"O.K, I'm a rock critic. I also write and record music. I write poetry, fiction, straight journalism, unstraight journalism, beatnik drivel, mortifying love letters, death threats to white jazz critics signed 'The Mau Maus of East Harlem', and once a year my own obituary (latest entry: "Les Bangs, He was promising...") the point is that I have no idea what kind of a writer I am, except I do know that I'm good and lots of people read whatever it is I do, and I like it that way." Lester Bangs

It happened slowly at first but by Chapter 4 of Mainlines, Blood Feasts And Bad Taste, we had declared our undying love for one another. Me and Les, we're the same, but different. I'm not amphetamine, nicotine or alcohol addicted, but when I was a toddler I remember I liked to jug on cough syrup too. In fact, Les had a cold when he drank his last poison -Dextropropoxyphene mixed with Diazepam.

That's my Les, addicted as fuck but other than that we were pretty much perfectly matched. I felt and still feel his spiritual pain about music and its people - which he lived for.

Lester lived his life to be connected. It was his thing. He was condemned to intensity from birth by a devout Jehovas witness mother and a drifting labourer for a father who was burned to death in a house fire before Les was 9 years old.

Lester Conway Bangs. My true love. By profession, he was categorized as a rock critic but he didn't dig the notion that someone had to have a 'career' instead of just 'doing' what the hell they 'wanted to do'. For the love of God! I couldn't agree more. The label 'rock critic' amused him - if it didn't make him want to vom!

Les, if you are reading this, you should know that the girl writing this review longs to re-connect with the one who can love his music and its people so deeply that he would disappear into the realm of ghosts for them.

By Julie "Thanks to Cupid McDonald who introduced me to LB" Montan