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So as far as I knew was what Phillip Seymore Hoffman portrayed him as in Almost Famous.


I just picked up Psychotic Reactions, I can't wait to read!
anyone else a fan?

Didn't Hoffman's version of Lester Bangs call Jim Morrison " a drunk who thinks he's a poet", or something of that nature, on Almost Famous?

In the early/mid 1970's, I would ride my bike to the local magazine store and loiter for awhile, reading as many rock & roll magazines as I could until I got kicked out. Creem was the best, and I eventually subscribed to it. I learned a lot and "discovered" a lot of great groups by reading Lester Bangs. He was not only informative but entertaining. He definitely lived his art. 

that's awesome to know.....alive when legends were still publishing

btw, that quote is correct; then he goes on to say: "give me the Guess Who"    ;D

He loved the Guess Who alright. I like his writing quite a bit.

I take him with a grain of salt, like all critics.

I think I agree with him on that! (No offense to Doors fans)

The Doors were the most exciting rock 'n roll band to come out of America in the late 1960s. Nothing else compares. And the Guess Who aren't even in the same league as many other late 60s bands. Sorry, but Mr. Bangs was dead wrong. :)

I like me some Doors, but I think the Velvet Underground blew them out of the water. Also, there were the Stooges and I don't know what all good rock bands.

I havent heard much Guess Who, what I have heard sounds fairly pedestrian.

In what way(s)?

I'd say in every way except pretentious rambling and cheesy minor-key sucking. But then you know my thoughts on the Doors...  ;)

Songwriting, mainly.

Hell, the Beach Boys blew the Doors out of the water! Songwriting and production-wise, anyway...not so much performance-wise.

speaking of BB/Doors...wasnt Morrison a fan of the Wild Honey album?

I think they were fans of the Beach Boys. You can hear it in some of their songs, I think that song that goes 'And we're on our way! You know we can't come back" song on their first album has a kind of "Little Honda" feel to it.

I do like the doors, I think they have a few really good albums and a host of good songs--think maybe thirty or so songs I really, really like, maybe even more. I think that Krieger and Morrison were both OK songwriters who complimented each other well, Morrison wasn't a great singer technically but he has a kind of power to his voice; Krieger is an underrated guitarist and, yeah, they are all great musicians. I like the way their songs can change the atmosphere in a room

I just think the Velvet Underground was better overall.

Why's everyone comparing the Velvet Underground with the Doors?

Maybe for the same reason the other half of the people are comparing the Beach Boys to the Doors. They're 60s bands. (Really, it's just that someone was talking about Bangs' Doors/Guess Who quote, which led to a "Doors were the most exciting band of the era," which led to someone else just saying that from that era, he preferred VU.)

If I may add something--which I may, because seriously, what is anyone going to do about it?--I'd also say that while nobody was, they could decide to compare them because they were both led by presumably literate songwriters and tended to dabble in dark imagery. The way they went about it and their sounds, of course, were entirely different.

I compare the Beach Boys with just about everybody. When you're a diehard it just comes with the territory.

 Beach Boys vs The Doors, Beach Boys vs Radiohead, Beach Boys vs The Who, Beach Boys vs (insert band name here).... :lol :lol :lol

Though Carl Wilson vs Thom Yorke as singers could be a legitimate comparison...maybe...

Nice call   ;D

OK you Lou Reed/VU nuts, even though I completely disagree with the Velvet Underground being better than The Doors, and BTW, NOBODY blew The Doors away, I'm going to ask for your help. I've been working on this Lou Reed/VU 80 min. compilation CD, and I'm stuck. I need a song that is no more than 3:35 that will fit in the open spot (Song #8 see below). Yeah, I know these aren't the songs you'd pick, but I like 'em. Thanks....

1. Sweet Jane (Live In Italy)
2. Vicious (Lou Reed Live)
3. Dirty Blvd.
4. Walk On The Wild Side
5. Femme Fatale (VU Live 1969)
6. Pale Blue Eyes (VU Live 1969)
7. Hangin' Round
8.
9. I'm Waiting For The Man (live w/David Bowie)
10. Oh Jim (Lou Reed Live)
11. I'm Sticking With You
12. I Love You Suzanne
13. Perfect Day
14. All Tomorrow's Parties (live at The Bataclan Club 1972)
15. I'll Be Your Mirror (live at The Bataclan Club 1972)
16. You'll Know You Were Loved
17. Satellite Of Love
18. Sad Song 

What about "Sunday Morning"?

The VU version of "the Ocean" is one of my favorite songs ever. Might be a little long for that compilation, though.

80 minutes of solo Lou Reed? Wow, the Spanish Inquisition would have done anything for an instrument of THAT kind of torture.

I see that this Lester Bangs thread has spun out of control. Now it's only Reed, Morrison, that kind of nonsense. How dare you people chat about these assorted ne'er do wells? Pretentious phonies. Meh! Really. Drunk, vicious, pseudo-artists. The worst America ever produced. And yet held in high esteem by many well-educated people.

But the Bangs anthology by Greil Marcus is ace. Because Bangs lays bare something that we'd rather not want to know, perhaps. I did not read it in a long time but both the pieces on James Taylor and Peter Laughner are tops. The scene where Laughtner and his Dad, both stinking drunk on Courvoisier, enter Chez Bangs is a classic and also is a dark omen about the eventual fate of both Laughner and Bangs himself.

But guys, really, stop listening to this decadent crap. Go buy yourselves an 8-track cartridge of 'The Best Of The Partridge Family', for instance, or otherwise an Osmonds Box Set, You know it makes cents.

I really enjoyed Almost Famous.  I enjoyed the Doors when they were new.  I now only like to occasionally listen to the last music they made.  Seems the booze and drugs made Morrison less intellectually pretentious, more down to earth, and thus more listenable.

I never got the thing about elevating JM to some mythical status i.e. the Lizard King etc.  He WAS a good rock singer.

LA Woman, Roadhouse Blues.   Give me that stuff.

I sometimes flash on the album cover of Strange Days when I'm at a flea market or a free concert downtown.

Is Lester Bangs Alive?

I'd take almost any solo Reed over about 50-60% of BW's solo output ... and probably 30% of the Beach Boys' output.

It's not ALL solo Lou Reed, there's asprinkling of some Velvet Underground in there, too.

Ascrodin and Lance, thanks for your suggestions; I'm screening them both. "Sunday Morning" always reminded me of a Monkees song or something.

Donald, sadly Lester Bangs died about 25-26 years ago from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs and cold medicine taken together, to treat a bad cold.

And, finally, I know it should be on a separate thread, but, what the hell....I put The Doors - and specifically Jim Morrison - up there with anybody, and I mean anybody. I'm not saying they were better than The Beach Boys, The Beatles, or The Rolling Stones, but, for that period of 1967-1971, they were as good, or, in my opinion, better than anyone. There is a legitimate reason why The Doors catalogue continues to outsell almost all other acts from that era.

The fact that there are always new, overly dramatic, wannabe-dark-and-moody teenagers around?  ;D   Seriously, those records are all very well done. I'm not a big fan anymore, but I have been one, and the change is more to changing taste than any sort of "oooh, I grew up and am smarter now." All the albums are right there about four feet from me (see 'em? --->).

Sheriff

I wore out a couple copies back inthe day...of the first 2 albums...liked stuff like crystal ship and unknown soldier, and people are strange, when the musics over........maybe too much..
got tired of the drug culture music...some of the stuff I loved back then is just too hard to listen to now....maybe why i've been so into the
Beachboys last two decades....
lost friends, favorite musicians, 
too much death and sadness.....and God knows life is too short......
but that music was quite meaningful to me back in the day

I know where you're coming from, Donald. The Doors were my first favorite group, back in late grade school and high school. I don't want to sound too weird about it, but I do think their music - and Morrison of course - had an affect on me, or at least some faction of my personality. It hit me at a very impressionable time, in a lot of ways. I guess I was one of those people Luther was referring to in his post, even though he was saying it tongue-in-cheek. When I listen to The Doors' music today, no, I don't get those same feelings (is  that good?), but it's not long before I can still really get into it, more than any other music besides the Beach Boys. The Doors' music remains a very pleasurable listening experience, I still love Doors/Morrison documentaries (although THE great one hasn't been made yet), and I still wish that Ray, Robby, and John would record again together!

SJS, I was joking, but only somewhat. That is (as far as I can see) the Doors key new audience, adding to the base of those people who were fans the first time around. I don't really mean it derisively, even as I kid about it, but just factually. I believe most serious music fans hit phases at one point or another that takes them through all the big ones. The Doors are one of those, and those years, that time period, are prime territory. There's really nothing quite so perfect for a certain kind of teenage boy as the Doors.

Luther, I GOT your post, and you're right. I agree with what you wrote, in your Lutherian way of putting things. But I always felt I was kind of an exception. In one way, I guess I was one of those teenagers you correctly desribe(d), being led by Mr. Mojo Risin' to break on through to the other side. But I also felt that I was sophisticated enough to appreciate the brilliance of the musicians. I mean, I could appreciate Ray, Robby, and John for their talents as much as the rantings of Jim. And, in the end, that's what keeps me going back to their music.

I think we're all the exception--each of us--especially at that age. That's what makes music so powerful for us then. As much as I love it now, I don't know if anything can grab me the way it did when I was 14 and whoever (probably Gene Simmons or someone) was singing in my stead, the words right out of my mouth.

As to your last question: Lester Bangs has been dead for a long time now. The irony is: according to Marcus, he was a roaring drunk, a real holy fool for a long time, so bad that he could 'stink up a room', in Marcus' words. Which means, I think, that peculiar smell of gastric booze itself, the terrible sweat that only booze can bring about, and the being unwashed for oh, a week or so, which gives dandruff and a very salty smell because of the extreme dehydration. There's also some aldehydes in there. I bet that if you'd held a Zippo near Bangs at that time, he'd have exploded like people in a Cronenberg movie do.
After this interesting digression: Bangs cleaned up totally (must have been the early 80s, I think). Perhaps he did it too abruptly. People who stop steeply are prone to epileptic bouts for some time, or a heart attack.

The old man who lives across the hall has the old alky reek. It is definitely something to experience.

The music you dig in your formative years does indeed stay with you.  I used to listen to a lot of Jefferson Airplane.  Some of that music is indelibly etched into my brain to the extent that I don't really have to play the recording...I can recall it pretty much note by note and listen "in my head".

Definitely a fact that the Doors have or had special appeal to some adolescent males of a certain age over the years...I was one of them and I've met them over the years as I have gotten older....and Jim did not.

The line "music is you're only friend...until the end...until the end"    .....resonated with me at the age of 15....

And the music was very listenable, unlike a lot of the experimental noodling that went on in rock back then.

I don't know about you guys....but a lot of the music back then had amazing lyrical imagery ....and seemed to put my teen angst into words that i could savor and revel in......

I sometimes think that is the appeal of hardcore Rap to kids in recent years.....although I have to say I find it mostly unlistenable..(imagine my parents said the same of the rock I listened to at 15) :-D :-D

What I can't stand about a lot of 'decadent' acts (not specifically the Doors) is that (in my eyes) phony preoccupation with literature/poetry. I don't really think that Morrison knew Rimbaud very well, or Blake, or Shelley, or Verlaine; he was a namedropper IMHO, which may appeal to a certain type of college-dropout who is too lazy to actually read the stuff him/herself and graduate in it; no, let's all get drunk together. Whilst that last idea may seem very appealing in itself (it is to me...), it does not enhance the 'art' in the music. Same with Reed, Velvets, god knows who else. But then, I never found Warhol an artist. He was some designer with a keen eye on his wallet. Meh.
The worst I can think of is Burroughs. Working my way through 'Naked Lunch' was an ordeal, no less. Dreck. The pits. No matter what certain Californian art critics from the time said. Well, Burroughs did not even make a good William Tell, I tells ya.

People, lets get it straight: art requires work. Ideas, yes, but also technique and work.

Hey, did you know that Carol Kaye claims to have played bass on 'Light My Fire', despite there being no bass on that song?

Other of Burroughs' books are actually readable. He didn't put the Naked Lunch together. It was assembled from random writings on loose paper by friends of his.

Another thing: for all his pretension, I bet that Morrison DID know Rimbaud. I mean, it's not like Rimbaud wrote tons and tons of stuff; and he is very popular with the college drop-out crowd, probably doubly so in the sixties; and Rimbaud is overrated(by rock stars, no less) in my honest opinion anyway. AS far as Nietsche goes, again, lots of people have read these people. If any "intellectual" writer influenced Morrison, I guess it would be Jung or Campbell or somebody--but his primary influence was theatre, plain and simple.

Lance, I think you have it.  Theatre.

Kind of like Mike Love fronting the Beach Boys, if you stop to think about it.

or Fred Garrity fronting the Dreamers ;)

Just having fun...don't wish to offend the fans of Mr. Mojo Rising.

I think Jim Morrison DID know the great poets very well; I've seen all of the documentaries and don't recall much, if any, namedropping. One does not have to have a "degree" in a particular subject to be considered an expert in it.

And, there is a bass guitar recorded on "Light My Fire". Larry Knechtel was brought in to play bass over Ray Manzarek's keyboard bass.

mikek love is theatrical too. The difference is, while Mike Love is pretty much acting on instinct(though I am sure he prepares) Morrison knew exactly what he was doing and consciously connected the world of rock and roll to the world of Antonin Artaud and all those guys. He saw and consciously, intellectually defined what was already true: Rock and roll singer is shaman. He saw the mythology inherent in a concert, in a star and made it part of his act. It takes some brains, and yes, some education(whether gained in university or home alone) to be able to do that kind of thing.

I don't think his songs are good poetry or anything, I think that that is his pretension--when I read his poems the most I can say is he would probably have gotten better over time, but he was far from being there yet. But he deserves some credit for what he did to that was cool.

At first I read: 'making love is theatrical too'. Makes sense. I am told that women can multitask, so far that they actually can fake an orgasm whilst reading Cosmopolitan.

Fred Garrity was Shaman of the silly dance.