Encyclopedia Selfdestructica

A review of Let It Blurt:
The Life & Times of Lester Bangs, America’s Greatest Rock Critic
By Jim DeRogatis

Ok, so Lester Bangs was a great writer who wrote about rock and roll from the late 1960’s until his death in 1982, but that was about the nicest thing you could say about the guy. He was an ugly drug addict that drowned pills and speed with cough syrup and booze like it was nothing. Bangs wrote all of his best work while high on speed. He rarely slept and hardly ever showered. He lived in his own filth and he somehow couldn’t understand why women wouldn’t stay with him for an extended period of time. In short he was a rock and roll obsessed train wreck.

In his book about Lester Bangs, Jim DeRogatis tried to make readers feel compassion for this “artist.” DeRogatis constantly referred to Bangs as a genius, thus explaining and glorifying his completely and utterly self-destructive lifestyle. The truth of the matter was that Bangs was a very powerful writer. He had complete control over the words within his text. Although stoned and high all the time, he still managed to create some of the most original contemporary journalistic writings in America. He was constantly imitated and was worshiped by every rock and roll kid from Maine to Vancouver to Sydney and wherever else that rock and roll was shaping youth culture. Saying all this looks good on paper and it was certainly true, but another fact was that a lot of his writings were blatant attacks at talented musicians that he felt jealousy for because ultimately, like every other rock and roll writer in the history of the world, Lester Bangs wanted to be a musician.

This jealousy led Bangs to trash all sorts of fantastic albums and artists while hurting their careers in the process. One constant statement made by DeRogatis in his book was that when Bangs would condemn an artist or album he would later recant his ranting when he met the artist in person. Bangs would often listen to an album one time and then destroy it with prose, then after repeated listening would fall in love with the record. Even though he would apologize for his angry tirades to the musicians he wrote about, this did nothing in the way of swaying the consciousness of the kids and rock promoters that read and believed everything that he wrote in the pages of Creem, Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, and various other publications. These were completely irresponsible actions from a journalist, but what do you expect from a man who never really grew up or learned how to take care of himself.

Although Lester did act as a contributor and editor of Creem Magazine during the magazines peak years, he was unable to hold down a regular column at any other publication and he was never able to write the great American novel he dreamed about. Ultimately, Lester wasted his talent by getting utterly wasted. During the late 1970’s while living in New York City he began to become even more damaged physically and began to write less frequently. Although he did write a “fan book” about the new wave band Blondie and co-authored a book about Rod Stewart, he never created a literary masterpiece that you would have expected from a proclaimed “genius.” In fact Bangs all but gave up writing, except for an occasional article to provide enough income to continue his onslaught of bingeing.

Also during this time period Bangs decided he could become a rock and roll star even though he had no musical ability. Bangs looked at former friend Patti Smith’s success, another artist he loved and then condemned, and decided she was just as talentless and wasted as him, so why couldn’t he start a band. Bangs made several attempts at this and was able to release one single for his songs “Let It Blurt” and “Live” with a group of New York City musicians and a full album worth of work with an Austin, Texas band called the Delinquents. Bangs should have been congratulated for actually making these records, but the truth was they didn’t make him a rock star and the only reason either were released by independent labels was because he was the famous Lester Bangs, the proclaimed and idolized greatest rock and roll writer ever.

Lester Bangs died alone in his disgustingly dirty New York City apartment with his bloated belly full of drugs. He never married and never obtained his obsessions of writing a great novel or becoming a rock star. He was a man whose tragic childhood, which included having his alcoholic father burn to death in a house fire caused by falling asleep with a lit cigarette and a mother who forced him into being a Jehovah’s Witness, caused him to never really develop as a human being, but rather roll through life like a wild boar that was blinded by the intoxicating rock and roll lifestyle of the late 1960’s and the entire decade of debauchery that was the 1970’s. Bangs was not a genius like DeRogatis declared; he was simply another tragic figure that floated around rock and roll during its most intoxicated and self-consumed period.