Conversations with Greil Marcus

Online Exchange with Greil Marcus

130 Online Exchange with Greil Marcus RockCritics.com/2002 From RockCritics.com, 2002. Used by permission. Readers of this site were invited to submit questions to music critic Greil Marcus, who sent his responses by e-mail. Thanks to everyone who took part in this exchange. From: Tonya Subject: Question for Greil Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 09:15:38 I have two questions: A) Do you have any research (published or otherwise) or notable quotes regarding the Portland, OR hardcore/punk band Poison Idea or their singer Jerry A? This band never seems to get its due . . . it always just gets “mentioned ” in the same breath as The Wipers . . . and nobody wants to dig any deeper than to state the obvious about them. B) With all the books/articles you’ve written on the subject of punk, why have these leviathans of the genre gone relatively unsung? Greil Marcus: No idea. From: Steven Rubio Subject: Question for Greil Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 09:18:43 Hey Greil. My question is pretty obvious, but maybe no one else asked it: what do you think of the canonization of rock critics that a site like RockCritics .com represents? Why does rock criticism lend itself to this kind of, for lack of a better word, idolatry? Film critics never got or get this particular kind of attention . . . someone like James Agee was famous, but not really for his criticism as much as his other work, and others from that era, ROCK CRITICS.COM / 2002 131 say Manny Farber or Robert Warshow, weren’t quite the “stars” that writers such as yourself have become amongst a certain population. Even Pauline was more important as an inspiration to future critics and as a conscience to filmmakers than she was a key popular figure (although I guess Roger Ebert might be the one to give the lie to my argument). Cameron Crowe might have gotten it wrong in Almost Famous, but the fact that Lester Bangs is an important character in a popular, highly-regarded movie is telling, I think; I can’t recall anything similar featuring a film critic, or a book critic, or a cultural critic of any type. GM: Dear Steve, I wasn’t aware rock critics were being canonized, but now that you mention it, be sure to address me properly the next time we run into each other—and by the way, what is the proper form of address to a saint? I don’t think it’s “St. So and So,” because you have to be dead to be a saint. “He who is sure to rise above me” might do, but it’s a mouthful. I think perhaps just backing off several feet before speaking might be ok. But in fact I don’t see it, not remotely. Lester, when he was alive, was certainly a magnet for certain kinds of scenesters, and Lester played a role, he both loved and hated his scene-making as a Falstaff—as a clown, a fool, a crazy, a madman, and so on. Dead, he can be a hero, a mentor, a presence, a conscience—but it seems to me he appears in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous not because of his larger-than-life role in pop culture and his status as a wise man, but because he was personally important to Cameron. He made a difference in Cameron’s life. He appears in the movie, and for all I know played the same role in Cameron’s career, as Cameron’s ideal audience—someone who could tell the difference between truth and lie, on the artist’s own terms. There was a lot I didn’t like about that movie, but the portrayal of Lester (along with everyone singing “Tiny Dancer” on the plane, and Billy Crudup tossing out a line of “Peggy Sue” just as the plane seems about to crash) was just fine. Who follows writers of any sort around? Or, rather, what writers get followed around? Writers who make an effort to cultivate a mystique, who combine imperiousness with noblesse oblige, who work to be stars, and whose publications promote them as stars—Rolling Stone with Hunter Thompson, Vanity Fair with Christopher Hitchens. What you’re referring to isn’t part of my frame of reference. I imagine there are people out there who having nothing better to do, or nothing else they can imagine doing, than to wonder what this or...