Saturday, March 12, 2005

Comments by Lester Bangs

On popularity:

You'll meet them all again on your long journey to the middle.

On The Music of America:

Here's a theory for you to disregard completely: Music, true music, it chooses you...from the vast, scenic bridges of your brain and angelic choirs...it's a place apart from the lap of America.

On real Buffoons:

The Doors by Jim Morrison? He's a drunken buffoon posing as a poet- give me the Guess Who- they have the courage to be drunken buffoons which makes them poetic.

On accomplishments:

The Letter by The Box Tops, it takes them one minute and fifty-eight seconds, less than two minutes to accomplish what takes Jethro Tull hours to Not accomplish.

On Rock Journalism:

It's an industry of cool...what passes for rock these days, silence is more compelling.

Quotes by Lester Bangs as represented by director Cameron Crowe in his motion picture
Almost Famous (bootleg cut)

1 comment:

Dr J said...

Lester Bangs was a real chap, and one of the more influential early critics of what we now call (rather inappropriately) rock music. One of his most famous pieces was his almost-encyclopedic discussion of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, which you can find here. It might help in providing a new way 'reading' lyrics/poetry in terms of one's own pre-critical experiences. Cheers.