The late, great music critic Lester Bangs made a name for himself as editor-in-chief of Detroit-based Creem magazine, known for his gonzo writing style, sharp wit, and love of rock ’n’ roll.
Apparently, Bangs brought the same energy to everything he wrote — even a 1976 office memo in which he unloaded on Creem publisher Barry Kramer, demanding a raise, health insurance, new typewriters for his staff, and a vacation so he could get married and take a honeymoon.
The unearthed letter is published in the latest issue of Creem — revived last year by Kramer’s son as a quarterly following a decades-long hiatus — as part of a cover story package dedicated to Bangs that coincides with what would have been his 75th birthday.
A photo from the era shows what appears to be Kramer and Bangs playfully squaring off in the Creem office. But the letter — which Bangs claimed he spent weeks writing and editing, finishing it at home on a typewriter he purchased with his own money from Detroit’s former Hudson’s department store — shows how fraught the relationship between the two men actually was at that point.
“I’m in this thing too deep,” Bangs wrote. “So don’t bother ever threatening to fire me again, either,” he added later in the letter. “Because you can’t. It’s as simple as that; we’re stuck with each other.”
At issue was Bangs’s declining income, since Kramer discouraged him from pursuing freelance opportunities in rival publications like Rolling Stone. “You may have noticed, however, that we do have a better magazine,” Bangs wrote. “In fact, I think that with some very minor exceptions, the April issue may just be both the best issue aesthetically and the biggest single seller we have ever had. I’ve been telling everybody it’s a killer.”
At another point in the letter, Bangs boasted that he made Creem “the most fantastick, incredible, far-out, intellectual, streetwise, and generally mind-fucking rock ’n’ roll magazine in the history of the world.”
The letter is peppered with other instances of Bangs’s signature brash style. That year, Creem’s Jaan Uhelszki, one of the first women to work in rock journalism, left the magazine to head to Los Angeles. Bangs said her replacement should also be a woman, “for reasons I can’t quite explain but make some sort of interior sense and have nothing to do with my pecker,” he maintained. “Maybe a lesbian would brighten the place up a bit.”
The letter also offered a glimpse into his musical tastes at the time. Bangs said his interest in Lou Reed, an obsession of his that resulted in some of his best, most compelling writing, had waned (except for Metal Machine Music, which he demanded to be allowed to listen to in the office at full volume; “This is, after all, a rock ’n’ roll magazine”) and he was now championing reggae (which he called “the only real soul music around”).
“An acquired taste, but addictive once you get the message; also, the perfect antidote to disco poisoning,” he added.
In the letter, Bangs also slammed Kramer for eavesdropping on his phone calls and accused him of stealing his drugs, though he found common ground over the fact that Kramer had allegedly gotten caught on the job drunk. “Welcome to the club,” Bangs wrote, adding, “this single incident will probably provide a bond in degeneracy which will help bring us closer together as friends and coworkers.”
Bangs urged Kramer to set aside their differences for the greater good. “Whatever unpleasant feelings might ever have existed between you and I become irrelevant, paltry in the face of the goal towards which we are working and fighting together,” he wrote.
He added, “the very fact that I would take the time and trouble to be as honest with you as I have here proves that I am probably a better friend of yours than you think, so — shake.”
Bangs ended the letter asking for an immediate $25 per week raise and signed it, “Your most loyal nemesis.”
Despite the impassioned missive, Bangs left Creem later that year for New York City, where he went on to write for The Village Voice, Playboy, and NME, among others. Kramer died in 1981 of a drug overdose at age 37. The next year, Bangs also died of a drug overdose at age 33.
His work has gone on to influence generations of journalists, and he was even portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the 2000 movie Almost Famous, depicted wearing his iconic “DETROIT SUCKS” T-shirt. (A native of California, Bangs came to fall in love with the Motor City, calling it “rock’s only hope.”)
Bangs appears on the new issue’s cover in an illustration by Gary Ciccarelli, who created a number of classic Creem covers in the 1970s. The special issue also includes an annotated selection of some of Bangs’s best work, as well as thoughts on the writer from former and current Creem staffers.
That’s in addition to classic features like the “Creem Dream” (featuring heartthrob Mitski this issue), the beer-soaked “Creem Profiles” (with Japanese band Boris), and “Stars Cars” (a 1978 El Camino owned by Matt Pike of California metal band High of Fire), as well as new features like “Greetings from Detroit” by Protomartyr frontman Joe Casey (who you should totally check out this Saturday at the Majestic Theatre).
The new issue is available for purchase from creem.com.
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