[Lester] Bangs concluded that his own "career/life as a punk" had started ten years earlier, when he forked over $3.50 for the Count Five album at Ratner's Records in San Diego. At the age of twenty-eight, he felt like a grand old man on the new rock scene, but as such he was perfectly positioned to chart the music's aesthetic and explain its impetus. "The point is that rock 'n' roll, as I see it, is the ultimate populist art form, democracy in action, because it's true: anybody can do it," he wrote. "For performing rock 'n' roll, or punk rock, or call it any damn thing you please, there's only one thing you need: NERVE. Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, and if you've got the attitude you can do it, no matter what anybody says. Because passion is what it's all about-what all music is about."--from "Prisoner of Punk," Spin, 2000
+ An index of selected Lester Bangs articles.
+ "Lester Bangs, King of the Noise Boys"
+ "Bang's Life vs. His Art"
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