December 12 is a birthday shared by two friends now sadly

no longer with us, both of whom have left an unmistakable imprint on the

philosophy of rock and roll. Born Robert Derminer in 1944, Rob Tyner was the

lead vocalist and lyricist for the MC5, the late sixties Detroit band that

paved the way for punk, metal and hardcore styles. Born Leslie Conway Bangs in

1948, Lester Bangs championed the same styles and attitudes as a writer for

Creem, Rolling Stone, and the Village Voice. Ironically,

Bangs first published review was a put-down of the MC5's Kick Out The

Jams, so venomous that it helped get the band booted off Elektra Records.

Later Kick Out The Jams would become one of Lester's favorite albums,

and Rob Tyner one of his best friends. Tyner paid tribute to his late friend,

Bangs (who died in 1982), in an issue of Rob O'Conner's excellent zine "Throat

Culture," published only a few months before the MC5 singer would himself pass

away in 1990. A brief excerpt from that piece tells much about both

men:

"There are lots of things about Lester that people don't know. He was

born Leslie Conway Bangs in Escondido, California to righteous Jehovah Witness

parents. He even went to the seminary to be a missionary, but his fiercely

independent spirit couldn't be shackled to any sort of party line, so he broke

away. Most people knew Lester as an iconoclastic, abrasive and over-rated boob

with bad personal habits and a way of rubbing all the right people the wrong

way. But he had a sentimental and sensitive side to his otherwise barbed-wire

personality...You could always depend on him for a definite opinion on any

subject and I came to depend on that vast wellspring of knowledge. This is why

it was a great loss when he died. He's come to me in my dreams and has told me

how much he hates being dead. He told me not to try it. It's dull and horribly

boring and dreary. So far I've been able to take his advice, but that can't

last forever.

It's also the birthday of Danny Boy (House of Pain), Paul

Rodgers (Free) and Cy Curnin (The Fixx), and Dickey Betts (Allman

Brothers).