ABSTRACT
Nearly a decade after the rock press had first taken shape via the pages of Crawdaddy!, Rolling Stone, and other magazines, the mid-’70s “rock critic” had become a recognized music industry career occupation, an alluring bohemian profession for scores of young music fans. Among the many influential critics of the era, Lester Bangs (1948-1982) stands out as arguably the most notorious and revered of them all. While Bangs’s tastes in music could be eclectic, he is especially remembered for championing the “authentic” rock primitivism of then unfashionable styles like heavy metal and punk. Fired from Rolling Stone in 1973 for “being disrespectful to musicians,” Bangs joined the staff of the irreverent Detroit-based rock magazine Creem, where for many years he served as both a writer and editor. Bangs’s writings are instantly recognizable, steeped in the subjective style of New Journalists like Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, yet mixed with equal doses of his own unique cynical attitude, corrosive wit and expressive insights. For many, this intense, self-reflexive approach signified an unparalleled level of integrity in rock journalism. Offered in the form of a humorous MadLib, “How to be a Rock Critic” is typical of Bangs’s famed off-the-cuff “first draft” style.
