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Rating: Rummaging through my ancient library, I come across this Reasonable Guide to the Loudest Noise by Lester Bangs, purchased halfway through the last decade, when Mininum fax was a brave publisher releasing off-system books, along with willing young locals named Lagioia, Raimo, Cognetti and others forgettable. Preface written by Wu Ming 1, just to get the idea, for an undoubtedly commendable operation, at the very least because it allowed all compatriots who claimed Bangs' knowledge to actually read him. Although he became fashionable after the film Almost Famous, in which his character appears in a memorable scene, at least for the line to the protagonist “too bad you missed out on rock”, until then, his writings had made sporadic appearances on Italian soil. And it's no wonder, too tumultuous to be translated into national gazettes, too unaligned for a system of newsagents-publishers in the hands of state-assassinating accomplices. Meanwhile, in America, he had long since risen to the empyrean of stars in journalism and rock criticism, well before his untimely death in 1982. Even with many clichés, including being categorized in the so-called gonzo genre (misunderstanding the fact that he defined himself as some sort of a fraudster) and more generally in the beat generation literary trend.
True, he declared in his youth to have been inspired by Jack Kerouac (about whom he even wrote the obituary) and William Burroughs, but in my opinion, in this case, the pupil surpasses the overestimated “masters” with ease (for instance, I recommend reading Big Sur as an infallible natural substitute for any anesthetic). Bangs' narrative verve is forgotten by those beatnik scribblers, and who cares if he never wrote a novel. In fact, you know what I say?, this collection can easily be read like a novel, a novel in the form of reviews, a novel where the protagonist, under the pretext of speaking about his bands, records, and concerts, narrates how all this passes through him and is filtered through his experiences and his way of taking life.
An egocentric, like all of us, fills pages and pages where everything is an excuse to talk about himself with a writing seemingly attributable to the genre of autofiction, where the narrator becomes the protagonist. Surrounded by all those music stars, amidst all those talented people, Bangs takes the part of the insignificant mediocre (except when he proclaims himself the best writer in the world) and describes his experiences as those of an ante litteram nerd, as if they were a nothing compared to the dazzling life of his stars. But at the same time, this becomes a powerful weapon to uncover the degenerations of a system that exalts the successful artist and commodifies him beyond his music, leading him to a progressive dissociation from reality.
Lester Bangs recognizes many enemies, but the first of all is the industrial canonization of the star, where fame, the “rockstar”, ends up prevailing over their own music. And so there he goes, hitting hard against the various Stones, Led Zeppelin, Elvis, Bowie, and before them Lou Reed, whom he so praised with the Velvet Underground but also described without mercy in the mishmash that surrounds him (and that soul of Lou Reed soaked in a latrine tried to take revenge by declaring that it had been years since Lester wrote anything of interest).
And here he goes dismantling the myth of the great artist as a star, repeating “a rockstar is just a person.” And there he goes exalting all the artists who escape this dictatorship. And there he is marveling at the friendly manners of the early Clash towards their fans, following them to their concerts in Britain in 1977 and writing:
“how close they are to achieving all the hopes we have always had about rock as a utopian dream: because if rock is truly the democratic art form, then democracy must start at home, those eternal and repugnant walls between artist and audience must be broken down, elitism must end, the ‘stars’ must be humanized, demystified and the audience must be treated with more respect. Otherwise, it's all a scam, a heist, and the music becomes a dead thing, as it now is that of the Stones and Led Zeppelin.”
Having just a moment before warned:
“I guarantee you that the way the Clash treat their fans is so out of the norm of those relationships (of other stars, note) to be completely revolutionary. Most rock stars are cursed swine who have the usual army of bulky thugs hired to keep fans away at all costs, with the exception of the exclusive contingent of fortunate(?), they might deign to invite to their room… It's rotten to the core, and I struggled to believe any group, and even more so a musically brutal group like the Clash, could deviate so much from that vile norm.”
It's curious that Lester Bangs declared he wanted to retire to Mexico to write his novel and that he planned to publish several other books (selecting some titles: All My Friends Are Hermits, Women on Top: Ten Post-Feminist Models for the Eighties, You Can Live Like a Billionaire Without a Dime: I Do It All the Time and This Book Explains How), when in reality the body of his writings is already a fantastic book-novel, as I said before. So powerful that it prevails over the bands and records which were supposed to be the subject of his writings. For instance, will we remember more of the Stooges or MC5 or Lester Bangs? And I suspect that even Lou Reed’s fame, with his du -dudù- du - duddudu - dù, may be overshadowed in the future by that of his bard.
The hilarious pages are innumerable, among which I would cite the mockery of Barry White, as colossal as the singer [listening to Barry's mellifluous, sex-dripping voice, it's clear that this man is dangerous; in any case, there is no doubt that he will get what he’s after], and the blues chronicles of his sad New Year’s Eves [New Year’s Eve is the biggest con because we all go out full of expectations and get drunk like camels to cope with being with others, because we’ve spent the first winter chills diving ever deeper into the TV Guide and now we’re supposed to genuinely party near these revolting lumps of humanity..].
Lester Bangs is alive and fights alongside us, especially in these parts.
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