Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs (December 14, 1948 – April 30, 1982) was an American music journalist, critic, author, and musician.
He had a connection with The San Diego Door, an underground newspaper of the late 1960s. ==Career== ===Rolling Stone magazine=== Bangs became a freelance writer in 1969, after reading an ad in Rolling Stone soliciting readers' reviews.
Named Creem's editor in 1971, Bangs fell in love with Detroit, calling it "rock's only hope", and remained there for five years. During the early 1970s, Bangs and some other writers at Creem began using the term punk rock to designate the genre of 1960s garage bands and more contemporary acts, such as MC5 and Iggy and the Stooges.
The Village Voice, August 29, 1977 "The Greatest Album Ever Made", Creem magazine (1976) — about the 1975 Lou Reed album Metal Machine Music "Stranded", (1979) — about the 1968 album Astral Weeks, by Van Morrison Blondie (Fireside Book, 1980) Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic, collected writings, Greil Marcus, ed.
He had a connection with The San Diego Door, an underground newspaper of the late 1960s. ==Career== ===Rolling Stone magazine=== Bangs became a freelance writer in 1969, after reading an ad in Rolling Stone soliciting readers' reviews.
Named Creem's editor in 1971, Bangs fell in love with Detroit, calling it "rock's only hope", and remained there for five years. During the early 1970s, Bangs and some other writers at Creem began using the term punk rock to designate the genre of 1960s garage bands and more contemporary acts, such as MC5 and Iggy and the Stooges.
In 1971, he wrote a feature for Creem on Alice Cooper, and soon afterward he moved to Detroit.
Named Creem's editor in 1971, Bangs fell in love with Detroit, calling it "rock's only hope", and remained there for five years. During the early 1970s, Bangs and some other writers at Creem began using the term punk rock to designate the genre of 1960s garage bands and more contemporary acts, such as MC5 and Iggy and the Stooges.
Bangs wrote the essay/interview "Let Us Now Praise Famous Death Dwarves" about Reed in 1975.
The Village Voice, August 29, 1977 "The Greatest Album Ever Made", Creem magazine (1976) — about the 1975 Lou Reed album Metal Machine Music "Stranded", (1979) — about the 1968 album Astral Weeks, by Van Morrison Blondie (Fireside Book, 1980) Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic, collected writings, Greil Marcus, ed.
In 1976, he and Peter Laughner recorded an acoustic improvisation in the Creem office.
The recording included covers/parodies of songs like "Sister Ray" and "Pale Blue Eyes", both by the Velvet Underground. In 1977, Bangs recorded, as a solo artist, a 7" vinyl single named "Let It Blurt/Live", mixed by John Cale and released in 1979. In 1977, at the famous New York City nightclub, CBGB, while Bangs was talking to guitarist Mickey Leigh, Joey Ramone's brother, the idea for a band named "Birdland" came to fruition.
The Village Voice, August 29, 1977 "The Greatest Album Ever Made", Creem magazine (1976) — about the 1975 Lou Reed album Metal Machine Music "Stranded", (1979) — about the 1968 album Astral Weeks, by Van Morrison Blondie (Fireside Book, 1980) Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic, collected writings, Greil Marcus, ed.
Geils Band were playing in concert, Bangs climbed onto the stage, typewriter in hand, and typed a supposed review of the event, in full view of the audience. In 1979, writing for The Village Voice, Bangs wrote a painful and personal piece about racism in the punk music scene, called "The White Noise Supremacists", wherein he re-examined his own actions and words, and those of his peers, in light of some bands using Nazi symbology, and other racist speech and imagery, "for shock value".
The recording included covers/parodies of songs like "Sister Ray" and "Pale Blue Eyes", both by the Velvet Underground. In 1977, Bangs recorded, as a solo artist, a 7" vinyl single named "Let It Blurt/Live", mixed by John Cale and released in 1979. In 1977, at the famous New York City nightclub, CBGB, while Bangs was talking to guitarist Mickey Leigh, Joey Ramone's brother, the idea for a band named "Birdland" came to fruition.
Bassist David Merrill, who was working on the construction of the studio, had the keys to the building and they snuck the band in on April Fool's Day, 1979 for an impromptu and late night recording session.
Birdland broke up within two months of this rare recording (in which the cassette tape from the session became the master, mixed by Ed Stasium and released by Leigh only in 1986). Reviewing the 1986 LP "Birdland" with Lester Bangs, Robert Christgau gave it a B-plus and said, "musically he always had the instincts, and words were no problem." In 1980 Lester Bangs traveled to Austin, Texas, where he met a surf/punk rock group, "The Delinquents".
The Village Voice, August 29, 1977 "The Greatest Album Ever Made", Creem magazine (1976) — about the 1975 Lou Reed album Metal Machine Music "Stranded", (1979) — about the 1968 album Astral Weeks, by Van Morrison Blondie (Fireside Book, 1980) Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic, collected writings, Greil Marcus, ed.
Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs (December 14, 1948 – April 30, 1982) was an American music journalist, critic, author, and musician.
Birdland broke up within two months of this rare recording (in which the cassette tape from the session became the master, mixed by Ed Stasium and released by Leigh only in 1986). Reviewing the 1986 LP "Birdland" with Lester Bangs, Robert Christgau gave it a B-plus and said, "musically he always had the instincts, and words were no problem." In 1980 Lester Bangs traveled to Austin, Texas, where he met a surf/punk rock group, "The Delinquents".
In early December of the same year, they recorded an album as "Lester Bangs and the Delinquents", entitled Jook Savages on the Brazos, released the following year. In 1990 the Mekons released the EP F.U.N.
Sympathy "Lester Bangs Stereo Ghost" on the 1992 album Drinking With The Poet. Bangs is one of the four persons with the initials "L.B." mentioned in the R.E.M.
Penguin Books, 1997.
Broadway Books, 2000.
Kirk Douglas Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Public Theater, more; 2015-2018. ===Works citing Lester Bangs=== Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, biography, Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain.
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