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Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader
Before his untimely death in 1982, Lester Bangs was inarguably the most influential critic of rock and roll. Writing in hyper-intelligent Benzedrine prose that calls to mind Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson, he eschewed all conventional thinking as he discussed everything from Black Sabbath being the first truly Catholic band to Anne Murray’s smoldering sexuality. In Mainlines, Blood Feasts, Bad Taste fellow rock critic John Morthland has compiled a companion volume to Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung , the first, now classic collection of Bangs’s work. Here are excerpts from an autobiographical piece Bangs wrote as a teenager, travel essays, and, of course, the music pieces, essays, and criticism covering everything from titans like Miles Davis, Lou Reed, and the Rolling Stones to esoteric musicians like Brian Eno and Captain Beefheart. Singularly entertaining, this book is an absolute must for anyone interested in the history of rock.
432 pages, Paperback
First published August 12, 2003
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2725 people want to read
About the author
Lester Bangs
22 books221 followersLeslie Conway "Lester" Bangs (December 14, 1948 – April 30, 1982) was an American music journalist, critic, author, and musician. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines, and was known for his leading influence in rock music criticism. The music critic Jim DeRogatis called him "America's greatest rock critic".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
March 21, 2010
Psychotic Reactions & Carburetor Dung made me high. I read that book and got high on Bangs’ writing. I admit it. High as a kite. Hooooooooo boy.
Having read Mainlines… (blah, blah, blah, etc.), I’m left feeling like that effect was somewhat in the editing (and just maybe where my little head was at at the time). And the editing in this one is like getting a bag of weak weed with your last fifty dollars. Or forty for you non-Cali residents. Then mixing it with the dregs of that bag o' killer grass you got last time and hoping for the best.
This isn’t to say Mainlines… (blah, blah, blah, etc.) isn’t awesome. I mean, pretentious and far too long a title but its contents are often awesome. There are way too few writers who I find to be “laugh out loud funny.” I mean, I laugh out loud when I read Bangs’ writing. It’s killer. It’s daring and wild and fun and explosive. It's generally intelligent and enlightening and exhilarating. This in an era when “laugh out loud funny” has been reduced to whatever amuses the lowest common denominator and “laugh out loud” has been reduced to “L.O.L.” What’s the point of communicating, anyway? Bangs has the ability to slay me without resistance. He reminds me why communication is important, even in abstract.
I laugh out loud because Bangs is often blindingly insightful, occasionally borders on genius and never fails to challenge. For better or worse. I mean, some of it comes off like intentional antagonism, which stinks of victim culture, if you ask me. Being naughty for the sake of attention. But so much of it just stands right up and squarely challenges anything tired, boring and staid in the world of rock and beyond. Anything accepted. Any stooge knows the accepted is the first to be challenged.
I love that he did the piece on Black Sabbath, because I love Black Sabbath and before Ozzy became The Prince Of Darkness and all that, Sabbath was, in my humble opinion (trademark symbol), the most amazing band in the universe from their first album to their sixth.
I love that Bangs talks about Mile's wife, Betty, who's "If I'm In Luck, I Might Get Picked Up" is just... stellar. Musically, anyway. Lyrically, it don't say too much for womanhood in general. The jam, on the other hand, is so bad ass, it's ridiculous.
I love that Bangs was as confounded by hardcore as the rest of the pack. It’s a charming sign of weakness, though I do think his politics in the matter were in the right place. Hardcore got boring faster than a pep rally, didn’t it?
The Jimmy carter/Jane Fonda nastiness was horrifying. I skimmed that one. Looks like Lester wanted to lick some laziness that day. What the f*ck? Same with the Cherie Currie fantasy. I know he was trying to say something. I suppose it's my fault I didn't get it.
His piece on hanging out with Hell’s Angels during a gang bang is horrifying, too. It’s disappointing and sad he was there at all. After thinking about it, though, I wonder if that wasn’t his point, that he was an observer, sure, but also a willing participant, active or not. Like it's a sort of a confessional. I don’t know.
And what about his use of “nigger?” He called himself the “white nigger” all the time. He wrote complimentarily/condescendingly of “niggers” pretty regularly. But was it meant to be condescending? I suppose it was out of some kind of solidarity but there is a sense of racism (sexism, etc.) to certain of his writings, this in a time when the civil rights movement had come and gone and anyone in the “underground” should have been hip to THAT nuance. Is this like punks wearing swastikas? An attempt to shock? A meager play at showing contempt for the fears of the old guard? Is it like Steve Alibini’s too-smart-to-be-polite social commentary wrapped in two minute sonic kill fests? Marilyn Manson’s existence? How did folks of the “African American persuasion” who were into rock and punk and rock punk and punk rock and the “underground” and “the scene” feel when they picked up an issue of Creem and were met with this sh*t? Again, I don’t know.
Regardless, if Bangs’ writing at its worst is maybe a pseudo attempt to develop a voice, Bangs’ writing at its best is an epiphany. At worst, it’s five or ten minutes of my life I’ll never get back. At best, it’s an inspiration. That’s just really not bad at all. And his ratio’s a full sh*t ton better than 99.9% of his “peers” in the rock “journalism” cadre. If you ever want a clear cut example of leeches sucking on the ass of anything to provide a living, an income, you need look no further than rock “journalists.” Nasty, lazy, filthy, ignorant, scamming scum, that lot.
A favorite moment is bangs’ Nostradamus like prediction of The Stones’ decades long career and the tepid nature it would take on. “The Rolling Stones lasting twenty, thirty years – what a stupid idea that would be.” Congratulations, Lester! You didn’t live to see how truly BAD the Stones would be and you were right! And over FORTY years later, at that! Hot dog!
Lester is all of us but with a sometimes twist, that twist being a passion some of us never feel for anything. Whatever he says, it's the saying that's the inspiration. Long live Lester Bangs.
Having read Mainlines… (blah, blah, blah, etc.), I’m left feeling like that effect was somewhat in the editing (and just maybe where my little head was at at the time). And the editing in this one is like getting a bag of weak weed with your last fifty dollars. Or forty for you non-Cali residents. Then mixing it with the dregs of that bag o' killer grass you got last time and hoping for the best.
This isn’t to say Mainlines… (blah, blah, blah, etc.) isn’t awesome. I mean, pretentious and far too long a title but its contents are often awesome. There are way too few writers who I find to be “laugh out loud funny.” I mean, I laugh out loud when I read Bangs’ writing. It’s killer. It’s daring and wild and fun and explosive. It's generally intelligent and enlightening and exhilarating. This in an era when “laugh out loud funny” has been reduced to whatever amuses the lowest common denominator and “laugh out loud” has been reduced to “L.O.L.” What’s the point of communicating, anyway? Bangs has the ability to slay me without resistance. He reminds me why communication is important, even in abstract.
I laugh out loud because Bangs is often blindingly insightful, occasionally borders on genius and never fails to challenge. For better or worse. I mean, some of it comes off like intentional antagonism, which stinks of victim culture, if you ask me. Being naughty for the sake of attention. But so much of it just stands right up and squarely challenges anything tired, boring and staid in the world of rock and beyond. Anything accepted. Any stooge knows the accepted is the first to be challenged.
I love that he did the piece on Black Sabbath, because I love Black Sabbath and before Ozzy became The Prince Of Darkness and all that, Sabbath was, in my humble opinion (trademark symbol), the most amazing band in the universe from their first album to their sixth.
I love that Bangs talks about Mile's wife, Betty, who's "If I'm In Luck, I Might Get Picked Up" is just... stellar. Musically, anyway. Lyrically, it don't say too much for womanhood in general. The jam, on the other hand, is so bad ass, it's ridiculous.
I love that Bangs was as confounded by hardcore as the rest of the pack. It’s a charming sign of weakness, though I do think his politics in the matter were in the right place. Hardcore got boring faster than a pep rally, didn’t it?
The Jimmy carter/Jane Fonda nastiness was horrifying. I skimmed that one. Looks like Lester wanted to lick some laziness that day. What the f*ck? Same with the Cherie Currie fantasy. I know he was trying to say something. I suppose it's my fault I didn't get it.
His piece on hanging out with Hell’s Angels during a gang bang is horrifying, too. It’s disappointing and sad he was there at all. After thinking about it, though, I wonder if that wasn’t his point, that he was an observer, sure, but also a willing participant, active or not. Like it's a sort of a confessional. I don’t know.
And what about his use of “nigger?” He called himself the “white nigger” all the time. He wrote complimentarily/condescendingly of “niggers” pretty regularly. But was it meant to be condescending? I suppose it was out of some kind of solidarity but there is a sense of racism (sexism, etc.) to certain of his writings, this in a time when the civil rights movement had come and gone and anyone in the “underground” should have been hip to THAT nuance. Is this like punks wearing swastikas? An attempt to shock? A meager play at showing contempt for the fears of the old guard? Is it like Steve Alibini’s too-smart-to-be-polite social commentary wrapped in two minute sonic kill fests? Marilyn Manson’s existence? How did folks of the “African American persuasion” who were into rock and punk and rock punk and punk rock and the “underground” and “the scene” feel when they picked up an issue of Creem and were met with this sh*t? Again, I don’t know.
Regardless, if Bangs’ writing at its worst is maybe a pseudo attempt to develop a voice, Bangs’ writing at its best is an epiphany. At worst, it’s five or ten minutes of my life I’ll never get back. At best, it’s an inspiration. That’s just really not bad at all. And his ratio’s a full sh*t ton better than 99.9% of his “peers” in the rock “journalism” cadre. If you ever want a clear cut example of leeches sucking on the ass of anything to provide a living, an income, you need look no further than rock “journalists.” Nasty, lazy, filthy, ignorant, scamming scum, that lot.
A favorite moment is bangs’ Nostradamus like prediction of The Stones’ decades long career and the tepid nature it would take on. “The Rolling Stones lasting twenty, thirty years – what a stupid idea that would be.” Congratulations, Lester! You didn’t live to see how truly BAD the Stones would be and you were right! And over FORTY years later, at that! Hot dog!
Lester is all of us but with a sometimes twist, that twist being a passion some of us never feel for anything. Whatever he says, it's the saying that's the inspiration. Long live Lester Bangs.
May 3, 2024
A Triumph!
He's like Burroughs and Pynchon, one of the best ever.
He'll make you revisit how you think about acts you've heard a hundred times over.
Seriously.
Jimi Hendrix, the Stones, Miles Davis, Lou Reed — he turns them over and does the "shake" thing like with a Christmas globe, so you revisit what you had thought, anyway.
ELP — only "L" and "P" will talk to him, since "E" is still mad about something he wrote about them last time. "We want to bring classical music to the masses," one of them says. "Why classical music?" he says. "Why not 'Pressed Rat and Warthog'?" It's a good question.
And as for Lou Reed, well ... one can only say that Reed's reputation as a bad/tough interview might come from Bangs, here, given that Reed's been a big hero of Bangs's since White Light/White Heat days and all, and they get kinda drunk and Bangs starts baiting him. It's one of the funniest parts of the book. From memory:
"Hey Lou, Judy Garland — a no-talent, who was better off dead?"
"No! No, she was a great lady, a great lady ... "
"Isn't David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust just a rip-off of Pink Floyd's 'Interstellar Overdrive' [or something - ed.]?"
"You're so full of shit! It's a masterpiece, David is a genius ... "
"Hey Lou, why don't you write something like [The Archies'] 'Sugar, Sugar'?"
"Aw man, I wish I could ... "
Etc.
It's a great book.
You'll never forget it.
And it'll leave your head a-buzzing!
He's like Burroughs and Pynchon, one of the best ever.
He'll make you revisit how you think about acts you've heard a hundred times over.
Seriously.
Jimi Hendrix, the Stones, Miles Davis, Lou Reed — he turns them over and does the "shake" thing like with a Christmas globe, so you revisit what you had thought, anyway.
ELP — only "L" and "P" will talk to him, since "E" is still mad about something he wrote about them last time. "We want to bring classical music to the masses," one of them says. "Why classical music?" he says. "Why not 'Pressed Rat and Warthog'?" It's a good question.
And as for Lou Reed, well ... one can only say that Reed's reputation as a bad/tough interview might come from Bangs, here, given that Reed's been a big hero of Bangs's since White Light/White Heat days and all, and they get kinda drunk and Bangs starts baiting him. It's one of the funniest parts of the book. From memory:
"Hey Lou, Judy Garland — a no-talent, who was better off dead?"
"No! No, she was a great lady, a great lady ... "
"Isn't David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust just a rip-off of Pink Floyd's 'Interstellar Overdrive' [or something - ed.]?"
"You're so full of shit! It's a masterpiece, David is a genius ... "
"Hey Lou, why don't you write something like [The Archies'] 'Sugar, Sugar'?"
"Aw man, I wish I could ... "
Etc.
It's a great book.
You'll never forget it.
And it'll leave your head a-buzzing!
April 1, 2014
Lester Bangs não é, vejam só, o Philip Seymour Hoffman de bigode dando conselhos sentimentais para um adolescente precoce, tal qual um Yoda para todos os fãs de rock que não comem ninguém. O que mais chama a atenção ao ler qualquer coisa de LB é como ele era completamente incapaz de se distanciar do tópico sobre o qual ele estava escrevendo, um pouquinho que fosse. Todo e qualquer álbum e música que passavam por ele se tornavam algo estritamente PESSOAL, e eram tratados de acordo, distância crítica sendo coisa para covardes e zumbis. Em cada texto fica explícito o quanto ele considerava arte, e música especialmente, um assunto profundamente moral, um caminho para a salvação da alma - e que por isso mesmo, bullshiting da parte do artista seria essencialmente uma falha de caráter, que devia ser apontada, ridicularizada e lamentada, nessa ordem. Há um bocado de raiva no que ele escreve, pontuada por momentos de entusiasmo nível fan-boy.
Por que é tão difícil encontrar alguém que se importe tanto, com qualquer coisa, de verdade e sem ego, como LB se importava com rock? E quão difícil é encontrar isso com senso de humor e do ridículo? Mais rara ainda a combinação disso com um talento com palavras que era absurdo, e digo, literalmente absurdo: escrever com tantas digressões, e palavras inventadas e obscuras, e referências a todo tipo de produto da cultura pop e erudita, misturadas com anedotas pessoais, citações de amigos e namoradas? Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, e o resultado disso deveria parecer masturbação mental produzida por um dork pretensioso com TDAH. Mas não é, é brilhante, demoniacamente engraçado e inspirador.
Fato, ocasionalmente as digressões testam a paciência de quem lê (muito álcool? Muitos Quaaludes?) e ele fica muito menos interessante quando perde a precisão, que nos momentos bons fica evidente e é uma das melhores qualidades de LB como escritor. Tem aí também um elemento pesado de rabugice, um constante reclamar que tudo está indo pros diabos, que mesmo quase sempre parecendo legítimo, causa de vez em quando uma vontade de dizer mano, calma.
Tudo isso para dizer, textos de LB significam leitura divertida, exasperante, fascinante e ocasionalmente confusa. E inimitável. Avisem os wannabes.
Por que é tão difícil encontrar alguém que se importe tanto, com qualquer coisa, de verdade e sem ego, como LB se importava com rock? E quão difícil é encontrar isso com senso de humor e do ridículo? Mais rara ainda a combinação disso com um talento com palavras que era absurdo, e digo, literalmente absurdo: escrever com tantas digressões, e palavras inventadas e obscuras, e referências a todo tipo de produto da cultura pop e erudita, misturadas com anedotas pessoais, citações de amigos e namoradas? Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, e o resultado disso deveria parecer masturbação mental produzida por um dork pretensioso com TDAH. Mas não é, é brilhante, demoniacamente engraçado e inspirador.
Fato, ocasionalmente as digressões testam a paciência de quem lê (muito álcool? Muitos Quaaludes?) e ele fica muito menos interessante quando perde a precisão, que nos momentos bons fica evidente e é uma das melhores qualidades de LB como escritor. Tem aí também um elemento pesado de rabugice, um constante reclamar que tudo está indo pros diabos, que mesmo quase sempre parecendo legítimo, causa de vez em quando uma vontade de dizer mano, calma.
Tudo isso para dizer, textos de LB significam leitura divertida, exasperante, fascinante e ocasionalmente confusa. E inimitável. Avisem os wannabes.
February 12, 2009
I finally read some Lester Bangs, after all this time reading stuff about how he's the best rock critic of all time blah blah. I feel very 50-50 about it. I appreciate that he seems to recognize the quality of many of the grossly underrated women making rock music back in the day in a fairly non-condescending way, but then there are articles describing a Hell's Angels gang rape and long sexual fantasy sequences that are really horrible. He has some good insights about the failures of punk and the moral questions built into our fame-obsessed culture in his article about Sid & Nancy, but then he has these long, incoherent Hunter S. Thompson-esque rambles which are so dated and obnoxious. Generally, I think the articles where he is writing from a more serious, deeply felt place are great and the ones where he is trying to be funny, self-deprecating, and/or political fall flat.
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August 15, 2022This is the “sloppy seconds” after the canonical Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (edited by the famous Greil Marcus) – the first Lester Bangs compilation. (I use the indelicate phrase “sloppy seconds” deliberately, to suggest the obscenity this book occasionally indulges in).
Boy, was Lester Bangs well-named! He hits you hard (when he bothers to aim at all), and though his prose style has not aged well, his insights into the meaning of Rock (he writes very poorly about jazz) are summit-reaching and… patriotic. (Somehow that word seems apposite.) (Perhaps he never quite trusted the English.) (Even Elvis Costello!) (In fact, he is entirely suspicious of Punk, until he notices that The Clash have his exact politics.) (And for a while he moans in ecstasy over Public Image Limited.)
Lou Reed is at the apex of his pantheon, then Iggy Pop, then… He enthuses about Patti Smith, but later tires of her. I love his dismissal of The Beatles (“Dandelions in Still Air: The Withering Away of the Beatles”). He worries a lot about the slow decline of the Rolling Stones.
Oh yes, he’s actually friends with Captain Beefheart, and writes the most fully-realized tribute to him (“Captain Beefheart’s Far Cry: He’s Alive, but So Is Paint. Are You?”)!
Opening at random:
“I like Star Trek; but I ain’t Paul Kantner. I got more out of it than Paul Kantner, who shoulda profited by my bad example. I just dropped this and snorted that, and pretty soon a lotta shit was swirling about my head. Same shit as hit everybody else, really, especially Dylan, who was as inspiring and as bad an influence on me as anybody.”
[This is from an imaginary interview with Jimi Hendrix.]
Boy, was Lester Bangs well-named! He hits you hard (when he bothers to aim at all), and though his prose style has not aged well, his insights into the meaning of Rock (he writes very poorly about jazz) are summit-reaching and… patriotic. (Somehow that word seems apposite.) (Perhaps he never quite trusted the English.) (Even Elvis Costello!) (In fact, he is entirely suspicious of Punk, until he notices that The Clash have his exact politics.) (And for a while he moans in ecstasy over Public Image Limited.)
Lou Reed is at the apex of his pantheon, then Iggy Pop, then… He enthuses about Patti Smith, but later tires of her. I love his dismissal of The Beatles (“Dandelions in Still Air: The Withering Away of the Beatles”). He worries a lot about the slow decline of the Rolling Stones.
Oh yes, he’s actually friends with Captain Beefheart, and writes the most fully-realized tribute to him (“Captain Beefheart’s Far Cry: He’s Alive, but So Is Paint. Are You?”)!
Opening at random:
“I like Star Trek; but I ain’t Paul Kantner. I got more out of it than Paul Kantner, who shoulda profited by my bad example. I just dropped this and snorted that, and pretty soon a lotta shit was swirling about my head. Same shit as hit everybody else, really, especially Dylan, who was as inspiring and as bad an influence on me as anybody.”
[This is from an imaginary interview with Jimi Hendrix.]
October 23, 2019
I didn't think I'd ever finish this book. I actually almost just stopped reading it a couple of times but I hate doing that. It's not that I didn't like it. My favorite articles were an interview Lester did with Bob Marley when he traveled to Jamaica on a record company's dime and a fictional interview with a deceased Jimi Hendrix. The best part of the Marley interview was the anecdotes about Jamaica and the people he encountered. As for the rest of the book, a lot of his commentary on pop culture made me realize (what I actually already knew) that even though the decades change, societal norms rarely do. Most of his views can be related to our world today. What I found maddening though was ... it seems Lester never met a run-on sentence he didn't like. There were stream-of-consciousness musings that encompassed multiple pages before a period ever came into sight. At times I found myself trying to figure out what the original point he set out to narrate was. RIP Lester. I think all-in-all, you would've been a cool cat to know.
July 10, 2010
I am officially declaring myself through with Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste. My tolerance for drug-induced, stream of conscious writing is slim, and 400+ pages of such is just too much. So, at a bit past the halfway mark, I'm calling it quits.
Which isn't to say that there isn't some interesting pieces in here — Kind of Grim, his article on Miles Davis, for instance, is excellent as is his Patti Smith piece, even if I don't entirely agree with his comments on the latter. If there had been more selections like those, or they had been better organized, I might have made it through to the end.
But, instead, we get 3 pieces on how the Rolling Stones are irrelevant (1973 Nervous Breakdown, It's Only the Rolling Stones, State of the Art: Bland on Bland), all organized such that they come one after the other. It's not even that I necessarily disagree — post-Exile, the Stones were (and still are) irrelevant. It's more that we don't need 3 articles over 20 pages to repeat the same arguments.
In the end, the book would have probably been better served being edited by someone who wasn't as close to Bangs as Morthland appears to have been, or at least someone who was more willing to make the tough decisions to leave items out. A good deal of culling — of the repetitive or just plain poorly focused sections (in particular, I don't think anyone would have complained if Drug Punk, the section of previously unpublished juvenilia, had been omitted) — and a different organization would have made the collection seem like less of a chore.
1.5 stars out of 5.
Which isn't to say that there isn't some interesting pieces in here — Kind of Grim, his article on Miles Davis, for instance, is excellent as is his Patti Smith piece, even if I don't entirely agree with his comments on the latter. If there had been more selections like those, or they had been better organized, I might have made it through to the end.
But, instead, we get 3 pieces on how the Rolling Stones are irrelevant (1973 Nervous Breakdown, It's Only the Rolling Stones, State of the Art: Bland on Bland), all organized such that they come one after the other. It's not even that I necessarily disagree — post-Exile, the Stones were (and still are) irrelevant. It's more that we don't need 3 articles over 20 pages to repeat the same arguments.
In the end, the book would have probably been better served being edited by someone who wasn't as close to Bangs as Morthland appears to have been, or at least someone who was more willing to make the tough decisions to leave items out. A good deal of culling — of the repetitive or just plain poorly focused sections (in particular, I don't think anyone would have complained if Drug Punk, the section of previously unpublished juvenilia, had been omitted) — and a different organization would have made the collection seem like less of a chore.
1.5 stars out of 5.
August 22, 2012
The whole time I was reading Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste, all I could think was, "And he OD'd on cough syrup!"
Not having read the first collection of his reviews (Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung), and having heard of Lester Bangs from time to time but never having read anything of his, I was pretty much blown away by his prescience and wit. Although I must admit, the quality of these reviews varies—and with some more than others, you could clearly tell he was writing under the influence. (Some seem to fueled more by uppers than others, if you know what I mean.)
In fact he praises Charles Bukowski—who always wrote under the influence—as being an unmitigated genius (which he was.) One of Bangs' pieces is an interview with the deceased Jimi Hendrix from his lofty chair in the clouds. (It took me a few pages to realize this, since the date of all these essays comes at the end, not the beginning, of each piece.) Every piece selected for this book feels like it belongs, but then I read this collection first and haven't yet read the other.
I asked Chris at Bleecker Bob's, where I've been hanging around, if Lester Bangs ever went in there when he was alive. "All the time!" said Chris. I'm not surprised; the store—sadly, for rent but still hanging on—feels like it's haunted with Lester's ghost. I mentioned that he had OD'd on cough syrup, and Chris said, "Yeah, that's like something high-school kids do; he just never grew up."
Well, yeah…sometimes that's a good thing. But…he OD'd on cough syrup. What a waste.
Not having read the first collection of his reviews (Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung), and having heard of Lester Bangs from time to time but never having read anything of his, I was pretty much blown away by his prescience and wit. Although I must admit, the quality of these reviews varies—and with some more than others, you could clearly tell he was writing under the influence. (Some seem to fueled more by uppers than others, if you know what I mean.)
In fact he praises Charles Bukowski—who always wrote under the influence—as being an unmitigated genius (which he was.) One of Bangs' pieces is an interview with the deceased Jimi Hendrix from his lofty chair in the clouds. (It took me a few pages to realize this, since the date of all these essays comes at the end, not the beginning, of each piece.) Every piece selected for this book feels like it belongs, but then I read this collection first and haven't yet read the other.
I asked Chris at Bleecker Bob's, where I've been hanging around, if Lester Bangs ever went in there when he was alive. "All the time!" said Chris. I'm not surprised; the store—sadly, for rent but still hanging on—feels like it's haunted with Lester's ghost. I mentioned that he had OD'd on cough syrup, and Chris said, "Yeah, that's like something high-school kids do; he just never grew up."
Well, yeah…sometimes that's a good thing. But…he OD'd on cough syrup. What a waste.
September 16, 2017
I mostly don't like Lester Bangs. But there are also a few things about him that I do like. The essays about culture in this book ranged from really offensive to kind of interesting. And in the ones about music, I'm thinking now that I generally enjoy it when he's writing about something he likes & is excited about, because he has a way of transmitting that excitement, and explaining it. But I pretty much dislike his rants about things he hates. It just gets too snarky and cruel. I don't know, maybe there were a few bits of that that are funny for me, like for example when he referred to Kenny Loggins as a hippie panda I definitely laughed (more out of a sense of the cuteness of that image than derision for KL, but that probably doesn't matter).
July 5, 2007
i think this is the lesser of the two lester bangs anthologies. i really only remember that he hated an album by Canned Heat. no one was upset by this. not even members of canned heat.
August 15, 2007
A more sober, less gonzo collection.
March 8, 2022
I WOULD NOT have admitted it to anyone at the time, even to myself, but from about 1971 to 1977 my favorite writer was Lester Bangs. My official answer to that question in those years would have been James Joyce or William Burroughs, but Bangs was the writer I devoured and re-devoured, whose sentence rhythms I walked to, whose pronouncements I took as gospel. I subscribed to Creem for most of that period mainly in order to get my monthly dose of Lester Bangs.
Bangs wrote record reviews, mostly rock although he was perhaps more interested in avant-garde jazz, and articles about rock musicians. I don't think he ever published a book, save for a quickie paperback on Blondie. Since his death in 1982, however, there have been two impressive, 400-page anthologies of his work, this one and its predecessor, Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, edited by Greil Marcus. Both include some interesting unpublished work (of which Bangs apparently left behind boxes when he died).
What was it in him I was drawn to? I found myself drawn to it all over again reading these pieces, most of which I had read before, many of which I found I had retained phrases from for over forty years.
Bangs was honest, for one thing. His reviews never seemed to be trying to curry favor with the artists being reviewed. He wasn't just a hatchet guy, though. He could be extremely enthusiastic--I don't know how many albums I bought largely on his recommendation, most of which became favorites (the Stooges' Fun House, Roxy Music's Stranded, Patti Smith's Horses)--but he could be brutal, too, especially towards big names he suspected were phoning it in, as the Stones, Dylan, and Lou Reed arguably were in the mid-seventies. And he could be illuminating about bands most critics took as jokes (e.g., Black Sabbath).
He had a wide frame of cultural reference that he could invoke without ever sounding particularly pretentious. He could be savagely funny. He had a talent for letting a sentence loose to roam whither it would (this may have had something to do with his fondness for speed).
Above all, I think, you had the feeling he cared. Not that he was incapable of cynicism, snide dismissal, posturing of various kinds, self-parody. But he seemed genuinely pissed when a big name was cruising on his reputation and genuinely excited when he discovered something new and vital.
Morthland's book includes among its previously unpublished pieces some written when Bangs was only 20, before he started reviewing, and some from the latter days, when Bangs's drink and drugs consumption was taking its toll. These pages were as brilliant as the rest, I thought--Bangs found his voice early and still had it at the end.
Library of America...how about it?
Bangs wrote record reviews, mostly rock although he was perhaps more interested in avant-garde jazz, and articles about rock musicians. I don't think he ever published a book, save for a quickie paperback on Blondie. Since his death in 1982, however, there have been two impressive, 400-page anthologies of his work, this one and its predecessor, Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, edited by Greil Marcus. Both include some interesting unpublished work (of which Bangs apparently left behind boxes when he died).
What was it in him I was drawn to? I found myself drawn to it all over again reading these pieces, most of which I had read before, many of which I found I had retained phrases from for over forty years.
Bangs was honest, for one thing. His reviews never seemed to be trying to curry favor with the artists being reviewed. He wasn't just a hatchet guy, though. He could be extremely enthusiastic--I don't know how many albums I bought largely on his recommendation, most of which became favorites (the Stooges' Fun House, Roxy Music's Stranded, Patti Smith's Horses)--but he could be brutal, too, especially towards big names he suspected were phoning it in, as the Stones, Dylan, and Lou Reed arguably were in the mid-seventies. And he could be illuminating about bands most critics took as jokes (e.g., Black Sabbath).
He had a wide frame of cultural reference that he could invoke without ever sounding particularly pretentious. He could be savagely funny. He had a talent for letting a sentence loose to roam whither it would (this may have had something to do with his fondness for speed).
Above all, I think, you had the feeling he cared. Not that he was incapable of cynicism, snide dismissal, posturing of various kinds, self-parody. But he seemed genuinely pissed when a big name was cruising on his reputation and genuinely excited when he discovered something new and vital.
Morthland's book includes among its previously unpublished pieces some written when Bangs was only 20, before he started reviewing, and some from the latter days, when Bangs's drink and drugs consumption was taking its toll. These pages were as brilliant as the rest, I thought--Bangs found his voice early and still had it at the end.
Library of America...how about it?
June 3, 2018
When Lester Bangs was mentioned in "It's the End of the World As We Know It," I figured I'd better check him out. Not long after, I read the posthumous collection Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic and took its contents as gospel. Took me quite a while in those pre-real-internet days, but I did track down "Psychotic Reaction" by the Count Five and Lou Reed's famously difficult album Metal Machine Music.
In 2003, I picked up this second compendium of Bangs' writing, but it became one of those books that I obtain but don't read. Until a couple of weeks ago, anyway. No real reason; it caught my eye.
It's interesting to read an author in your college years and then not again till your... ahem... deep 40s. I was younger than Bangs during much of his writing career, and certainly younger than him at his untimely death at 33. And now, whew boy, quite a bit older. So it's a little trickier to summon the old breathless fanboy enthusiasm. Instead I kept thinking, "Would Bangs' opinion on this have changed if he had lived?"
I'll also admit to skipping a few chapters. Bangs is a supremely entertaining writer, but not so brilliant as to keep me on-board for topics I'm less interested in, like a John McPhee can usually do.
There's still a lot of terrific content here. When Bangs gets riled up, it's a thing of beauty to behold. I don't recall if in the earlier collection he came off as such a curmudgeon regarding much of punk rock, but here it's kind of amusing.
For anyone looking to dip into the work of Lester Bangs, Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung is the definite starting point. And, like with music, after checking out an artist's definitive work, here's a "more of the best" compilation for you.
In 2003, I picked up this second compendium of Bangs' writing, but it became one of those books that I obtain but don't read. Until a couple of weeks ago, anyway. No real reason; it caught my eye.
It's interesting to read an author in your college years and then not again till your... ahem... deep 40s. I was younger than Bangs during much of his writing career, and certainly younger than him at his untimely death at 33. And now, whew boy, quite a bit older. So it's a little trickier to summon the old breathless fanboy enthusiasm. Instead I kept thinking, "Would Bangs' opinion on this have changed if he had lived?"
I'll also admit to skipping a few chapters. Bangs is a supremely entertaining writer, but not so brilliant as to keep me on-board for topics I'm less interested in, like a John McPhee can usually do.
There's still a lot of terrific content here. When Bangs gets riled up, it's a thing of beauty to behold. I don't recall if in the earlier collection he came off as such a curmudgeon regarding much of punk rock, but here it's kind of amusing.
For anyone looking to dip into the work of Lester Bangs, Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung is the definite starting point. And, like with music, after checking out an artist's definitive work, here's a "more of the best" compilation for you.
September 5, 2025
Lester Bangs wrote like a man trying to wrestle music onto the page before it could disappear. Half genius, half chaos engine, and usually both in the same paragraph. Main Lines, Blood Feasts and Bad Taste is the anthology I’d hand to anyone curious about him, not because it’s the most famous (that’s Carburetor Dung), but because it’s the least exhausting. It’s sharper, better edited, and the energy feels wild without being sloppy.
The subject matter is eclectic, but not random. You get Black Sabbath in their primordial ooze stage, Brian Eno before he became a wallpaper factory, and Lou Reed (who Bangs both worshiped and despised, sometimes in the same sentence, like a guy hate-reading his own diary). There are also detours into Andy Warhol’s shooting, Sid and Nancy’s nihilistic love story, and extended riffs on what “bad taste” even means. Bangs treats bad taste like a monster in a labyrinth,you have to fight it eventually, because it’s the only way to find out what you actually love when no one’s grading you for sophistication.
That’s the real value of this anthology: it isn’t just about rock music, it’s about using culture as a mirror to figure out who you are when you stop pretending. Every critic eventually has to wrestle with that, whether they admit it or not. I know it’s not the canonical collection, but it’s the one that actually makes Lester Bangs feel alive on the page instead of embalmed in myth. Which is why it’s the best one.
The subject matter is eclectic, but not random. You get Black Sabbath in their primordial ooze stage, Brian Eno before he became a wallpaper factory, and Lou Reed (who Bangs both worshiped and despised, sometimes in the same sentence, like a guy hate-reading his own diary). There are also detours into Andy Warhol’s shooting, Sid and Nancy’s nihilistic love story, and extended riffs on what “bad taste” even means. Bangs treats bad taste like a monster in a labyrinth,you have to fight it eventually, because it’s the only way to find out what you actually love when no one’s grading you for sophistication.
That’s the real value of this anthology: it isn’t just about rock music, it’s about using culture as a mirror to figure out who you are when you stop pretending. Every critic eventually has to wrestle with that, whether they admit it or not. I know it’s not the canonical collection, but it’s the one that actually makes Lester Bangs feel alive on the page instead of embalmed in myth. Which is why it’s the best one.
March 20, 2023
I was just beginning to realize that I was coming up in the dawning days of a new era when literature would turn to toilet paper, daily news would become surrealistic, and artists of all stripes everywhere would feel blissfully free to cut themselves loose from their heritage, or even not learn that heritage, because there was more relevance to be found in the splashy trash of the popular press, in the open-throated yawps and mechanical twangs of rock ‘n’ roll, in the chaotic inner jungles which all of us hurled ourselves into with every type of drug imaginable; and engaging in all this willful and apparently self-destructive abuse to the sensibilities for the purpose of finding each of us for ourselves the raw endlessly disguised essence which had to be sought outside all schools, methods, social mechanisms, and popular self-help devices. In other words, we had to fuck up before we could stand up, and nothing was more relevant than the apparently irrelevant[.]
Finally, a man who uses the freedom men have to say things to actually Say Things. Did I agree with everything said? Absolutely not. Did I find everything funny? Absolutely not. But yay, someone who isn't afraid to get a little mean without adding the veneer of "oh, I am being OBJECTIVE!" on top of it. Get real.
May 4, 2020
A great companion to Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung another collection of reviews, criticism, essays, and unpublished diatribes, by a speed freak, alcoholic, and renegade journalist of 1970s Rock and Roll. A great piece from Creem included is a long essay on a trip to Jamaica about the emergence of Reggae with a cameo from the original gonzo journalist who was having a rum vacation while he was supposed to be writing a piece for Rolling Stone.
November 7, 2025
Edited by John Morthland, a rock critic or let’s say a cultural historian of Laster Bangs’s time and ilk, Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste collects a mess of Bangs’s refined rumblings and rabid raunch and leaves the polish and the slops for the reader’s open-ended wonder. Here’s what I wonder: How did Bangs get away from this life without dropping an Almost Famous on all us suckers?
March 25, 2019
I read this about 10 years ago but saw it in the recommendations for me. So I have added it here.
I found it to be a rehash of his original book and just some new material published after his death.
I remember him going on and on about the Count Five and how enamored he was with the Human League album Dare before he passed away.
He was right on both.
I found it to be a rehash of his original book and just some new material published after his death.
I remember him going on and on about the Count Five and how enamored he was with the Human League album Dare before he passed away.
He was right on both.
October 8, 2023
So I was aware of Bangs, and his influence. Read a bio of him earlier this year, but wasn't really familiar with his direct work. The introduction notes that this is a collection of second tier writings, which is surprising, because absent a few duds, these are interesting, well written and capture the times really well.
June 2, 2020
Mostly just re-read some pieces in here that I've read before and really liked (needed a good palate-cleanser after "Democracy in America," something short and punchy). This and the other Lester Bangs collection are essential for anyone interested in pop-culture criticism.
July 26, 2020
Not as good as the Greil Marcus compilation, but still very fun. It's also fascinating to read much of Bangs's early writing. It's clear that he was a prodigy from a very early age. He's one of the rare critics who will have you cheering him on even when you disagree with him.
March 8, 2022
It was hit or miss with Lester Bangs and thankfully more of his pieces hit. Great writer, not a mindless syncophant praying at the temple of rock stars. He had a lot to say and was able to express himself intelligently in spite of his tendencies to ramble on chaotically.
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July 17, 2025I like when he writes about music for the most part but when he’s not comes across as a total prick and a blowhard. Would’ve been pretty awful to be around. PSH portrayal in Almost Famous is a lot cooler than the real thing.
August 13, 2018
Ugh.
DNF.
DNF.
August 12, 2019
The book is certainly fabolous.
August 26, 2019
This book is really wonderful.
April 28, 2022
Bangs wrote with and a great knowledge of rock music agree or disagree credit must be given.
May 8, 2023
Delirios griegos, anahí madrigal
November 25, 2019
I think the mark of this reviewer is that you can often get to the end of a review and still not have any idea what Lester thinks of said artist or album. Like gonzo journalists before him, when reviewing like Bob Dylan, the subject of the review is always Lester Bangs, not Bob Dylan. He is cruel and ecstatic. His pen moves in frenzy.
March 18, 2015
A voice that defied the mainstream AND the underground, Lester Bangs was and still is in my opinion the most enjoyable rock critic the world has ever seen. Even though he was dead by 1982 at the age of 33, the area he covered was massive. This compilation (an accompaniment to Greil Marcus' anthology of Bangs' works which I have not yet read) covers Bangs' writings from around age 16 until the end. It does not merely focus on his rock writings either. The first few chapters (or articles) focus on some pretty dark material Bangs encountered at a young age, the second part is those classic and verbose reviews that has Bangs cast both love and hate on everything. No one is safe, not even his loves like Miles Davis, The Rolling Stones, and Iggy Pop. He asks questions that no one has been able to successfully answer to this day. The third part is more musical ramblings, more or less studies on the good and bad works of artists like Miles Davis, the Stones, and Lou Reed. The fourth part are travelogues that Bangs did for Rolling Stone, the most interesting one being the search for the heart of reggae and Bob Marley in Jamaica. This book is full of amazing pieces. Tracing the roots of punk music through a series of obnoxious and awkward happenstances in young Americans' (or Brits') lives, the bold statements claiming Black Sabbath to be a diehard Catholic band, a brave (and completely true in my opinion) rag on Bob Dylan's so-called activism in the 1970s, and even a negative stance on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band that claims to have killed rock 'n roll.
Bangs' politics also show up in these works. And this is where his writing gets really enjoyable. A liberal-minded right-winger, he praises drugs and excess but also shows the shame in it. He shows us that there is not one true or "right" side. Everything has a duality. Check out his "hated-it-then-loved-it" take on The Rolling Stones' 1972 Exile on Main St. His works really encourage study of passions, a deeper look into what makes something good or masterful. And he does it with comedic precision most of the time.
A worthwhile read for those interested in balls-out, middle-finger-giving journalism.
Bangs' politics also show up in these works. And this is where his writing gets really enjoyable. A liberal-minded right-winger, he praises drugs and excess but also shows the shame in it. He shows us that there is not one true or "right" side. Everything has a duality. Check out his "hated-it-then-loved-it" take on The Rolling Stones' 1972 Exile on Main St. His works really encourage study of passions, a deeper look into what makes something good or masterful. And he does it with comedic precision most of the time.
A worthwhile read for those interested in balls-out, middle-finger-giving journalism.
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