Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'N'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock 'N'Roll
by Lester Bangsbook data
838 ratings,
4.20
average rating, 116 reviews
(more data...)
edit
published
September 12th 1988
by Anchor
binding
Paperback, 416 pages
isbn
0679720456
(isbn13: 9780679720454)
description
Vintage presents the paperback edition of the wild and brilliant writings of Lester Bangs—the most outrageous and popular rock critic of the 1970s ...more
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lester Bangs | 1 | 11 | 07/22/2008 07:50PM |
friend reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 1,149)
All ratings
|
5 stars (366)
|
4 stars (310)
|
3 stars (133)
|
2 stars (23)
|
1 star (6)
|
avg 4.20
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
Read in October, 2004
recommended to Adam by:
Cene
The collection of pieces by this drug punk was strangely affirming to me. The artists and bands he goes through are a trip through my record collection! From the Stooges to Kraftwerk, Richard Hell to Van Morrison, it was thrilling to find such delinquently brilliant writing on my favorite musicians. Bangs truly understands the guts of rock 'n roll and calls out the wack imposters. Highlights (really, there are no low points) include him re-imagining a violent encounter with his landlord whil...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in March, 2009
Man, this was good! I had only read a few articles by Laster Bangs when I picked this up at my local. That’s library, not tavern. I am so completely blown away by how Bangs spoke about music. This man was a huge music fan. His writing stinks to high heaven of his love and respect for music, of how much music moved him. Maybe that’s why he’s able to write so well about music, to say so much in the space of a sentence or by his choice of words. Most critics’ writing, music or otherw...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
On VU: "...just like so many people hated the Velvet Underground for so long, and still do, one prominent ROLLING STONE critic asking me when I asked him whether he'd heard WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT: 'Are they still doing fag stuff' -- no, friend, not to worry -- they're doing MUSIC."
On ASTRAL WEEKS: "What ASTRAL WEEKS deals in are not facts but truths. ASTRAL WEEK, insofar as it can be pinned down, is a record about people stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled i...more
On ASTRAL WEEKS: "What ASTRAL WEEKS deals in are not facts but truths. ASTRAL WEEK, insofar as it can be pinned down, is a record about people stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled i...more
Like this review?
yes
2 comments
I've been reading this in bits and pieces for several months now - because to read it all at once is like eating an entire box of chocolate and chasing it with six espressos, and a lady needs some downtime every so often - so I'm just going to review it now because I don't see it changing that much.
I think the subtitle of this book says it all: literature as rock and roll and rock and roll as literature. That is exactly how I would describe Bangs' writing style: like Iggy Pop and Na...more
I think the subtitle of this book says it all: literature as rock and roll and rock and roll as literature. That is exactly how I would describe Bangs' writing style: like Iggy Pop and Na...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in February, 2009
I know I'm late to the party on this one, but Lester Bangs is amazing. He had a very specific idea of what rock and roll should be (he was really against the barrier between performer and audience, a barrier many acts actively cultivate), and wrote very passionately about it.
He was often also a walking pharmacy (one of the articles mentions in passing looking up some drug in the `Physician's Desk Reference`, which he presumably owned for that very reason), which adds... err... color ...more
He was often also a walking pharmacy (one of the articles mentions in passing looking up some drug in the `Physician's Desk Reference`, which he presumably owned for that very reason), which adds... err... color ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in March, 1990
recommends it for:
Rock fans, Punk fans, fans of The Velvet Underground.
Lester Bangs is mentioned (along with many other people with the initials "L.B.") in "It's The End Of The World As We Know It," by R.E.M. He deserves mention. This collection of essays shows that Lester Bangs was an impassioned, articulate writer.
His unenviable calling was that of the critic. Few critics have ever written with such sincerity.
Lester Bangs lived a short life. If I'm not wrong, he didn't live much past the time rock's biggest icons died: Elvis Presle...more
His unenviable calling was that of the critic. Few critics have ever written with such sincerity.
Lester Bangs lived a short life. If I'm not wrong, he didn't live much past the time rock's biggest icons died: Elvis Presle...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Left alone on a desert island with just one book, I think it would have to be this one. Over the years I've kept coming back to it, dipping in, savouring the short reviews, immersing myself in the longer, more exploratory journalism.
Bangs was a man who completely understood the essence of great, primal rock and roll, and wrote with the same spirit that possessed the great rock and rollers and jazzmen. Pithy, hilarious, drunk, rambling, and always on point about great music. A champi...more
Bangs was a man who completely understood the essence of great, primal rock and roll, and wrote with the same spirit that possessed the great rock and rollers and jazzmen. Pithy, hilarious, drunk, rambling, and always on point about great music. A champi...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Lester Bangs is the only rock critic whom musicians truly accepted as one of their own. It’s no wonder: He lived like them and he died like them, overdosing on pills at age 33. Most importantly, he wrote as they played. His wildly energetic prose reads unlike any other contemporary writer, much less a music critic: Words seemed to spill straight from his brain onto the page in the wonderful cacophony of an Ornette Coleman sax solo or a Captain Beefheart tune. He was, in some ways, a rock ’n...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2006
Some of the articles are absolutely beautiful while others are just great reviews -- I definitely recommend reading a review and then re-listening to the album. If nothing else, just read the review of Astral Weeks which is found in this collection. You'll get to read this: Astral Weeks, insofar as it can be pinned down, is a record about people stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled in their skins, their ages and selves, paralyzed by the enormity of what in one moment of vision they c...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in September, 2006
recommends it for:
Enthusiasts
On the cover it reads 'Rock and Roll as Literature. Literature as Rock and Roll' and that is nothing short of the truth. This man goes so quickly from musings of his adolesant sexual frustrations to how that relates to the raw energy and power of The Stooges... This is a man so disgusting and proud of it that every filthy noise distortion emmited on any Velvet Underground album sends him into histerics. But oh what a writing style. You want to be him, though vaugley you can never see yourself as...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Lester was way, way ahead of his time.
This book is probably in my top 5 in total time spent with. I've re-read some of the essays in this thing so many times, and they get better with age. Lester is now a legend. He was portrayed on film by Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Almost Famous."
This book is probably in my top 5 in total time spent with. I've re-read some of the essays in this thing so many times, and they get better with age. Lester is now a legend. He was portrayed on film by Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Almost Famous."
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Clearly Bangs was truly talented and penetrating writer. I'd love to hear his thoughts on Waits' Island years and Throbbing Gristle. Highly recommended for those interested in music scholarship. The essay "Pop, Pies, and Fun" is a must read for Stooges fans.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Bangs' writings on pop culture haven't lost anything over the decades. Maybe because he was writing more about musics place in the culture than about the music itself. Maybe because I just dig his mind.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in September, 2001
One of the most opinionated, dichotomic and ultimately interesting music critics who ever lived. some amazingly important pieces and some very questionable dribble, but it's all good in its own way.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in December, 2008
It was interesting to see how Bangs's prose could be so prescient and dated at the same time. His narrative energy is palpable, and it's obvious his legacy pervades most music journalism today.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
BANGS
Take drugs?
WILLIAM
No.
BANGS
Smart kid. I used to do speed and
sometimes Nyquil and stay up all night
writing and writing, like 25 pages of
dribble about, you know, the faces
...more
Take drugs?
WILLIAM
No.
BANGS
Smart kid. I used to do speed and
sometimes Nyquil and stay up all night
writing and writing, like 25 pages of
dribble about, you know, the faces
...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
He may drive you crazy--Bowie's a God! No, wait, Bowie's a tool--but his writing is like a live wire sputtering on the ground, burning, dangerous, fascinating.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in June, 2009
Pretentious hipster bollocks that hasn't aged well. Nick Kent's book soooo much better. Although I sort-of enjoyed the bit on Lennon's death.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in October, 2007
A music critic recommended it to me -- or reminded me that I had better read it one day -- and that pushed me over the edge to finally seeking out a copy and wading through it.
It is a good candidate for the status of Rockist Bible. Lester Bangs seems to have done a lot to help create our myths and ideas about authenticity in rock music but he also began unmaking them with the same writing.
A lot of it is hilarious and thought provoking(completely different passages). Most of it is abo...more
It is a good candidate for the status of Rockist Bible. Lester Bangs seems to have done a lot to help create our myths and ideas about authenticity in rock music but he also began unmaking them with the same writing.
A lot of it is hilarious and thought provoking(completely different passages). Most of it is abo...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
I really, truly think Lester Bangs is a genius. Of course, I am discounting the cough syrup incident.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
quotes from this book
" "Art", "Bop" and "rock and roll" and whatever is all just a joke and a mistake, just a hunka foolishness so stop treating it with any seriousness or respect at all and just recognize the fact that it's nothing but a wham-o toy to bash around as you please in the nursery, it's nothing but a goddam Bonusburger so just gobble the stupid thing and burp and go for the next one tomorrow; and don't worry about the fact that it's a joke and a mistake and a bunch of foolishness as if that's gonna cause people to disregard it and do it in or let it dry up and die, because it is the strogest, most virulent, most invincible Superjoke in history, nothing could ever destroy it ever, and the reason for that is precisely that it is a joke, a mistake, foolishness. The first mistake of art is to assume that it's serious.
"
More quotes...
groups with this book
