Par for the course, far behind on this, to which we were going to link, as we'd already banged our toe on this non-commitment.
Now it is brought to our attention that others have noticed & responded.
Our reaction: Astral Weeks? Who'd want to hear what it sounded like? Another tortured singer-songwriter complaining mid-tempo. We prefer complaints about existential agony from Americans like Bangs, because we can understand them.
2 comments:
Lester was also the first ardent champion of the Mekons. Other than Peel, of course.
Here's what he wrote for the liner notes to The Mekons Story:
"The Mekons are the most revolutionary group in the history of rock 'n' roll. They are also the finest artists ever to have graced this admittedly somewhat degenerate form with the grace of their aesthetic sensibilities, rarefied as a glimpse through a butterfly's wing. The muses gobbled cantharides for these fellows. Collectively they compromise a kind of Sistine Chapel ceiling neath which the pathetic mess of pottage which is commonly snickered off as the 'rock scene' from PiL to Black Oak Arkansas, can but swash buboed forearms cross their offal-crusted snouts and recommence to grovel together in the La Brea-trackless depths of corporate swill.
Remember the scene in Lina Wertmuller's SEVEN BEAUTIES where the concentration camp inmate commits suicide by swandiving into a vat of festeringly clotted human excrement approximately the length and depth of Troy Donahue's pool at the La Cienega he owned in the summer of 1963? And all because he would rather drown lungs full of shit than endure one more moment of this travesty posing as existence. Well, that's how John L$d$n told me he felt after hearing this new LP by the Mekons. 'I must give it up' he wailed, knocking over his bottle of Tetley's AND NOT BOTHERING TO GET ANOTHER ONE! He took his vial of crystal meth and poured it out of the open window of Virgin Records' offices, where it was quickly devoured by a passing train of abbesses, who began to frug frantically while lamenting as one keening dolorous wind-chilled whine their ignorance of the current whereabouts of "Killer" Joe Piro, as well as Monti Rock III...
..."Man! I thought I had 'em conned with that Public Image shit but these cats called my bluff! I'm a washout!"...
Meanwhile the planet Earth is rid of yet another snivelling ingrate. The Mekons may now assume their proper place in the highest bowers in the hallowed halls of Rocque (co-leased by Wolfman Jack and Sid Bernstein). THEY ARE BETTER THAN THE BEATLES. They are better than Budgie and REO Speedwagon combined, they gave me $1500 for writing these notes. They come not to bury rock but to gourmandize it. All their Daddies are rich which is why they get to keep putting out this swill. I have never heard this album. I never will. I have better things to do such as misting my Begonias or playing Eno's MUSIC FOR PIZZERIAS to my Goldfish to wean him off his Valium habit. Music is all worthless garbage as obselete as a lorgnette at a destruction derby in 'south' carolina. I never listen to music and neither do the Mekons. They make it instead. Everybody has to do something. My advise to you is to kill yourself. But buy this record first. It will make a nice coaster for your grieving relatives to put their Bushmills and water on.
NYC January 1981 "
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