(Almost) Famous

Last night Almost Famous came on the TV. I have to say, whenever I catch it, I am drawn in and watch. Mostly I skip around or wait until a scene with Frances McDormand (the mom) or Jason Lee (the ego driven front man). But nothing beats the scenes of Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs. The film is supposedly based on mostly true experiences that rock 'n' roll placed Cameron Crowe in and the DVD commentary attempts to synch up the story line to Crowe's reality. Still there is always going to be liberties taken and righty so.

Bangs apparently gave Crowe his start writing in the pages of Creem before Rolling Stone got a hold of him. Being that Crowe was so young to be writing and spending intimate time with rock stars, it makes sense that Bangs would take him under his wing and give him some sage advice, or the only kind of advice a guy like Lester Bangs could really give someone. I have faith that Crowe faithfully represented those words in his film.

I included some exerts from their conversation below because I enjoy them immensely but something that can't be exerted is PSH as Bangs. From the moment we first encounter Bangs he is going on to a radio disc jockey and presumably an audience of attention fixed listeners about the Guess Who being the truth of modern day rock. This is before he rips The Doors of the player to throw on Iggy's Raw Power. To this he begins doing a horizontal Teen Wolf dance. I've never seen footage of Lester Bangs, but in my heart I know, or rather, I want to believe this is how he was.

Amen that a man like Lester Bangs walked amongst us and told it like it was all the while showing how it could be done. Whether it be dribbling on about The Faces, or late night musings on Coltrane and the force of Astral Weeks he had a talent and he was a presence that came off the page into his reader's mind and in turn into his thoughts about music.

It's tough to be a respected critic. Afterall you comment on the work and art of others. Rarely does a critic transcend the boundaries of commentary into something more profound. But a good critic, like a Pauline Kael or Lester Bangs, turns that commentary itself into an art. I would hypothesize that maybe the reason Lester Bangs gets props is because there have been so few critics in the medium of rock that have done major damage and caused heads to turn but that would take away from Lester Bangs' work and legacy. It's more likely that Lester Bangs showed us what a critic should and could be and since then would be critics just haven't surmounted to that level, though many have tried, and none have come close.


Lester Bangs: Aw, man. You made friends with them. See, friendship is the booze they feed you. They want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong.
William Miller: Well, it was fun.
Lester Bangs: They make you feel cool. And hey. I met you. You are not cool.
William Miller: I know. Even when I thought I was, I knew I wasn't.
Lester Bangs: That's because we're uncool. And while women will always be a problem for us, most of the great art in the world is about that very same problem. Good-looking people don't have any spine. Their art never lasts. They get the girls, but we're smarter.
William Miller: I can really see that now.
Lester Bangs: Yeah, great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love... and let's face it, you got a big head start.
William Miller: I'm glad you were home.
Lester Bangs: I'm always home. I'm uncool.
William Miller: Me too!
Lester Bangs: The only true currency in this bankrupt world if what we share with someone else when we're uncool.
William Miller: I feel better.
Lester Bangs: My advice to you. I know you think those guys are your friends. You wanna be a true friend to them? Be honest, and unmerciful.

Bangs: You CANNOT make friends with the rock stars. That's what's important. If you're a rock journalist - first, you will never get paid much. But you will get free records from the record company. And they'll buy you drinks, you'll meet girls, they'll try to fly you places for free, offer you drugs... I know. It sounds great. But they are not your friends. These are people who want you to write sanctimonious stories about the genius of the rock stars, and they will ruin rock and roll and strangle everything we love about it.

The only part of the movie that tops the Bangs scenes is the end of the film when the Crowe character finally has a private moment with Russell, Stillwater's lead guitarist. "So, Russell what do you love about music?" "To begin with, everything." That pretty much sums it all up for me.

As a postscript to this I want to add that of all the criticism I have ever read for artists never inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame, I have never, to my knowledge, come across any contestations to the fact that their are no critics who have been inducted. Unless I am forgetting a writer or two, the hall is absent their presence. Maybe next time we make a push in a poll or list or conversation for oft-forgotten nominations we should include critics like Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus who turned writing about music into something that was ,well, a little bit bigger than simply writing about music.