Lester Bangs

Biography

Lester Bangs (aka Leslie Conway Bangs) was an American music journalist, author and musician. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines, and has been called one of the "most influential" voices in rock criticism. Bangs was born Escondido, California, USA on December 14, 1948. His mother was a devout Jehovah's Witness. His father died when Bangs was young. In 1969, Bangs began writing freelance after reading an ad in Rolling Stone soliciting readers' reviews. His first piece was a negative...

Lester Bangs (aka Leslie Conway Bangs) was an American music journalist, author and musician. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines, and has been called one of the "most influential" voices in rock criticism.

Bangs was born Escondido, California, USA on December 14, 1948. His mother was a devout Jehovah's Witness. His father died when Bangs was young. In 1969, Bangs began writing freelance after reading an ad in Rolling Stone soliciting readers' reviews. His first piece was a negative review of the MC5 album Kick Out The Jams, which he sent to Rolling Stone with a note detailing that should the magazine decide not to publish the review, then they would have to contact Lester and tell him why. Instead, they published it.

He wrote about Janis Joplin's death by drug overdose, "It's not just that this kind of early death has become a fact of life that has become disturbing, but that it's been accepted as a given so quickly". In 1973, Jann Wenner fired Bangs from Rolling Stone, a negative review of Canned Heat being the final event. He moved to Detroit to edit and write for Creem. After leaving Creem, he wrote for The Village Voice, Penthouse, Playboy, New Musical Express, and many other publications.
“Well basically I just started out to lead [an interview] with the most insulting question I could think of. Because it seemed to me that the whole thing of interviewing. as far as rock stars and that. was just such a suck-up. It was groveling obeisance to people who weren't that special, really. It's just a guy, just another person, so what?"
Bangs idolized the noise music of Lou Reed, writing a famous essay/interview "Let Us Now Praise Famous Death Dwarves" about Reed in 1975.

Bangs was also a musician in his own right. He teamed up with Joey Ramone's brother, Mickey Leigh to put together a New York group named Birdland. In 1977 Bangs released the single Let It Blurt / Live, featuring guitarists Robert Quine (Richard Hell and the Voidoids) and Jody Harris (James Chance & The Contortions, James White and The Blacks), bassist David Hofstra (James Chance & The Contortions) and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty (Patti Smith). In 1980 he traveled to Austin, Texas and met a punk rock group named the Delinquents. During his stay in Austin he recorded an album as Lester Bangs and the Delinquents entitled Jook Savages on the Brazos.

Excerpts from an interview with Lester Bangs appear in the last two episodes of Tony Palmer's All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music.

Bangs died in New York on April 30, 1982, of an overdose of Darvon, Valium and Nyquil. He is reported to have been listening to The Human League's album Dare at the time of his death.

He was portrayed in the movie Almost Famous by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.