“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.”

“Rock ‘n’ roll is an attitude, it’s not a musical form of a strict sort. It’s a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock ‘n’ roll, or a movie can be rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a way of living your life.”

Bangs and Springsteen

“Don’t ask me why I obsessively look to rock ’n’ roll bands for some kind of model for a better society. I guess it’s just that I glimpsed something beautiful in a flashbulb moment once, and perhaps mistaking it for prophecy have been seeking its fulfillment ever since.”

“Sometimes I think nothing is simple but the feeling of pain.”

“I suspect almost every day that I’m living for nothing, I get depressed and I feel self-destructive and a lot of the time I don’t like myself. What’s more, the proximity of other humans often fills me with overwhelming anxiety, but I also feel that this precarious sentience is all we’ve got and, simplistic as it may seem, it’s a person’s duty to the potentials of his own soul to make the best of it. We’re all stuck on this often miserable earth where life is essentially tragic, but there are glints of beauty and bedrock joy that come shining through from time to precious time to remind anybody who cares to see that there is something higher and larger than ourselves. And I am not talking about your putrefying gods, I am talking about a sense of wonder about life itself and the feeling that there is some redemptive factor you must at least search for until you drop dead of natural causes.”

“if the main reason we listen to music in the first place is to hear passion expressed- as i’ve believed all my life-then what good is this music going to prove to be? what does that say about us? what are we confirming in ourselves by doting on art that is emotionally neutral? and, simultaneously, what in ourselves might we be destroying or at least keeping down?”

Photo via http://futureisfiction.tumblr.com/

“Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.”

“At its best New Wave/punk represents a fundamental and age-old Utopian dream: that if you give people the license to be as outrageous as they want in absolutely any fashion they can dream up, they’ll be creative about it, and do something good besides.”

“Corporations are social organizations, the theater in which men and women realize or fail to realize purposeful and productive lives.”

“At its best New Wave/punk represents a fundamental and age-old Utopian dream: that if you give people the license to be as outrageous as they want in absolutely any fashion they can dream up, they’ll be creative about it, and do something good besides.”

“Look at it this way: there are many here among us for whom the life force is best represented by the livid twitching of one tortured nerve, or even a full-scale anxiety attack. I do not subscribe to this point of view 100%, but I understand it, have lived it. Thus the shriek, the caterwaul, the chainsaw gnarlgnashing, the yowl and the whizz that decapitates may be reheard by the adventurous or emotionally damaged as mellifluous bursts of unarguable affirmation.”

A young Lester Bangs with his high school girlfriend (1969)

“They’re events you remember all your life, like your first real orgasm. And the whole purpose of the absurd, mechanically persistent involvement with recorded music is the pursuit of that priceless moment. So it’s not exactly that records might unhinge the mind, but rather that if anything is going to drive you up the wall it might as well be a record.”

“I guess what I don’t buy, is that in your life there’s this one adolescent surge of rebellion, and then… everybody calcifies and drops dead, you know?”

“The trend toward narcissistic flair has been responsible in large part for smiting rock with the superstar virus, which revolves around the substituting of attitudes and flamboyant trappings, into which the audience can project their fantasies, for the simple desire to make music, get loose, knock the folks out or get ‘em up dancin.’ It’s not enough just to do those things anymore; what you must do instead if you want success on any large scale is figure a way of getting yourself associated in the audience’s mind with their pieties and their sense of “community,” i.e., ram it home that you’re one of THEM; or, alternately, deck and bake yourself into an image configuration so blatant or outrageous that you become a culture myth.”

“The only questions worth asking today are whether humans are going to have any emotions tomorrow, and what the quality of life will be if the answer is no.”

“They wouldn’t be heroes if they were infallible, in fact they wouldn’t be heroes if they weren’t miserable wretched dogs, the pariahs of the earth, besides which the only reason to build up an idol is to tear it down again.”

“WE PUNK ROCK FANS LIKE SHIT Qt ‘A SHIT. The dirtiest word in the Anglo-American lexicon to us is “competence.” What has always made rock ‘n’ roll the quintessentially democratic, ultimately all-American artform is THAT IT TAKES NO TALENT WHATSOEVER. Any kid with the nerve and a guitar can get up and do it. Punk in general is a reductio ad absurdam, if you like, of that principle, which, restated in terms Leslie Fiedler if not Rolling Stone could understand, means that this is not music at all in the first place, but rather an attitude. It’s a way of carrying yourself, of walking and talking and acting and even fucking. Like I’m starting my own band now, as everyone in the Free World who is sick of the Eagles and Frampton and disco etc. should be doing this very moment, and at one of our preliminary rehearsals there’s this groupie cum porno actress there who says she knows a guitarist out on Staten Island, who “is really competent.” It sounded like she said “He eats dogshit three meals a day and plays guitar like Divine twangs her butthole.” She even wrote down his name and phone number on a piece of paper: “John—535-4067—COMPETENT GUITARIST.” Get that! Now do you think there’s a chance in hell I’m gonna call that guy? I’d rather have my landlord’s bitchily virginal repressed Italian old maid sister—at least she’s got her nasty disposition and general frustration going for her.”

“I don’t know what is more pathetic, the people of my generation who refuse to let their 1960s adolescence die a natural death, or the younger ones who will snatch and gobble any shred, any scrap of a dream that someone declared over ten years ago. Perhaps the younger ones are sadder, because at least my peers may have some nostalgic memory of the long-cold embers they’re kneeling to blow upon, whereas the kids who have to make do with things like the _Beatlemania_ show are being sold a bill of goods.” —     Lester Bangs, Thinking The Unthinkable About John Lennon

“It’s tough having heroes. It’s the hardest thing in the world, It’s harder than being a hero. Heroes are generally expected to produce something or other to reconfirm their mandarin-fingered clinch on the hot buns of the bitch muse, which sometimes comes closer to resembling a set of clawmarks running down and off the edge of a shale precipice. At sunset, even. And that’s no office party, kiddo.” Bangs on Bowie

A young and, well, handsome, Lester Bangs

Well a huge amount, because it was like a youth culture it totally was. Well everything was centred around this to the extent that we become so narcissistic that we thought that the universe and the world was really like that and the fact is it wasn’t. The reason why everything was centred around us was because we had a huge amount of economic clout. Now a friend of mine had an interesting theory back in 1972  which I’ve never been quite able to refute. She said “the only reason Rock’n’Roll came into being in the first place was because of the creation of this new economics”. It was purely a function of capitalism in an economic market that all of a sudden there was this thing called ‘The Teenager’. Never before in history did anybody have such a concept of ‘The Teenager’ all of a sudden there’s this concept that’s was created, so you got all these people with all this money. They have to call them something, they call them this and so “Oh lets see, they’ve got money in their pockets, what can we come up with that can appeal to them’. Admittedly that’s a pretty cynical viewpoint, but I’m sure there’s some truth in it, and still is.

People magazine of the cult of celebrity hood when you’re famous for being famous, rather than anything you’ve actually done. Which the end result of that is that somebody who does actually create something good and really works at it is equitably famous to somebody who has done absolutely nothing to merit their fame at all. So which ends up with nobody having no reason to try to do anything at all, except being famous.

I think that the best records are made on garbage equipment and played on garbage equipment. The utter surreality of the recording studios of today can only be matched with the utter surreality of the equipment that people have to play their records on. A friend of mine who editors the records review section of Rolling Stone, went out and spent a thousand dollars on a new stereo system and he says like he got rooked, he got created and threw his money away. Cause he said Jackson Browne sounds fantastic on it and the Ramones just get lost, they don’t make records players to play Rock’n’Roll on it anymore. The Dolby’s, the studios and the whole surreality of the thing, it just takes all the mud and the guts out of it. I mean the music is supposed to be distorted in the first place, and the clearer you make it, the more you rob it. Well, one extreme of this of course is with Phil Spector’s ‘Back to Mono’, but I don’t necessarily agree with that. But I do believe to make Rock’n’Roll I think you’re better off with primitive equipment on any level. Even in guitars, if you talk to guitarists, well it depends on who you talk to, you know guitar and amps and things, it’s reached a point where you can’t get that old gusty sound. I’ve got an old Ike Turner album here that was made in the early 50’s that I was talking to Robert Cline the other night when we were listening to it he said “ You just couldn’t get that sound anymore”.  Because they don’t make guitars like that anymore or amps or recording studios, it’s really that gutsy sound. Like the sounds that Sam Phillips got nobody hardly any place could get one, that’s really a shame.

“Well, a lot of changes have gone down since Hip first hit the heartland. There’s a new culture shaping up, and while it’s certainly an improvement on the repressive society now nervously aging, there is a strong element of sickness in our new, amorphous institutions. The cure bears viruses of its own. The Stooges also carry a strong element of sickness in their music, a crazed quaking uncertainty and errant foolishness that effectively mirrors the absurdity and desperation of the times, but I believe that they also carry a strong element of cure, of post-derangement sanity. And I also believe that their music is as important as the product of any rock group working today, although you better never call it art or you may wind up with a deluxe pie in the face. What it is, instead, is what rock and roll at heart is and always has been, beneath the stylistic distortions the last few years have wrought. The Stooges are not for the ages—nothing created now is—but they are most implicitly for today and tomorrow and the traditions of two decades of beautifully bopping, manic, simplistic jive.”

“A young woman is dead. I don’t care. You probably don’t care. The police don’t care. The papers don’t care. The punks for the most part don’t care. The only people that care are (I suppose) her parents and (I’m almost certain) the boy accused of murdering her.” —     Lester Bangs, on Nancy Spungen’s murder

“The music begins. Three technological monoliths emitting urps and hissings and pings and swooshings in the dark, little rows of lights flickering futuristically as the three men at the keyboards, who never say a word, send out sonar blips through the congealing air. Yeah, lets swim all the way out, through the Jell-O into the limestone. I close my eyes and settle back into the ooze of my seat, feeling the power of the cough syrup building inside me as the marijuana fumes sift through the cracks in the air, trying to conjure up some inner-eyelid secret movie.” —             Lester Bangs -I saw God and/or Tangerine Dream Village Voice, 18 April 1977

“You have to make your reputation by being honest… and unmerciful…”

“Music, you know, true music, not just rock and roll, it chooses you, it lives in your car, or alone listening to your headphones with vast scenic bridges or angelic choirs in your brain. It’s a place apart from the vast benign lap of America.”

 ”Who’s LESTER BANGS?”, you might ask.

Well, he’s a WRITER.

“A writer?!”

Yes.

And what does that matter to you?

A LOT!

If you love listening to music, especially that noisy, unruly and intense music called “Rock ‘n’ Roll,” then you know Lester Bangs. He’s a writer, yes, and you might wonder what has that got to do with rock music?

“Why don’t you just tell us about singers, drummers, guitar strummers– instead of mere writers?!”

Well, Lester Bangs is a very different writer. First, he doesn’t even look like a writer at all: he has long, greasy hair, wears black leather jackets, and he always appears—or is always—drunk and stoned. And with his big, black, handlebar moustache, you might even mistake him for a Hell’s Angel—on foot!

And he doesn’t have the same highbrow “intellectual” interests that most so-called writers have: hanging out in bookstores, dining out in slick restaurants with fellow writers and editors, attending wimpy, showbiz-y press conferences.

He doesn’t even behave like them, those nerdy types.

All he does is stay in his small apartment room for hours, cranking up the volume of his stereo, blasting away his loud, strange music.

Rock music. Rocking rock music. Unpredictable music—the real deal—that rebelled against mainstream music dressed up as rock music. The good stuff: obscure garage bands from the ‘60s, the early sounds of The Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks, as well as anarchic jazz recordings, novelty records, The Velvet Underground, one-chord blues stompers, The Stooges, German electronic music (pre-House), reggae, British punk (The Clash, especially), New York punk (like Richard Hell), recordings of vacuum cleaner and junkyard sounds, the drunken live recordings of Jerry Lee Lewis—heck, even Gary Lewis (the son of comedian Jerry Lewis)—as well as some Barry White (to add some smooth seduction to the mix), and of course, VAN MORRISON. But, you can forget about him listening to Bread, Abba, The Carpenters, Jim Croce, Led Zeppelin (well, a love-hate sort of thing). And, had he lived long enough, I doubt Radiohead or The Killers would be on his playlist.

And after listening to his kind of music for hours (or perhaps, even while listening to it), he would pull out his Smith-Corona typewriter and type away, making music with every tap on the keyboard. The Smith-Corona was known as the famed instrument of literary legends, but they didn’t hear their typewriters rockin’ while they were typing—Lester did. His hands flew over the keyboard—and the words he would string together—was as aggressive as Keith Moon attacking his drums, as gentle as John Coltrane fondling his sax, and as fearless as Wayne Kramer grinding his guitar-axe.

Convention is for the weak-at-heart. Bang’s words—stream-of-consciousness prose fueled by the liquor and drugs that he took while sound-tripping—resulted in articles with a spontaneity that even the “rock” music of his time lacked. His words gave dignity and honor to the obscure, unpredictable, and some would say, unfathomable  rock, jazz, blues, and novelty music that often found in the bargain bin. He hears ‘em in these SOUNDS, man!— mind-blowing, shall I say mind-fucking music (before “fucking” lost its edge)!  And he captured his thoughts all on a  Smith-Corona typewriter.

And what he writes about truly matters—for the punk! For the Punk audience that he created.

And who (or what) is this “Punk audience”?

These are the ears. The bored ears of obsessive record collectors who can no longer take another ABBA album, or another long-haired band, or another Steely Dan! The ears who were entranced by the marvelous punk-y sounds of the ‘50s and the ‘60s, but when the corporation (i.e., music industry) tamed the beast (i.e., music) and manufactured the Eagles, The Bee Gees, and Peter Frampton those music-lovin’ ears became really bored. These are the Ears that Lester wanted to save.

“The same old gunk in new clothes…” – Lester Bangs

So what are the sins of these boring artists and bands?  Let Lester (via ME), enumerate:

1.) PREDICTABLE. Slick, stagnant, and that freshly-sanitized to fit the airwaves-mold sound. Removing the dirty, muddy waters of Blues, Punk, and Rock ‘n’ Roll—the raw energy that make music so damn good.

2.) The way they REHASH old, tired melodies and subjects (same old ear candy and fake love, love, and more love. What else? Oh, yeah, love).

3.) Their LOOK. Everyone looks THE SAME.

4.) The SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. Doing two hundred takes per song and being ashamed of sponteneity!

5.) The emphasis on TECHNIQUE, instead of CREATIVITY. The Same Eric Clapton Album. The Same U2 Flawless Sound.

6.) Being OVER-INFLUENCED BY THE BEATLES (not a bad group, but a saturated one) instead of THE VELVET UNDERGOUND.

7.) Not being PUNK-Y enough to write controversial, mind-blowing songs. Not Rock ‘n’ Roll, in other words!

8.) Being SHOW-OFFS, focusing on being “The Best Songwriter Since Dylan,” instead of WRITING FROM THE HEART.

9.) Being WIMPS by not inventing New Forms of Music, However Weird. Being JUST A NORMAL BORING ROCK GROUP.

10.) Following THE RULES OF ROCK CORPORATION. Be POP. Fit the mold. Be like GREEN DAY, nowadays.

Now, you’re asking again, “Who is Lester Bangs?“

Did this wake you up? Are you interested in music, in rock ‘n’ roll?

Well, read his works, the best of them collected in the book, “Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung “.

It’s the only book I know that’s equivalent to a rocking Rock ‘n’ Roll album. A PUNK Rock ‘n’ Roll album—in book form. It doesn’t need a guitar; Lester’s words, scream as loud as any guitar! And Lester’s writing? It’s as rhythmic as Rock ‘n’ Roll itself. Only Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Hunter S. Thompson have been able to that during the B.L. (i.e., Before Lester) era.

And the final nail on Lester’s cool coffin? : Lester is in Rock ‘n’ Roll Heaven, amongst the coolest of ‘em all. He didn’t kill himself. He’s not predictable like that. He died while still writing. His death was symbolic for the fact that the Ghost of True Rock ‘n’ Roll spared him from the pain of experiencing the likes of Paris Hilton, cheesy boy bands, Justin Bieber, YouTube stars, and even MTV.

Manufactured corporate schticks have no place in the world of Lester Bangs.

Bio:

The Sleepyheads (L-R: Rico Entico on guitar, Erick Encinares on bass, John Jayvee del Rosario on drums and vox)

John Jayvee del Rosario is a walking encyclopedia on all things punk. He is also the singer and drummer of The Sleepyheads, a Manila-based folk-punk band. He will take off his shirt or dance like a madman for the right song.

Check out the band on Facebook.com/thesheads.

* Article Edited by Lola Abrera

Boxcutters is a place for those eager to provoke the greater consciousness. Boxcutters are those whom society has dismissed and called as insane, rabble-rousers, punks, or hopeless dreamers.

Welcome…to the Outside.