Bangsiana, Ephemera, and Art

Graphic for Lester Bangs column "Back In the U.S.A." named after MC5's 1970 debut album. Source: NME (New Musical Express) 18 September 1976

a graphic story panel with close-up of Bangs Source: "Meeting of the Minds: Lester Bangs versus Handsome Dick Manitoba." Punk Magazine 1.4 (July 1976): 31.

1977 New York poster "I Used To Be a Sailor Bangs Declaims" Issued by Ork Records in anticipation of Lester Bangs's forthcoming EP, this is a rare poster and typescript for Lester Bangs's June 1977 debut at CBGBs, with band members J. D. Dougherty, Robert Quine, Jody Harris, and David Hofstra. Spy records later released the "Let It Blurt" 7" single instead. Transcript: "BANGS DECLAIMS-- Lester Bangs, renowned rock-crit and now fledgling ORK artist, announces his forthcoming debut at CBGB’s, scheduled for June 13th and 14th. Lester, whose early writings in CREEM paved the way for what we now call p**k rock, hopes he can soon make a name for himself in said genre as the “Idi Amin Dada” of the Lower East Side. Mr. Bangs has been in the studio for weeks now refining originals such as “No Truth”, “Flesh For Sale”, “Live”, and “People Don't Wait”, along with covers of classics like Little Milton’s “Feel So Bad” and Swamp Dogg’s “Total Destruction To Your Mind”. His band will consist of J. D. Dougherty of the Patti Smith Group on drums, Bob Quine of the Void-Oids and Jody Harris of the Screws on guitars, as well as David Hofstra, also of the Screws, on bass. The irrepressible Bangs also hopes to record an EP for ORK Records and is considering a Japanese offer for a line of bubble gum cards. It should be a very special evening, for, as Lester so succinctly puts it: “The only difference between me and Lenny Kaye is I'm not president of a record company...yet.” Chris Stamey, bassist for the Alex Chilton band, gazes at Lester’s elbow from below his stylish fat-top in dazed admiration of the man’s unmitigated gall. Charles Ball, president of ORK, was on Romilar at the time and unavailable for comment. You can blame him if you want to."

Punk Magazine Awards Show poster, October 13, 1978, Club Hollywood, with Lester Bangs as a "surprise guest"; Bangs was awarded "Best Dressed." Art design: Bruce Carleton (with Ken Weiner and John Holstrom)

poster for March 9, 1979 performance of Birdland, with Lester Bangs, at Max's Kansas City nightclub and restaurant, in New York City. Birdland performed the same night as Sappho. Poster art by Anney Bonney. Image donated to the Lester Bangs Archive by JoAnn Uhelszki.

1980 poster for performance at The 'Dillo (a.k.a. Armadillo World Headquarters) in Austin, Texas Lester Bangs and The Delinquents/Talking Heads, on November 21, 1980. Source: Jook Savages On the Brazos re-issue CD liner notes, Live Wire Records, LW-20 (2009)

1980 Austin, TX. Poster promoting November 7, 1980 debut performance of New York artist, "Lester Bangs & Band" at Dukes, with Austin rockabilly punk group Aces 88, and a third band. Source: Jook Savages On the Brazos re-issue CD liner notes, Live Wire Records, LW-20 (2009)

1980 Austin, TX Lester Bangs and The Delinquents poster for performance at Club Foot on November 28, 1980. Source: Jook Savages On the Brazos re-issue CD liner notes, Live Wire Records, LW-20 (2009)

1980 Austin, TX Lester Bangs and The Delinquents poster for performance at Dukes on November 7, 1980; with Austin rockabilly/punk band Aces 88. Source: Jook Savages On the Brazos re-issue CD liner notes, Live Wire Records, LW-20 (2009)

1980 Ft Worth, TX Delinquents poster for performance at Zero's on November 14 and 15, 1980. Source: Jook Savages On the Brazos re-issue CD liner notes, Live Wire Records, LW-20 (2009)

1980 Austin, TX Lester Bangs and The Delinquents poster for performance at the ETA Frat House on October 31, 1980. Source: Jook Savages On the Brazos re-issue CD liner notes, Live Wire Records, LW-20 (2009)

1980 Live Wire Records poster for Lester Bangs and The Delinquents

1981 pin badge for Jook Savages On the Brazos

1982 flyer for Tribute Reading organized by CREEM Magazine employees organized two weeks after Lester Bangs's death. Readers included Billy Altman, Georgia and Robert Christgau, Richard Hell, M. Mark, Dave Marsh, Legs McNeil, Nick Tosches, Nancy Stillman and Judith Wilmot. A recorded reading by Richard Meltzer was also presented.

1986 poster for the posthumously issued Birdland album, included with limited edition copies of the LP

2001 Detroit, Michigan postcard, "Heart of Detroit by Moonlight." (Lester Bangs is included in the upper right corner.) Image adapted from Kate Simon's iconic 1975 "In the Bunker" photo; artist credits: Mike Kelley, Cary Loren, and Jim Shaw.

2005 promotional button commemorating the thirtieth anniversary reissue of Patti Smith's 1975 debut album, Horses, featuring a quote from Lester Bangs's review, "Patti Smith's Top 40 Insurrection" (Phonograph Record Magazine May/June 1978): "Horses was one of the greatest records I've ever heard," writes Bangs. "Like all true art, it drew you into recognizable situations and illuminated, poetically heightened them (as "We Three" does here), rather than just preaching at you and ranting that its creator was an Artist. . . . Horses changed my life, but I've recognized that there was something almost supernatural about the powers it tapped, that no artist or audience can expect that kind of baptism in the firmamental flames every time." Bangs's article was actually written to review Smith's second LP, Easter, but Horses is the LP that prompted the name for his newly formed group—inspired by one of the tracks from the album he found most moving: "Birdland."

Lester Bangs character depicted in the 2010 "Fame: Lady Gaga" graphic novel; writer Dan Rafter; artist, Tess Fowler. Bluewater Productions, 2010. In this hard-to-explain overlap of Lady Gaga and Lester Bangs, Bangs discovers an escape from musical sterility by finding the Gaga diva within. Laugh if you like, but this free comic book is one of the few works to portray Lester Bangs as the sexual outsider he saw himself to be—an inconvenient truth ignored by the rock establishment "white noise heterocentrists" since Bangs's death in 1982. The full comic is available on-line for free as well as for purchase.

Grossmont College Lester Bangs "Walk of Fame" bronze plaque Dedication Ceremony, May 21, 2010; sponsored by the Grossmont Cuyamaca Foundation and the English Dept./Creative Writing Program

Comic "Bangs in Jamaica"artist Nathan Gielgud; Smoke Signal: A Free All-Comics Newspaper 5 (14 June 2010). http://nathangelgud.blogspot.com

2012 Lester Bangs Memorial Reading Far East Project poster, El Cajon, California (Grossmont College)