Lester Bangs Night

Tonight I've been drinking beer and vodka (but not cough syrup) and reading Lester Bangs, who died on this day in 1982. A few feeble random notes for any fellow Lester fans out there:

- I love how he rips early-eighties hardcore. ("This stuff sounds a whole lot like much of the heavy metal shit I grew up on, if you forget your guitar-flash Aerosmiths or maybe guitar solos altogether and dig back into some of the really vile metal stuff like Grand Funk, Bloodrock, and Jukin' Bone, or play a Black Sabbath track at twice the speed.")

- The "Bowling For Supergroups: The Beck Years" chapter in the Rod Stewart bio is hilarious. I ended up ordering a Vanilla Fudge album online after I read it. And as I type this I'm enduring/enjoying the Beck, Bogert, and Appice album.

- Current favorite quote in a Bangs piece that isn't by Bangs: (A friend once said when I played the Yardbirds for him that, "It sounds like they just sat down and said, 'Okay, you mothas, here's what you're going to be doing for the next five years!'")

- "Guess Who: Live At The Paramount" is awesome. Still haven't figured out if he truly liked the album or not. Still don't care.

- His about-face on Exile on Main Street (he panned it, then fell in love with it, but still took the Stones to task for their distance-ness on their '72 tour) is honest and timeless. I listened to Exile last night on headphones and it truly is the best album the Stones ever made.

- It's easy to go through life not giving a damn. Reading Bangs reaffirms my need to give a damn. Just don't make me leave my apartment.

- I'm so sorry that he died while listening to a Human League album. Forget the drugs for a second; could it be that shitty, cold, Brit synth-crap music killed Lester Bangs? ... then again, maybe he liked it.