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Lester Bangs #BOTD “James Taylor Marked for Death” is a piece I go back to again and again. It breaks every rule. It’s not even about Janes Taylor, it’s about The Troggs. Or ... no. It's really about what it feels like to be a horny teenager. It's peak Bangs.
"Many of the Troggs’ songs, aside from the fact that they were immediate come-ons and male self-aggrandizement, also seemed to have an extra-excited, almost celebratory quality about them, sexual anthems and sexual whoops that get banned from the radio..." /1
"...and get played by their proud owners never at parties for the titillation of giggling cases of arrested development but rather at home alone sitting in front of the speakers so you can pick up that full charge of bravado and self-affirmation ..." /2
"...even if the basic image is as corny at least as John Wayne; when you’re a kid you need stuff like that." /3
"And those guitars blast you through the wall, out cross the rooftops ‘tween antennas of your neighborhood, straight out of your cell into perfect release in a troposphering limbo of blizzard noise at last, home free." /4
That essay is nutty. It breaks all the rules. And, uhm, the title? He only mentions James Taylor once! He's basically saying "Give me the Troggs any day" but he goes on ... and on ... and on ... about being a teenager hopelessly lusting and how The Troggs capture that feeling.
Which ... he's not wrong.
Other faves: his escalating nervous breakdown about the Rolling Stones. I think he wrote 4 pieces in one year about them, each one more unhinged than the last. Here, he talks about how he felt betrayed by them:
"I saw them in 1964 on their second American tour, and in ’65 twice. The second time, in December, I cried because I thought they’d turned away from the True Faith of Pure R&B and sold out to the crass commercialism of rock." /1
"I’ll never forget that day. My girlfriend and I took the bus all the way from our suburb into downtown San Diego, went right to the concert hall ticket window, and suddenly I said, 'Fuck it! Fuck them! Who needs ’em?'" /2
"And went staggering erratically in the general direction of Skid Row, dropping tears as big as cantaloupes." lol Peak Bangs.
I also love "Notes on Peter Guralnick's LOST HIGHWAY" where he pierces the mystique of Sam Phillips (generated by Sam Phillips himself).
lol (see above)
One of his more totally unclassifiable essays is on Nico. It's called “Your Shadow Is Scared of You: An Attempt Not to Be Frightened by Nico”. She scares him so much he calls up an old girlfriend, asks HER why he's scared of Nico. /1
The ex-girlfriend then monologues at him - with no apparent interruptions from Lester - about why she thinks he's afraid of Nico. Lester then prints the monologue verbatim in the piece. /2
I mean, who really does that. Here's a brief excerpt from that Nico piece.
I think of Yeats' translation of Jonathan Swift's Latin-text epitaph: "Imitate him if you dare." Yes. There's something a/b LB tho that reminds me to be brave in my writing. and to say fuck you to the rules and to other critics who recoil/mock b/c you're ... too into something.
Like that one critic who teased that my Elvis pieces were more like fanfic. I know, sir, I know, it is so upsetting when someone is passionate as well as knowledgeable and writes from love, not from some distanced sense of nonexistent-anyway "objectivity."
so thanks Lester. Wish you had stuck around longer.
