Lester Bangs

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Leslie Conway Bangs (born December 14, 1948 in Escondido , California , † April 30, 1982 in New York , NY , USA ) was an American music journalist, author and musician.

Life

Bangs grew up in a small town near San Diego . His devout mother was a member of Jehovah's Witnesses . His alcoholic and convicted father was killed in a house fire when the boy was nine years old. Bangs began writing as a child. As a teenager he was enthusiastic about beat literature , jazz , but also garage and surf music .

Bangs began his journalistic career in 1969 as a freelance journalist for the music magazine Rolling Stone . A few years later he switched to Creem magazine , where he was employed as an editor for five years. With his texts he became an important protagonist of New Journalism , but also wrote texts in the gonzo style. In the mid-1970s he went to New York, where he worked as a freelance writer a. a. wrote for Village Voice , New Musical Express and again Rolling Stone, but also for Penthouse and Playboy . His texts were also taken over by the German music magazine Sounds and have appeared in several rock session volumes that were published by Rowohlt Verlag during the 1970s .

Although Bangs primarily wanted to write books and biographies during his lifetime, he only completed the less ambitious biographies about Blondie and Rod Stewart . Posthumously, two readers published by former Rolling Stone colleague Greil Marcus were published.

Bangs died of a drug intolerance when he took a flu medicine with Valium while catching a cold.

Movie

Bangs was immortalized in the film Almost Famous by director Cameron Crowe , a former colleague of his at Rolling Stone . He was portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman .

Literature (selection)

From Lester Bangs

  • Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic . Collected Writings, Greil Marcus , ed., Anchor Press, 1988, ISBN 0-679-72045-6
  • Psychotic reactions and hot air. Greatest hits. Rock'n Roll as literature and literature as Rock'n Roll . Greil Marcus (Ed.), Edition Tiamat, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-89320-127-0
  • Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader . Collected Writings, John Morthland, ed., Anchor Press, 2003, ISBN 0-375-71367-0
  • The first piece for Rolling Stone [1]

About Lester Bangs

See also

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bangs, Lester
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bangs, Leslie Conway (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American music journalist, author, and musician
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Escondido , California
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 1982
Place of death New York , NY , USA