Almost Famous - Introducing Mr. Lester Bangs 

I love the Guess Who!

No sugar tonight is my favorite song. No question hands down! It’s a travesty The Guess Who are inducted in the Rock n Roll HOF!

Still one of my favourite lines from the film...and I have read almost everything Bangs wrote! And as a Canadian, I smile!

the only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool@@MrUndersolo

It's pretty consistent with what I've read about him: great voice, great creativity, but just a drunken self-mythologizing miscreant who was almost impossible to be around otherwise.

LA woman is my favorite doors album I think it’s near perfect

Bangs actually liked The Doors. He just hated people treating Morrison like he was T.S. Eliot.

The doors sounds like the soundtrack to Austin powers

I felt the same way when he told William how he would take Speed and stay up all night just so he could write...and you know, a little cough syrup.

Pretty much the exact same story in my case! :)

Maybe if you're not into great music.

Lester Bangs preached it! hahaha

and Hallelujah!

And Jason Lee. "I'm only the lead singer!!"

@@HappySunshineDay lol. Even in the comments after 20 years, that line is still relevant haha.

“Of course I’m home. I’m uncool!”

Can still water be an actual band already lol

Give me The Tragically Hip over R.E.M. any day!

He owned all of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III less than 10 seconds into his first scene. Just-mind-shattering instincts and power.

@@Theomite Wow - I guess I'd better see that one! It's not something normally on my watch-list. Thanks!

You're a writer, aren't you, Bobby? Two word choices in there told me so ;) Nice....very nice!

That’s some heavy dope right there Bobby, you’re and enlightened cat and I dig it. Lester Bangs was probably throwing the records around bc as a rock n roll journalists/critic he got all his records for free. Lol

He’s tossing them around in the 70s you’re looking at it through the lens of a sacred collection long after that I’m sure.

When life gives You lemons Phil Hoffman was a helluva an actor. Remember that.

I met him in Oakland once…he was so chill down to earth ..I feel like he wanted to hangout but I was to nervous..

peña mas ahuevo!

Es la verdad!!

Aqualung is a pretty dope album

Yes? No.

You will meet them all again on their long journey to the middle 😅😅😅

"Sparks" by The Who

That's a credit to Phillip Seymour-Hoffman's acting talent. He left us too soon.

+Jerry Jazzbo Man, I wish he was still with us.

Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick"

My favorite song lmao

Well, except for The Floyd.

Theomite ya plus countless other prog bands

Yeah, and this BS is why I’ve never been a fan of Bangs. Yeah, that statement is true. Because Tull, nor Genesis, King Crimson, Yes, etc. weren’t trying to accomplish the same thing as the Box Tops, or the Guess Who, Stooges, etc. If prog rock isn’t your thing, that’s fine. But don’t blame the prog rock bands for failing to achieve what they were never trying to in the first place.

@@Theomite Right you are!! Cameron Crowe paid a little tribute to PF in the film. When WIlliam and Penny are driving in Hollywood, we see the DSOTM cover art glide over Williams face -- the reflection of a billboard on the car's windshield. So beautifully done!

@@aaronstark5060 I love how the character of William Miller stands up to Bangs on that point, saying "IF you like Lou [Reed]"

But one could argue it has turned into an industry of cool.

That's what I thought, because Iggy Pop didn't release his first album until 1977 and this takes place in 73.

@@michaelflorczyk1394 I think Iggy was originally Iggy Stooge, but by Raw Power was calling himself Iggy Pop, which of course he then used for his later solo career

No? YES! Not much from the 70s comes close to them.

He might come across as a jerk at times (and he knew it) and he was indeed unmerciful, but you're oversimplifying his vision imo. He never bashed anyone just for being popular and, even when he was harsh, he always had a point.

The 1970s was a golden age for rock 'n' roll - hell, it was THE golden age of rock 'n' roll - and Lester Bangs was such a curmudgeon that he lived through it without even noticing. He literally summed up the '70s by saying "nothing has happened". He was surrounded by countless amazing bands taking rock music in a dozen different incredible new directions, and all he could do was find convoluted reasons why none of it mattered. How is that "having a point"? The greatest party on earth was going on around him, and he was sat in the corner moaning that it was no fun.

@@EyeMixMusic Again, you're generalizing way too much and you're merely expressing your preferences without argumentation. You should go back and read what Bangs actually wrote, he was very precise in his judgments and these could change a lot even in reference to the same artist, depending on the situation. He loathed David Bowie, but he loved Station to Station. He was friend with Patti Smith, but he hated Easter. You can't dismiss an articulated view like his own with some cursory sentences. That doesn't mean he was always right, but it means that he knew what he was talking about and he had developed a personal insight about music that wasn't neither superficial nor simplistic. If you're into progressive rock, that's fine. It's one of the genres I loved when I started listening to music, but that doesn't weaken Bangs's critique of the pretentiousness and self-referentiality that could often come with it, as it doesn't diminish his aversion for the cult of celebrities or his idea of rock'n'roll - or music, actually - as a vitalistic source of empowerment and liberation, in the widest sense of the terms. Sure, you can call his views convoluted, but that's just a way to avoid confronting them with something better. Furthermore, you're innacurate. Whether the 70s were the golden age of rock'n'roll is debatable, but if you're saying that according to Bangs nothing happened in that decade that's simply not true, unless you think that punk rock didn't happen in the 70s. It seems like your only reference is an interview he gave for the documentary All You Need Is Love, but that was shot right before the explosion of punk. In regards to the sin of "being popular", when John Lennon died Bangs wrote that the Beatles were the best musicians of their generation and the Beatles weren't exactly the most obscure band around. Finally, you're talking about partying, but Bangs's vision of music was ALL about the Party, although it wasn't probably the party you have in mind. But at least get your facts straight, please.

@@dovic86 Yes, he did write off the '70s shortly before punk happened - but for the love of God, are you actually defending his opinion that "nothing happened" in rock music in the entire first half of the decade? Really?!? You keep criticising me for generalising about Bangs, but you refuse to agree that HIS generalisations about an incredibly rich chapter of music history are anything but perfectly reasonable? Look, I'm not saying he never had anything worthwhile to say, or that he was a bad writer. But he WAS a pretentious curmudgeon who got off on trashing whatever other people thought was cool. If you can't accept that, fine - we'll agree to disagree.

​@@EyeMixMusic I'll agree with the fact that writing off years of music was a generalisation on his part and that's what is likely to happen when you have a strong opinion about something, you might miss the nuances. By reading his writings, I believe that he was aware of that but was willing to take the risk of losing some subtlety because the fundamental values of what he stood for were more important and went far beyond the music itself. I also think that he was a little more ambivalent about the music he thrashed than what he would let you think. I remember seeing a photo of him wearing a progressive rock band t-shirt and I think he enjoyed listening to some of the music he used to disparage. Anyway, I'm not saying that I totally agree with him on everything, but I basically understand his position and I believe he was right about the things that matter on the long run. Progressive rock died out pretty quickly, because that form was too rigid and academic to be developed any further, while punk and other kinds of experimentation had much better fortune, at least in their ethos. As for the rest, you're free to not like him, no harm done. What I've been saying is that, if he criticized something, he did it for a substantial reason and that's what should be discussed, if anything. He was a cultural critic above anything else, and that should also be taken into account. Sometimes the music he criticized was also popular, but this coincidence isn't sufficient to invalidate his arguments and by doing so one will just overlook the main things he was talking about. Assuming he did it just because he was a contrarian is not only a biased point of view, it's reductive and factually not true and I've already given you some examples of that, but you can always find more in his writings.

He does seem to have been a drunken buffoon at times, though...

Doesn't take anything away from his talent, though.

Lehet,de nagyon szórakoztató.