A choice cut of Bangs’s work, more than enough to understand why he developed so ardent a following, much of it post-mortem.
A cerebrally smoking (dope-fueled?)—but sharp, very smart—collection of writings from the late, legendary rock journalist, who never had an opinion he couldn’t set on fire.
This second reader (after Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, 1987) features 54 pieces ranging from memoir to criticism to travelogue. They encompass short cherry bombs written for Rolling Stone (of MC5: “the hype, the thick overlay of teenage-revolution and total-energy-thing which conceals these scrapyard vistas of clichés and ugly noise”), where the concision almost bends the page, to more discursive articles for Creem and the Village Voice, where Bangs (1949–82) happily digs into Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Bob Dylan (“Dylan merely used Civil Rights and the rest of the Movement to advance himself in the first place”—and, as for his demonology, stick with Black Sabbath), or sings praise to Anne Murray: “a hypnotically compelling interpretix with a voice like molten high school rings and a heavy erotic vibe.” The travel writing—Austin, Paris, and Jamaica for starters—is more reflective and willing to take the middle of the road with fluid and canny perceptions, while the autobiographical material has a not-necessarily-memorable cub-gonzo-reporter sound. But the music criticism is furious, seemingly written in the heat of battle; graceful for all that, but no prisoners. That Bangs knew music was obvious, but also that he knew personalities and what irked him about them (Mick Jagger: “flopped around in his jumpsuit and just looked more like a society creep every new picture.” David Bowie: “that chickenhearted straw man of suck rock you love to hate.” Jim Morrison: “would never be so much Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Villon as he was a Bozo Prince”). The writer also could pull a volte-face, taking a diametrically opposed view, not simultaneously, but from the same perspective.
A choice cut of Bangs’s work, more than enough to understand why he developed so ardent a following, much of it post-mortem.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-71367-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2003
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
