Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung

Until his death aged thirty-three in 1982, Lester Bangs wrote wired, rock 'n' roll pieces on Iggy Pop, The Clash, John Lennon, Kraftwerk, Lou Reed. As a rock critic, he had an eagle-eye for distinguishing the pre-packaged imitation from the real thing; written in a conversational, wisecracking, erotically charged style, his hallucinatory hagiographies and excoriating take-downs reveal an iconoclast unafraid to tell it like it is. To his journalism he brought the talent of a great a renegade Beat poet, and his essays, reviews and scattered notes convey the electric thrill of a music junky indulging the habit of a lifetime. As Greil Marcus writes in his introduction, 'What this book demands from a reader is a willingness to accept that the best writer in America could write almost nothing but record reviews.'

Bangs was one of the best writers ever to appear on newsprint ... when he died, American culture lost one its most astute, ornery, funniest and most soulful observers, Still a byword for rock writing at its most unrestrained and passionate ... his two posthumous anthologies ... attest to his brilliance, A superb collection ... wild and funny and unpredictable. Lester Bangs was a great American writer who happened to write about rock 'n' roll, A marvellous collection ... it will unquestionably teach you more about rock music and the appreciation thereof than a two-year subscription to all of the current British rock papers and mags, A powerhouse in the American music journalism scene ... It's one of the oddest yet most original pieces on music you're ever likely to read ... This is rock criticism in its raw state - it is vulgar, conversational, and abusive towards its subjects ... That a collection of music criticism continues to be republished 28 years after its first appearance - and 44 years after the publication of the earliest essay it contains - is perhaps a better testament to the quality of Bangs' writing than anything else. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to listen to 'Astral Weeks' one more time.

Lester Bangs started out as a record reviewer for Rolling Stone, went on to write for and then edit the magazine Creem, before moving to New York and covering the burgeoning punk scene, writing in daily newspapers and the Village Voice. Bangs died suddenly at the age of thirty-three in 1982. A biography of Lester Bangs, Let it Blurt was published in 2001.Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He writes for newspapers and magazines including Rolling Stone and the Village Voice.