Boing Boing posted a link to a 90-minute interview from 1980 with dead writer Lester Bangs, who was to rock criticism in the ’70s what Hunter S. Thompson was to political journalism. I haven’t enjoyed everything I’ve read of Bangs’ criticism, as some of it is so far off the deep end as to be ridiculous. But I do feel that his willingness to take absurd chances and be bold in his writing and interviews — for example, his famed, abrasive interviews with Lou Reed — sets him apart from his peers. While I don’t expect many of you will want to listen to the full interview — I’m about a third of the way through it as I type this, and it’s quite good — it’s worth listening to if you’ve ever wondered, like me, what his voice sounds like. And he speaks much different in the flesh than he reads in print.
Bit of trivia: for those of you who don’t know, I took my DJ name, “The Noiseboy,” in homage to Bangs and a few of his other peers, including Richard Meltzer and Nick Tosches, who collectively referred to themselves as “The Noise Boys.”
The Noiseboy Online 