Lester Bangs Top 10 Albums of 1979

Lester Bangs : Let It Blurt

[Purchase]

In 1979 rock critic Lester Bangs released a single he recorded in 1977 with Jay Dee Daugherty of the Patti Smith Group, Robert Quine of Richard Hell and the Voidoids and two members of the Contortions. It's too derivative of the Richard Hell sound for me to take too seriously.

Here are his Top 10 albums of 1979 according to a list he made for the Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics Poll. It's odd to see Wavelength top his list because his Rolling Stone review for the Van Morrison album was hardly a rave :

Wavelength is a very nice record. I’m sure all the people at Warner Bros. are pleased with it. Ditto the DJs. It probably would also be really groovy for somebody’s idea of a wine-and-joints, Renaissance-fair garden party. It makes a lovely sound, breaks no rules and keeps its grimy snout (or, rather, that of its maker) out of the dark places that mainstreams step correctly over. Rigid. The singer has a nifty little band here, what with Bobby Tench, Peter Bardens from the original Them and even great googamoogah Garth Hudson sittin’ in on various instruments. Well, take me back to Orpheus!

Van Morrison: Into the Music (Warner Bros.) 25; 
Marianne Faithfull: Broken English (Island) 20;
 The Clash (Epic) 20;
 Talking Heads: Fear of Music (Sire) 5;

"The closer you get to whatever it is you’re terrified of, the more it and the dread of it begin to seem like old friends, ergo you become progressively less terrified. As a second Dark Ages seems to loom over us, David Byrne strolls right down its maw, placid and bemused, humming little tunes to himself. Sometimes I think Fear of Music is one of the best comedy albums I’ve ever heard. Which doesn’t mean he makes you forget the fear is real. He just reminds you that it’s something you’re going to have to live with, so you might as well get a kick out of it while you can."


 Lou Reed: The Bells (Arista) 5;

Lou Reed is a prick and a jerkoff who regularly commits the ultimate sin of treating his audience with contempt. He’s also a person with deep compassion for a great many other people about whom almost nobody else gives a shit. I won’t say who they are, because I don’t want to get too schmaltzy, except to emphasize that there’s always been more to this than drugs and fashionable kinks, and to point out that suffering, loneliness and psychic/spiritual exile are great levelers. The Bells isn’t merely Lou Reed’s best solo LP, it’s great art.


 Neil Young + Crazy Horse: Live Rust (Warner Bros.) 5;
 Charles Mingus: Mingus at Antibes (Atlantic) 5; 

Miles Davis: Circle in the Round (Columbia) 5;
 Heartbreakers: Live at Max's Kansas City (Max's Kansas City) 5;
 Patti Smith Group: Wave (Arista) 5.

Sez one fan:
 My one enduring memory of (Lester Bangs) is from a New York Rocker Christmas party (1979) that took place in some squat on the lower, lower east side. I heard PIL's Metal Box blasting from one of the rooms, and there was Lester, doing some insane bat dance to the music. Everyone was just watching as he spun around with whatever girlfriend he was with at the time. I mean, how in the hell do you dance to a song like "Poptones"?

To Play Without a Paracute

Lou Reed : The Bells

[Purchase]

In April of 1979, Lou Reed released The Bells, an album that "dropped into a dark well" as Reed himself said. I'm only listening to it for the first time this month, egged on by an ecstatic contemporaneous review by Lester Bangs in his last ever for Rolling Stone:

The Bells isn’t merely Lou Reed’s best solo LP, it’s great art. Everybody made a fuss over Street Hassle, but too many reviewers overlooked the fact that it was basically a sound album: brilliant layers of live and studio work in a deep wash of bass-obsessive noise. Most of the songs were old, and not very good, with a lot of the same old cheap shots...all through (The Bells), Reed plays the best guitar anyone’s heard from him in ages. As for the lyrics — well, people tend to forget that in numbers like “Candy Says,” “Sunday Morning” and “Oh! Sweet Nothing,” Lou Reed wrote some of the most compassionate songs ever recorded.

I'm now halfway through the album and I'm not hearing the brilliance Lester Bangs is celebrating. In fact, I've never heard Reed sing like this. So hyper on some of these tracks.  He sounds like the comedian John Mulvaney imitating himself as a kid.

The Bells is a strange collection with three songs written in a short partnership with Crazy Horse's Nils Lofgren ("City Lights", "Stupid Man", "With You") who did not play on the album. Jazz trumpeter Don Cherry joined the sessions and can be heard on the nine minute title track, one of Reed's all time favorite recordings. What is it about? Reed said the lyrics came as he sang them and every time he hears "The Bells" it means something different. 

Another notable track is "Disco Mystic", which Bangs thought should have been a hit. Arista Records' Clive Davis didn't hear a single. The label didn't support the album, which peaked at 130 on Billboard's Top 200 Album chart. Reed would release only one album for Arista  before he'd have to go label shopping again. 

On the bright side, Reed was living in Blairstown New Jersey outside the city and reportedly weaning himself off of drugs. He and Sylvia Morales had an 18 acre wooded property where Reed would shoot baskets and snack on fruits and nuts.

"I really love it. It smells great. Even if you wanted to do something there's nothing here. It's appalling how much sleep I get."

In 1980 Lou and Sylvia would get married.

O.K., I've listened to the whole album and I think the best cut is "Families", which sounds like an honest assessment of his relationship with his mom, dad and kid sister. They apparently weren't all that happy with the song.

Lester Bangs Top 10 of 1978

Lester Bangs Top 10 of 1978

Of Give 'Em Enough Rope, Lester Bangs wrote "though it sounds a bit overworked, contains more evidence that The Clash are the greatest rock n roll band left standing. There are nods to Mott the Hoople and reggae, but their most characteristic sound is built on martial drums and Mick Jones's Keith Richards in "Cracked Actor" guitar blasts, the feedback filtering through like smoke.'




The Clash: Give 'Em Enough Rope (Epic) 30;
Ramones: Road to Ruin (Sire) 20;
Joe "King" Carrasco and El Molino: Tex-Mex Rock-Roll (Lisa) 15;

David Johansen (Blue Sky) 5;
Bob Seger + the Silver Bullet Band: Stranger in Town (Capitol) 5; (Bangs is also from Detroit)
Lou Reed: Street Hassle (Arista) 5;
Television: Adventure (Elektra) 5;

Pere Ubu: The Modern Dance (Blank) 5;
Brian Eno: Before and After Science (Island) 5;
No New York (Antilles) 5.


Among the albums to not make Lester's list is Some Girls by the Rolling Stones. In 1980, Bangs would reconsider, writing that it had taken “ten thousand varyingly voluntary rehearings” for him and a friend to actually like it. The pair discussed whether the band should break up on such a high note and Bangs’s friend said it would be better if the Stones were still “grinding away at the same Chuck Berry licks when they’re 60 years old!” (60! Can you imagine? Keef turned 75 yesterday)

 Bangs added, “Go ahead and laugh, but they’re probably going to do exactly that, and after panning just about everything they released in the ’70s I’ve had a change of heart. You tell me whether it has something to do with turning 30 and all that, but what I said to another friend the other night in a similar conversation was, ‘Shit, yeah, let’s all grow old with the Rolling Stones. I can think of worse things.’ ”

When I Need Rejuvination

Van Morrison : Wavelength

[Purchase]

In September of 1978, Van Morrison released Wavelength, best known for its title cut, which like Moondance's "Caravan", is a song about finding God on the radio. Released as a single in 1978, it climbed to number forty two in the US charts, and stayed in the Hot 100 for eleven weeks. The album peaked at US#28 and UK#27.

There is a concept here. Each song marks a period in Morrison's life. From his days attending church in Belfast ("Kingdom Hall") , to listening to the Voice of America as a teen ("Wavelength") to songs about love affairs ("Santa Fe/ Beautiful Onsession").

Writing for Rolling Stone, Lester Bangs was not immediately impressed :

Who has not been waiting for the next great Van Morrison LP? Whether you thought his last masterpiece was Veedon Fleece or Tupelo Honey or even (what I think) Moondance, you certainly were never prepared to write him off. Nobody’s going to write him off because of Wavelength either, but it’s obviously not the album he is still destined to make.

 Something comes clear here. Ever since Moondance, Van Morrison has staked his claim to the rare title “poet,” mostly on the basis of what amounts to a bunch of autumn leaves. Look at those records lying there—Tupelo Honey, Hard Nose the Highway—the best as good as the worst, and all of ’em slowly turning brown. You wanta kick ’em just like a pile of crumbly leaves? Well, go ahead and do it. And kick Van Morrison too. Because he’s a saint. Yeah, that’s exactly why he needs the boot.

Morrison’s got a beautiful obsession with something he can’t quite state, and we’ve got a beautiful obsession with Morrison. Which is fine for him, but what are we to do? We are to sing the chorus, that’s what:

 Dum derra dum dum diddy diddy dah dah 
Dum derra dum dum diddy diddy dah dah 
Dum derra dum dum diddy diddy dah dah 
Dum derra dum dum diddy diddy dah dah 
Dum derra dum dum diddy diddy dah dah 

 At least that’s what it says on the lyric sheet.

 And make no mistake, we’re supposed to notice the lyric sheet—the only other Morrison LP that had one was Hard Nose the Highway, itself a rather pointed statement regarding leaves and such. “Such”: that’s what Van Morrison’s interested in—roamin’ in the gloamin’ and divers other top-hat autumnal falderal. Linden Arden stole the highlights, but where did he take them? Way back home, that’s where. Leaving us with another album of furry-nosed nuzzlings in the fleece. But about this time, one begins to wonder: nowadays does this artist ever come bearing anything other than said fleece? Naught.

 Wavelength is a very nice record. I’m sure all the people at Warner Bros. are pleased with it. Ditto the DJs. It probably would also be really groovy for somebody’s idea of a wine-and-joints, Renaissance-fair garden party. It makes a lovely sound, breaks no rules and keeps its grimy snout (or, rather, that of its maker) out of the dark places that mainstreams step correctly over. Rigid. The singer has a nifty little band here, what with Bobby Tench, Peter Bardens from the original Them and even great googamoogah Garth Hudson sittin’ in on various instruments. Well, take me back to Orpheus Descending!

...It do confound how such a monumental talent can mire himself in such twaddle, fine as some of it may be.

 There is a kind of resolute silliness about a lot of the stuff Van Morrison’s been doing for the last few years: he wants to make records for cookouts, we keep probing for his bardic soul, and the whole mess is ridiculous because he was actually only specific for one very tight stretch there, enclosing “T. B. Sheets” and Astral Weeks. As for the rest—i.e., the main body of his work—he truly delights in the glancing perception and all the filigree in the world. (But what kind of perverted universe reigns—and what kind of bray-orbed, Fellini-trite monstrolas might issue forth—when filigree becomes the body?) What, finally, are his beloved, infinitely extensive out-choruses but filigree? The last half of “Madame George” may be the all-time tightrope act, but, on Wavelength, he really gets down to it and dubs the endless out-choruses of “Santa Fe” a whole new song. 

 So I guess he has finally achieved what he maybe set out to do in the first place: make the edge the center. The result, unfortunately, is a perfect bubble of smoked cheese. It’ll do for the party, but it leaves certain sorta primal questions so far from resolved that—well, no, we never quite give up, do we? It is damn well roundabout known that Van Morrison records about four times as much music as he releases. Some of these great, edgy, eternity-shale, sax-bitten pieces leak out occasionally, and that’s just fine. We’re gonna deserve something beautiful to listen to in our old age.

Lester Bangs's Fave Albums of 1977

Lester Bangs : Let It Blurt

[Purchase]

LESTER BANGS ( with the points he awarded to his entries in the Village Voice Pazz and Jop poll)

 Richard Hell and the Voidoids: Blank Generation 30;
 Peter Tosh: Equal Rights 15;
 Ramones: Rocket to Russia 10;
 Iggy and the Stooges: Metallic K.O. 10;
 Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols 5;
 Ramones Leave Home 5;
 The Persuasions: Chirpin' 5;
 Ornette Coleman: Dancing in Your Head 5;
 The Saints: I'm Stranded 5;
 Suicide 5.





 Now living in New York City as a freelance rock critic, the legendary Lester Bangs did what every critic has always dreamed of: fronting a band  with the Voidoids Robert Quine on guitar, along with Jody Harris of the Contortions, jazzman David Hofstra on Bass and Jay Dee Daugherty of the Patti Smith Group on drums.  On his 1977 John Cale produced single,  "Let It Blurt", Lester sounds like a cross between Richard Hell and Captain Beefheart.




Music is personal.

That explains Blank Generation's earning the top spot on his year end list. He's a bit of a homer with five NYC entries making his Top 10 list ( Hell, The Ramones, The Persuasions and Suicide). Bangs visited Jamaica--the island, not the borough-- with a pal who was trying to sign Peter Tosh, catching a glimpse of the reggae artist dressed in " a navy blue tracksuit and militant black beret, (yelling) as he practiced high flying karate kicks in the parking lot". Coleman and Suicide provide the dissonance Bangs enjoyed --that bit of mad rage in all of us.

Lester Bangs : My Top 10 of 1975

Lester Bangs, rock's most radical critic, presented this list to the Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics poll for the year 1975. He gave Patti Smith's Horses the highest possible score and was the only critic to even mention Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music.

1. Patti Smith:Horses
2. The Dictators: The Dictators Go Girl Crazy!
3. Brian Eno : Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
4. Bruce Springsteen : Born to Run
5. David Bowie: Young Americans
6. Lou Reed: Metal Machine Music
7. Earth Wind and Fire: That's the Way of the World
8. Kraftwerk: Autobahn
9. Roxy Music : Country Life
10. Toots and the Maytals: Funky Kingston

Lester Bangs And The Spotlight Kid: 40 Years Ago Today

[Purchase]


In the March 30, 1972 issue of Rolling Stone, legendary music critic Lester Bangs gave the new Captain Beefheart album, The Spotlight Kid, a rave review. Bangs said Beefheart had finally found that sweet spot where great artistry and mass appeal intersected.


He has been called everything in the past from a man wasting the clear ability to be the world's greatest white blues singer, to an impossibly complex musician who may or may not be the real avant-garde, but is certainly an elitist taste. While I have always held to the opinion that there's been nothing playing on the face of the earth as far out as Beefheart for about 3 or 4 years now, I also recognize that his former style was a bit beyond the attention span or interest of the average listener. Which is certainly not to slight mass tastes, either; after all, why should things have to be as far out as possible all the time?



Bangs singled out the single "I'm Gonna Booglarize Ya, Baby" and its B-Side "Click Clack", a train song he describes as the best thing on the album. Bangs summarizes:

There comes a time in the career of every pop musician who also happens to be a serious artist when he realizes the need for a balance between the most intensely personal type of statement and music of mass appeal. If he can strike that balance without compromising his integrity, he is probably a greater artist than even his staunchest fans previously suspected, and with any exposure at all the public would pick up immediately on the truth and beauty of what he is doing. With this album, Captain Beefheart has struck that balance with total success, and I wouldn't be surprised if he were a major star a year from now. Though you may have been a great shadow hovering over our music for half a decade now, Don, it can be said that in 1972 you've really arrived.

The Spotlight Kid was indeed Captain Beefheart's highest charting album, peaking at #131 in the Billboard Top 200. The follow-up album Clear Spot was another commercial attempt, released in October of 1972. I'll be writing about that one later this year.

Alice Cooper on the cover of the March 30, 1972 issue of Rolling Stone