Lester Bangs: “I didn’t go around shoving my prejudices down everybody’s throat. I just endured Cream every fucking day, “Spoonfull” and all the rest of that whiteheap bigdealsowhat . And you’d think it’s only be fair for them to endure Velvet Underground, Count Five, Oldies But Goodies, the Fugs, the Godz, and I forget what other godawful racket I doted on. But they wouldn’t let me have my equal portion of obnoxiousness. My music was “bad,” and theirs was “good.” and maybe that’s why I’ve ended up doing what I’ve done so far with my life.” – superb resource for the man’s online reprinted writings, from plateofshrimp.com, which also has lots of stuff on Peter Laughner too. Peter who? He played on one of the ten best singles ever recorded, so go and find out.
I think it’s starting to become unfashionable to like Lester Bangs – I see a lot of people talking about how the world of pop journalism is still clogged with wannabe Bangses, and they’re right, it is, but if you’re going to wannabe anyone, you wanna wannabe one of the best. (link via gobshite).