BY LESTER BANGS.
Edited posthumously by Marcus Griel.
RANDOM HOUSE NEW YORK 1997 ISBN 0-0679-72045-6(PBK).
Psychotic Reactions is a superb companion read to 'Please Kill Me'. It will leave you mourning the passing of a legendary rock critic who died in a wrok related accident in 1982.
Lester Bangs made his name whilst at Creem magazine in the early 70's. Lester was just like the stars of his era in that he was a grade 'A' hard living party gladiator. He became a celebrity accepted within the rock & roll world for this as well as his irreverent interviewing style.
Much of his work helped define the American PUNK attitude. For instance he was one of very few people at the time who understood what people like Iggy Pop's place in rock & roll history would be.
This is a collection of his articles and interviews taken from various sources and compiled by Griel Marcus who was the Editor at Rolling Stone magazine in 1969 when Lester's reviews were first published.
The reviews are very down to Earth and from the consumers point of view. They are very human and even moralistic in a hedonistic way at times. They will also make you piss yourself. Much of Lesters humour comes from taking the piss out of the stars he is writing about.
Clearly much of this is the work of a drunken speed freak who has several times glimpsed the meaning of life in a 3 minute rock & roll song thereafter wished to share this vision with his fellow man.
AS Griel Marcus says in his introduction, he feels most of Lesters greatest work was about bands whose music Lester did not really like. Often he does his best to figure out just how the public laps this shit up and the resulting social commentary is hilarious and very very well written. As the subtitle states 'Rock & roll as literature. Literature as rock & roll.'
This book contains articles with titles like ' James Taylor marked for death?' (1971) Lester was right !! Also 'Thinking the unthinkable about John Lennon.' (1980) Lester wasn't surprised he says he always thought John would be the first Beatle to die. Elvis's death a few years before gets the full treatment as you could well imagine.
You will love this book and I haven't even told you about all the classic interview/arguments with Lou Reed or the riveting piece on Peter Laughner's tragic life and death. If you can read buy this book.
