with influential music mags such as Creem and Rolling Stone, as well as writers such as Robert Christgau and Dave Marsh, but it wasn't access or clique membership that gave him his cred. It was his unflinching honesty and unpredictability that earned him a wide array of fans--even among those he occasionally dissed, such as Lou Reed and Johnny Rotten. Main Lines highlights Bangs' notorious fickleness, opting to slam the work of a beloved or otherwise acclaimed artist, only to admit a year or more down the road that said work was actually good. His bullshit detector was among the sharpest in the criticism art form, but he was not above changing his mind; he was hip to his own hypocrisy, and though you can see his assholery emerge in almost every piece he wrote, he also had a soft spot that crept through at times, which could be as uproarious as his vitriol. While reviewing Stevie Nicks' Bella Donna, he admits the album is crap, but he finds what makes it crap--mostly, he says, her "emetic narcissism"--to be its most appealing (and humorous) quality, so much so that he's still listening to it two months later. Modern rock critics can't afford to revisit pop records like that anymore because of the sheer volume of music being released, but Bangs could and did, hence his frequent reversals of opinion. He was also largely unimpeded by label and artist publicists, the biggest threat to genuine arts criticism today. Had he been around today to pen a screed against Eminem, chances are he'd never be allowed to interview the artist--and if he did, you better believe Eminem's flack would actively monitor that conference call. Main Lines is first and foremost a cataloguing of Bangs' legacy, but it most pointedly emphasizes the limitations of most if not all modern rock critics. It's hard enough for a writer to harness his skills enough to write competently, let alone in inspired fashion. Bangs did both, and as long as his work remains accessible to today's crop of culture hacks, he'll continue to be their hero of choice. John Morthland, editor Anchor Books 409 pages |
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