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Article On Elvis From Lester Bangs

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Scott

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Jun 1, 2001, 11:01:14 PM6/1/01
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Lester Bangs is a fairly known music critic who has worked for Creem,
Rolling Stone and a few other music related magazines. A few weeks after
Elvis died he wrote this article on him,...it appeared in The Village Voice.
One can tell that Lester is far from being an Elvis fan, however, a lot of
things had not yet surfaced about Colonel Tom Parker at the time of this
writing. I have no idea if Lester's feelings have changed at all, but if
you're one of those Elvis fans who can't handle reading anything bad said
about him....I suggest you skip this and move onto the next post....

Where Were You When Elvis Died? - By Lester Bangs

Where were you when Elvis died? What were you doing and what did it give
you an excuse to do with the rest of your day? That's what we'll be talking
about in the future when we remember this grand occasion. Like Pearl Harbor
of JFK's assassination, it boils down to individual reminiscences, which is
perhaps as it should be, because in spite of his greatness, ect., ect.,
Elvis had left us each as alone as he was; I mean, he wasn't exactly a Man
of the People anymore, if you get my drift. If you don't I will drift even
further away from Elvis into contemplation on why all our public heroes seem
to reinforce our own solitude.
The ultimate sin of any performer is contempt for the audience. Those
who indulge in it will ultimately reap the scorn of those they've dumped on,
whether they've live for ever like Andy Paleface Warhol, or die fashionably
early like Lenny Bruce, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Charlie
Parker, and Billie Holiday. The two things that distinguish those deaths
from Elvis' (he and they having drug habits vaguely in common) were that all
of them died on the outside looking in and none of them took their audience
for granted. Which is why it's just a little bit harder for me to see Elvis
as a tragic figure; I see him as being more like the Pentagon, a giant
armored institution nobody knows anything about except that its power is
legendary.
Obviously we all liked Elvis more than the pentagon, but look at what a
paltry statement that is. In the end Elvis' scorn for his fans as manifested
in 'new' albums full of previously released material and one new song to
make sure all us suckers would buy it, was mirrored in the scorn we all
secretly or not so secretly felt for a man who came closer to godhood than
Carlos Castaneda until military conscription tamed and revealed him for the
dumb lackey he always was in the first place. And ever since, for almost two
decades now, we've been waiting for him to get wild again, fools that we
are, and he probably knew better than any of us in his heart of hearts that
it was never gonna happen, his heart of hearts obviously not being our
collective heart of hearts, he being so obviously just some poor dumb
Southerner boy with a Big Daddy manager to screen the world for him and
filter out anything which might erode his status as big strapping baby
bringing home the bucks, and finally being sort of perversely celebrated at
least by rock critics for his utter contempt for whoever cared about him.
And Elvis was perverse, only a true pervert could put out an album like
"Having Fun With Elvis On Stage," that album released three or so years back
which consisted of between-song onstage patter so redundant it would make
both Willy Burroughs and Gert Stein blush. Elvis was into marketing boredom
when Andy Warhol was still doing shoe ads, but Elvis' sin was his failure to
realize that his fans were not perverse--they loved him without
qualification, no matter what he dumped on them they loyally lapped it up,
and that's why I feel a hell of a lot sorrier for all those poor jerks than
for Elvis himself. I mean, who's left they can stand all night out in the
rain for? Nobody, and the true tragedy is the tragedy of an entire
generation which refuses to give up its adolescence even as if feels its
menopausal paunch begin to blossom and its hair recede over the
horizon--along with Elvis and everything else they once thought they
believed in. Will they care in five years what he's been doing for the last
twenty?
Sure Elvis' death is a relatively minor ironic variant on the
future-shock mazurka, and perhaps the most significant thing about Elvis'
exit is that the entire history of the seventies has been retreads and
brutal demystification; three of Elvis' ex-bodyguards recently got together
with this hacker from the New York Post and whipped up a book which dosed us
with all the dirt we'd yearned to see for so long. Elvis was the last of our
sacred cows to be publicly mutilated; everybody knows Keith Richards likes
his junk, but when Elvis went onstage in a stupor nobody breathed a hint of
"Quaalude...." In a way, this was both good and bad, good because Elvis
wasn't encouraging other people to be a walking physicians desk reference,
bad because Elvis stood for that Nixonian Secrecy-as-virtue which was passed
off as the essence of Americanism for a few years there. In a sense he could
be seen not only as a phenomenon that exploded in the 50's to help shape the
psychic jailbreak of the 60's, but ultimately as a perfect cultural
expression of what the Nixon years where all about. Not that he prospered
more then, but that his passion for the privacy of potentates allowed him to
get away with almost literal murder, certainly with the symbolic rape of his
fans, meaning that we might all do better to think about waving good-bye
with one upturned finger.
I got the news of Elvis' death while drinking beer with a friend and
fellow music journalist on his fire escape on the 21st Street in Chelsea.
Chelsea is a good neighborhood; in spite of the fact that the insane woman
who lives upstairs keeps him awake all night every night with her rants at
no one, my friend stays there because he likes the sense of community within
diversity in that neighborhood; old time card carrying communists live in
that building, alongside people of every persuasion popularly lumped as
'ethnic." When we heard about Elvis we knew a wake was in order, so I went
out to the deli for a case of beer. As I left the building I passed some
Latin guys hanging out by the front door. "Heard the news? Elvis is dead." I
told them. They looked at me with contemptuous indifference. So what. Maybe
if I had told them Donna Summer was dead I might have gotten a reaction. I
do recall walking in this neighborhood wearing a T-shirt that said, "Disco
Sucks" with a vast unamused muttering in my wake, which only goes to show
that not for everyone was Elvis the still-reigning King of Rock 'n' Roll, in
fact not for everyone is Rock 'n' Roll the still-reigning music. By now,
each citizen has found his own little obsessive corner to blast his brains
in; as the sixties were supremely narcissistic, solipsism's what the
seventies have been about, and nowhere is this better demonstrated than in
the world of 'pop' music. And Elvis may have been the greatest solipsist of
all.
I asked for two six packs at the deli and told the guy behind the
counter the news. He looked fifty years old, graying, big belly, life still
in his eyes, and he said, "Shit, that's too bad. I guess our only hope now
is if the Beatles get back together."
Fifty years old.
I told him I thought that that would be the biggest anti-climax in
history and that the best thing the Stones could do now would be to break up
and spare us all further embarrassments.
He laughed and gave me directions to a meat market down the street.
There I asked the counterman the same question I'd been asking everybody. He
was in his fifties too, and he said, "Y'know what? I don't care that
bastard's dead. I took my wife to see him in Vegas in '73, we paid fourteen
dollars a ticket, and he came out and sang for twenty minutes. Then he fell
down. Then he stood up and sang a couple more songs, then he fell down
again. Finally he said, 'Shit. I might as well sing sitting as standing.' So
he squatted on the stage and asked the band what song they wanted to do
next, but before they could answer he was complaining about the lights.
'They were too bright' he says. 'They hurt my eyes. Put 'em out or I don't
sing a note.' So they do. So me and my wife are sitting in total blackness
listening to this guy sing songs we knew and loved, and I aint just talking
about his old goddamn songs, and he totally butchered all of them. Fuck him.
I'm not saying I'm glad he's dead, but I know one thing: I got taken when I
went to see Elvis Presley."
I got taken too the one time I went to see Elvis, but in a totally
different way. It was in the autumn of '71, and two tickets to an Elvis show
showed up at the offices of Creem magazine where I then worked. It was
decided that two people who'd never gotten to see Elvis before would get to
go see this show. That's how me and art director Charlie Auringer wound up
in nearly the front row of the biggest arena in Detroit. Earlier Charlie had
said, "Do you realize how much we could have got if we'd sold these fuckin'
things?" I didn't. But how precious they were became totally clear the
moment Elvis sauntered onto the stage. He was the only male performer that I
have ever seen to whom I responded to sexually; it wasn't real arousal,
rather an erection of the heart, when I looked at him I went mad with desire
and envy and worship and self-projection. I mean, Mick Jagger, whom I saw as
far back as 1964 and twice in '65 never even came close.
There was Elvis, dressed up in this ridiculous white suit which looked
like some studded Arthurian white castle, and he was too fat, and the buckle
on his belt was larger than your head, except that your head is not made of
solid gold, and any lesser man would have been the spitting image of a Neil
Diamond damn fool in such a getup, but on Elvis it fit. What didn't? No
matter how lousy his records ever got, no matter how intently he pursued
mediocrity, there was still some hint, some flash leftover from the days
when,...well I wasn't there so I won't presume to comment. But I will say
this: Elvis Presley was the man who brought overt blatant vulgar sexual
frenzy to the popular arts in America (and thereby to the nation itself,
since putting 'popular arts' and 'America' in the same sentence seems almost
redundant). It has been said that he was the first white to sing like a
black person, which is untrue in terms of hard facts but totally true in
terms of cultural impact. But what's more crucial is that when Elvis started
wiggling his hips and Ed Sullivan refused to show it, the entire country
went into a paroxysm of sexual frustration leading to abiding discontent
which culminated in the explosion of psychedelic-militant folklore which was
the sixties.
I mean don't tell me about Lenny Bruce, man--Lenny Bruce said dirty
words in public and obtained a kind of consensual martyrdom. Plus which
Lenny Bruce was hip, too goddam hip if you ask me, which was his undoing,
whereas Elvis was not hip at all, Elvis was a goddam truck driver who
worshipped his mother and would never say shit or fuck around her, and Elvis
altered America to the fact that it had a groin with imperatives that had
been stifled. Lenny Bruce demonstrated how far you could push a society as
repressed as ours and how much you could get away with it, but Elvis kicked
"How Much Is That Doggie In The Window' out the window and replaced it with,
"Let's fuck." The rest of us are still reeling from the impact. Sexual chaos
still reigns currently, but out of chaos may flow true understanding and
harmony. That night in Detroit, a night I will never forget, he had but to
ever so slightly move one shoulder muscle, not even a shrug, and the girls
in the gallery hit by its ray screamed, fainted, howled in heat. Literally,
every time this man moved any part of his body the slightest centimeter,
tens of tens of thousands of people went berserk. Not Sinatra, not Jagger,
not the Beatles, nobody you can come up with ever elicited such hysteria
among so many. And this after a decade and a half of crappy records, of
making a point of not trying.
If love truly is going out of fashion forever, which I do not believe,
then along with our nurtured indifference to each other will be an even more
contemptuous indifference to each other's objects of reverence. I thought it
was Iggy Stooge, you thought it was Joni Mitchell or whoever else seemed to
speak for your own private, entirely circumscribed situation's many pains
and few ecstasies. We will continue to fragment in this manner, because
solipsism holds all the cards at present: it is a king whose domain engulfs
even Elvis'. But I guarantee you one thing: WE WILL NEVER AGAIN AGREE ON
ANYTHING AS WE AGREED ON ELVIS. So I won't bother saying good-bye to his
corpse. I will say good-bye to you.

Well, that's the article. I don't know why he remembers Elvis as being
heavy in '71, and I don't know what to make of that meat couter man's
opinion of an Elvis show in '73. I was also offended by his comment that we
should wave good-bye with one upturned finger. I didn't go through any of
the sexual things he talked about when I saw Elvis, but then again I hadn't
even reached puberty yet. lol. but I do like the way he ended the
article,...the part about how we will never again agree on anything as we
agreed on Elvis, because I agree with that sentiment. Wait a minute,...if I
agree with him,...doesn't that mean that his statement is wrong? Nah. I
guess I'm being too cynical on that one.
As for his belief that Elvis had contempt for his audience, I don't
think he was taking into account how much control over Elvis Parker had, and
I doubt he would have cared even if he did take that into account. We'll
never know exactly why Parker had that kind of control over Elvis, we can
speculate, but we'll never know. I was hoping that after the Colonel died,
some kind of truth would come to light. But it never happened. And until it
does, we can assuredly expect Elvis to continue taking the blame in the
press for all of Parker's horrid decisions throughout the 60's and 70's.

Scott


Dennis A. Rodgers

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Jun 2, 2001, 12:19:50 AM6/2/01
to
About the Lester Bangs article, Scott wrote:

> As for his belief that Elvis had contempt for his audience, I don't
>think he was taking into account how much control over Elvis Parker had, and
>I doubt he would have cared even if he did take that into account.

Obviously, Bangs interpreted Elvis's 'indifference' as being
'contempt.' I don't view it that way myself, but I can see how he
draws such a conclusion.

In my view, Parker and RCA had contempt for Elvis's audience. "Having
Fun with Elvis on Stage" is only one example of this. And Elvis just
didn't care enough to try and change that perception.

I find it interesting when Bangs writes: "In the end Elvis' scorn for


his fans as manifested in 'new' albums full of previously released

material and one new song to make sure all us suckers would buy it..."
This has become a standard practice in the music business these days.
How many artists, even those with "integrity" like Bruce Springsteen,
have released "Greatest Hits" CD's padded with a couple new
tracks...just so the hard-core fans, who already have all the hits,
will go ahead and sink $15 into the new release? Let's face it...this
is a cynical business.

>but I do like the way he ended the
>article,...the part about how we will never again agree on anything as we
>agreed on Elvis, because I agree with that sentiment. Wait a minute,...if I
>agree with him,...doesn't that mean that his statement is wrong? Nah. I
>guess I'm being too cynical on that one.

I also like the final paragraph as well, where Bangs writes:

>If love truly is going out of fashion forever, which I do not believe,
>then along with our nurtured indifference to each other will be an even more
>contemptuous indifference to each other's objects of reverence. I thought it
>was Iggy Stooge, you thought it was Joni Mitchell or whoever else seemed to
>speak for your own private, entirely circumscribed situation's many pains
>and few ecstasies. We will continue to fragment in this manner, because
>solipsism holds all the cards at present: it is a king whose domain engulfs
>even Elvis'. But I guarantee you one thing: WE WILL NEVER AGAIN AGREE ON
>ANYTHING AS WE AGREED ON ELVIS. So I won't bother saying good-bye to his
>corpse. I will say good-bye to you.

I posted this paragraph on AEK a couple years ago and caught shit for
it. I think the real sentiment here was lost on some people.

Thanks for the post, Scott. This is the first time I've read this
entire article in many, many years.

Dennis

Moono123

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Jun 2, 2001, 12:23:48 AM6/2/01
to

> Lester Bangs is a fairly known music critic who has worked for Creem,
>Rolling Stone and a few other music related magazines. A few weeks after
>Elvis died he wrote this article on him,...it appeared in The Village Voice.
>One can tell that Lester is far from being an Elvis fan, however, a lot of
>things had not yet surfaced about Colonel Tom Parker at the time of this
>writing. I have no idea if Lester's feelings have changed at all, but if
>you're one of those Elvis fans who can't handle reading anything bad said
>about him....I suggest you skip this and move onto the next post....
>
> Where Were You When Elvis Died? - By Lester Bangs
>
> Where were you when Elvis died? What were you doing and what did it give
>you an excuse to do with the rest of your day? That's what we'll be talking
>about in the future when we remember this grand occasion. Like Pearl Harbor
>of JFK's assassination, it boils down to individual reminiscences, which is
>perhaps as it should be, because in spite of his greatness, ect., ect.,


(Snipped the rest because of length)
-----------------------------------------------------
It is obvious to me, like many other intellectuals, Lester Bangs really didn't
understand Elvis and why he did what he did and was what he was.

Some of what Bangs says comes close to reality but like other writers of his
ilk, like Guralnick, Goldman and a few others, his, what can be termed as his
NY type of intellectualistic opinions about Elvis and what he supposedly was
thinking, was off base. The problem is they pass it off as fact and many
people who read these guys take it as truth and reality.

In addition, Elvis' belly didn't hang over his belt in 1971 but these writers
like to add that bullshit that happened later in his life.

However, there is reverence there, hidden amongst his style of writing.

Sometimes it's amusing to us who were close to Elvis to read some of this stuff
by these guys but we take it for what it's worth.

Bangs is better than some and it's up to you the reader to come to the decision
as to how it makes you feel.

Marty

Dennis A. Rodgers

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Jun 2, 2001, 1:37:40 AM6/2/01
to
>One can tell that Lester is far from being an Elvis fan, however, a lot of
>things had not yet surfaced about Colonel Tom Parker at the time of this
>writing. I have no idea if Lester's feelings have changed at all,

Bangs was a fan, BTW...and I don't think his feelings have changed
much of late. He died years ago.

Dennis

OverDrive

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Jun 2, 2001, 2:03:09 AM6/2/01
to
Very interesting article Scott. I feel the same way about this article
as I did reading a review of a 1975-6 Elvis concert (The one good
chance I had to see him, free tickets too, parents wouldn't let me go
all the way to Seattle..damnit!). Anyway, the review was in a paper
called The Georgia Straight (Vancouver, Canada), it was a publication
similar to the Village Voice, in that it was a somewhat "underground"
publication. I remember the reviewer said something to the effect "And
all of a sudden, there he was, it was him...Jailhouse Rock, Ed
Sullivan, GI-Blues, Blue Hawaii...it was unbelievable....it was like
seeing God, only finding out he has dirty fingernails"

I find mostly reverence in Bangs article, some harsh, but
accurate criticisms, but mostly a large nod to the magic that Elvis
possessed over his fans. What he was trying to say in general, was
that Elvis was #1 in our minds, even though he may have lost the
"edge" that made him #1 in the first place, only, most of us didn't
notice.

ElvisOnAir

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Jun 2, 2001, 9:27:17 AM6/2/01
to
>And until it
>does, we can assuredly expect Elvis to continue taking the blame in the
>press for all of Parker's horrid decisions throughout the 60's and 70's.
>
>
>
>Scott
>
>
Scott--Thanks for your entertaining and informative posts. You are one of the
bright spots on this NG. Just wanted to give you kudos for your contributions.


Stephen Christopher
Elvis On The Air
Elvis...@aol.com
Visit my web site at
http://www.elvisontheair.com

Johnny S

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Jun 2, 2001, 3:50:44 PM6/2/01
to
Lester Bangs was a crazed, manic writer, but his best stuff makes you
think about the music. Bangs didn't just listen, he felt. And his
passion for the uplifting qualities of rock and roll is undeniable. And
he loved Elvis as much as he loved anyone who made great music.

An anthology of his amazing reviews and more is available. It's called
"Psychotic Reactions and Carburator Dung" and is edited by Greil Marcus.
If you liked what Scott posted, there's more in this book.

I think it's very wrong of Marty to include Lester in the same company as
Albert Goldman or even Peter Guralnick, because Goldman hated rock music,
hated the culture than sprang from it and, as his shit bio "Elvis" proved,
really hated Elvis Presley. Neither Bangs nor Guranick can be accused of
those things.

Good post, Scott!

Johnny
U-S-A

In article <20010602002348...@ng-fh1.aol.com>,

Dennis A. Rodgers

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Jun 2, 2001, 4:49:48 PM6/2/01
to
>
>I think it's very wrong of Marty to include Lester in the same company as
>Albert Goldman or even Peter Guralnick, because Goldman hated rock music,
>hated the culture than sprang from it and, as his shit bio "Elvis" proved,
>really hated Elvis Presley. Neither Bangs nor Guranick can be accused of
>those things.
>

Lester Bangs belongs in the same company as Greil Marcus and Dave
Marsh.

And I mean this to be a complement!

Dennis

LuckyMitzi

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Jun 2, 2001, 6:28:31 PM6/2/01
to
>Scott--Thanks for your entertaining and informative posts. You are one of the
>bright spots on this NG. Just wanted to give you kudos for your
>contributions.

May I add that Scott is a brilliant writer in his own right.The man probably
has a career at Rolling Stone,Vibe,or any other magazine(s) that require
high-end talent.
Lucky

Scott

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Jun 3, 2001, 1:54:13 AM6/3/01
to
"Johnny S" <regt...@NOSPAMyahoo.com> wrote

> I think it's very wrong of Marty to include Lester in the same company as
> Albert Goldman or even Peter Guralnick, because Goldman hated rock music,
> hated the culture than sprang from it and, as his shit bio "Elvis" proved,
> really hated Elvis Presley. Neither Bangs nor Guranick can be accused of
> those things.

What are the odds that one out of two people a journalist goes out and
talks to--in one of the most populated cities in the world--has actually
witnessed one of the worst shows of Elvis' whole career? Seems like high
odds to me.
I think Lester, while maybe considered a good writer by some, is full of
more shit than a barnyard. But that's just my opinion. :-)


Scott

Johnny S

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Jun 3, 2001, 2:41:55 AM6/3/01
to
Lester Bangs attended the Boston gig in Nov'71 and his obit draws from
that. I thought that was considered a good show. The "import" sounds
decent.

Bangs was a tremendous writer, love his opinions or not.

Johnny

In article <9ikS6.14874$651.1...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,

Cathy

unread,
Jun 3, 2001, 1:08:24 PM6/3/01
to

Bangs once said Elvis was only 'two points smarter than a mule'...now
there's a statement to get riled about!

Makes him sound very Goldmanlike, doesn't it? Except JohnnyS makes a
couple of good points here as to why the Goldman label doesn't quite
fit. He did, however, seem to fall victim to the elitist world view from
time to time that Marty charges him with; pondering Elvis' intellectual
capacity and finding him only a couple of points smarter than a plowhand
with four legs, would seem right up there with the kind of elitist,
intellectual snobbery that Goldman was guilty of.

The thing about these critics, whether it's Marcus, Marsh, Bangs, or
Guralnick, is that they all, in their way, are in awe of what Elvis
did. Some would say they get too pretentious and overstate his
importance or stretch their theories like a rubberband in order to draw
conclusions that needn't have been reached for in the first place, but
each one of them offers--in highly entertaining reading--a view that
can't be dismissed out of hand in the same way we can Goldman's "hatin'
Elvis and lovin' it" tome.

My favorite Bang quote from the article has never been the last
paragraph, because it seems dated now. The widely accepted view of
Elvis as a big deal, a big deal that for once lived up to the hype, is
no longer a view that we can say is unanimously held (OK, I also know
he's speaking figuratively, and not literally touting solid figures to
buttress a claim), but here's the Bang quote that will never be outdated
and shows that he, Bangs, "got" what Elvis was about, culturally:


"Lenny Bruce demonstrated how far you could push a society as
repressed as ours and how much you could get away with it, but Elvis
kicked
'How Much Is That Doggie In The Window' out the window and replaced it
with,

'Let's fuck.'

While I'm at it, can I just say thanks to Dennis, Scott, Marty, Pauley
and Johnnyangel for the interesting reading here the last couple of
days? I'm late to the table and can't add much because you've all
covered it, but I can't resist saying: Luck, schmuck.

Cathy

Johnnynoangel

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Jun 3, 2001, 1:46:37 PM6/3/01
to
>From: "Scott" Sc...@elvis.com
>Date: 6/3/01 12:54 AM Central

> What are the odds that one out of two people a journalist goes out and
>talks to--in one of the most populated cities in the world--has actually
>witnessed one of the worst shows of Elvis' whole career? Seems like high
>odds to me.

But, VERY POSSIBLE!
knowing NYC.

> I think Lester, while maybe considered a good writer by some, is full of
>more shit than a barnyard.

I dug his article you posted.
Where can I read more by him?
I think he's very talented.
Have you read any Rolling Stone articles lately........HORRIBLE!!
IMHO

Johnny~

Cathy

unread,
Jun 3, 2001, 2:19:45 PM6/3/01
to


Johnny:

Do you have "The Elvis Reader" by Kevin Quain? It's in there.

Articles by the following great writers make this a worthy addition to
your Elvis library, if you don't have it:

Nick Tosches, "Elvis in Death"
Tubbs Gillis, "The Elvis Junkyard"
Linda Ray Pratt, "Elvis, or Ironies of a Southern Identity"
Stanley Booth, "A Hound Dog, to the Manor Born"
Roy Blount, Jr., "Elvis!"

You'd also get some historically significant writing, such as John
Lardner's 1956 Newsweek column, "Devitalizing Elvis" where he chides
Steve Allen for trying to 'detwitch' Elvis.

Great writing on Elvis stylistic innovation(!) too:

"All Shook Up?" by Richard Middleton


Cathy

Cynthia Tappan-O'Boyle

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Jun 3, 2001, 1:51:20 PM6/3/01
to
hy -- scott --- thanks for your post on the lester bangs post,,
interesting -- take care ,, thanks for keeping E's memory and music
alive. friends and fans of elvis ,
dennis and cindy

may god bless and keep you always and may you stay forever young.

Johnnynoangel

unread,
Jun 3, 2001, 2:16:57 PM6/3/01
to
>From: Cathy cat...@bellsouth.net

Hey Cathy,

Looks like I have my 'summer reading'
planned out now.

Thank you for the information.

Johnny~

Dixie

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Jun 3, 2001, 3:14:06 PM6/3/01
to
I have the import too and thought it was a great show...and why did Lester
Bangs said that Elvis' belly hung over his belt during this concert?? I saw
pics from this show and he was still fit and trim...

Isabelle

Johnny Savage

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Jun 3, 2001, 7:59:37 PM6/3/01
to
Cathy, your clearly well-read contributions elevate the level of
conversation here. Thanks!

Johnny
Albany CA
U-S-A!

Johnny Savage

unread,
Jun 3, 2001, 8:01:34 PM6/3/01
to
Lester Bangs made no secret of his own drug problems. He was probably
wasted at the concert on his usual combination of pills and cough syrup.

Johnny
Albany CA
U-S-A!

Scott

unread,
Jun 4, 2001, 4:02:08 AM6/4/01
to

"Dixie" <ys...@videotron.ca> wrote in message
news:B74004BC.84E7%ys...@videotron.ca...

> I have the import too and thought it was a great show...and why did Lester
> Bangs said that Elvis' belly hung over his belt during this concert?? I
saw
> pics from this show and he was still fit and trim...
>
> Isabelle

Yea, exactly. How could he possibly remember it another way? And if he
can't even be honest with his own memories I see no reason to trust him when
he's quoting some source that it would be impossible to check on either.
This isn't about the fact that he had a different view of Presley, this is
about the fact that he's obviously providing suspect information.
I also got a kick out of how he would add an uneeded S at the end of
plural words that already ended in S. I had to correct those mistakes when I
posted it. Things like,....Elvis's....

Scott

joan harkness

unread,
Jun 5, 2001, 8:53:30 PM6/5/01
to
For those interested, Lester Bangs was portrayed in the movie "Almost
Famous" by Phillp Seymour Hoffman. he seemed like real interesting guy. and
he was an Elvis fan. Just not a kiss ass Elvis fan like some people here
are. he died in 1982 of a drug overdose.

.H.


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