Rock of Pages: Lester Bangs

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In my house, we’ve something like 400-500 books. One of our many bookcases (with the exception of top shelf devoted to classics) is nothing but music books. In the interest of helping out those looking to start their own rock ‘n’ roll library, I offer up some of the contents located in my own.

First of all — and this should really go without saying — everyone needs at least one Lester Bangs collection. I have two: Psychotic Reactions & Carbeurator Dung and Mainlines, Bloodfeasts & Bad Taste.

Now, Bangs is an acquired taste. I’ve had both books for over a decade, and I’ve still never sat myself down and read either from cover to cover. I look at collections as something you can read in fits and starts. Bangs style certainly lends itself to that. There are short pieces on everyone from Black Oak Arkansas (seriously) to Grace Jones, as well as lengthy pieces, wherein Bangs digs deeper and engages in Hunter S. Thompson-esque bouts of gonzo journalism. It is in these travelogues, available in Mainlines, that Bangs really hits the balance of crazy-ass ranting and actual intelligent discourse and criticism that makes him worth reading.

My favorite thing he ever wrote was “Innocents in Babylon,” which describes his quest to speak with Bob Marley down in Jamaica. Reading more like Stanley’s search for Livingstone than anything you’d read in a music magazine, its depth of phrase makes this required reading:

“It was like a cross between a Wednesday night Prayer Meeting and a very local garage gig by a band which was itself the link the between the tribal fires of prehistory, American black Revivalist Christianity, and rock ‘n’ roll electricity.”

There are many many bits where Bangs gets into a masturbatory fury, wherein it’s nigh-impossible to discern as to what the fuck he’s talking about (or even care when you’ve actually figured it out), but the highs make these more than worthy starts of a rock ‘n’ roll library.