New Lester Bangs book out

[ghost of miles]

Just got a review copy of this in the mail, and I am eager, to say the least, to give it a read. I've been waiting years for a companion to the Greil Marcus-edited anthology, PSYCHOTIC REACTIONS AND CARBURETOR DUNG. Here's the description from Publishers' Weekly:

For fans of one of the most vocal and irreverent critical voices in rock and roll, this newly issued Bangs reader will be a boon. Serving as a companion to the 1987 collection Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, this volume is a selection of 54 pieces, some of which have been recently uncovered. In his introduction, Morthland, a writer-at-large for Texas Monthly, offers a paean to Bangs, who died in 1982 of a drug overdose, describing him as the "best-known bull-in-a-china-shop... who was always dangerously loaded, who could be so insulting and malicious as well as self-destructive... who had an expansive lust for life and a sense of humor and (sometimes even, and for no apparent reason) cheerfulness to match it." Within these pages, the acerbic Bangs takes on Dylan ("Dylan merely used Civil Rights and the rest of the Movement to advance himself in the first place") and encourages the Stones in a 1973 Creem article ("I challenge those lazy, sniveling, winded mothermissers to PRODUCE"). There's plenty here to entertain music fans and inspire today's critics of rock and roll.

Book Description

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.

[Big Al]

This IS good news. Psychotic Reactions is a hilarious volume, and I've had it since '89. I used to get strange looks from my co-workers at the pizza place as I was howling my way through the title chapter.

Think I'll head to the bookstore tonight!

[BruceH]

If this book concentrates more on his MUSIC writings than Carberator Dung then I'll be all over it.

[danasgoodstuff]

I'm afraid I have to disagree about Meltzer--I've always found him to be a bit of a wanker (not that I think he'd deny it, but tthat's part of what I don't like), basically Bangs minus the soul. But I'll have to check out the new Bangs since Carburator Dung missed some of my favorite stuff.