EL CAJON -- A Box Full of Rocks: The El Cajon Years of
Lester Bangs is a new
documentary film about legendary music journalist and former San Diegan Lester
Bangs. Grossmont College's Creative Writing Program will sponsor a
special screening of the film at its annual Lester Bangs Memorial Reading, on Tuesday October 22, 2013 in Room
220 (Building 26). This event will be
free and open to the public.
Lester Bangs
(1948-1982) is considered one of the greatest music writers of his generation.
Best known for his writings in Rolling
Stone, Creem Magazine, and Village
Voice, Bangs is also remembered for his numerous contributions to films and
anthologies between 1969 and 1982, two posthumously released collections of his
reviews and essays, and a biography, Let
It Blurt, authored by Jim DeRogatis.
Bangs is best known
because of Cameron Crowe’s Academy Award-winning movie Almost Famous. Bangs was an early mentor to Crowe, who also grew up in San Diego. In
turn, Crowe wrote Bangs’ character into Almost
Famous. And, Bangs is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
But, before Bangs
found international renown, he grew up in El Cajon, CA, a suburb 15 freeway
miles east of San Diego. A Box Full of
Rocks captures these
formative years.
Born in nearby
Escondido, Bangs moved to El Cajon in 1960 at age 11 with his mother. His
father had already burned to death in a house fire. From 1960 to 1971, Bangs
became an avid music fan and writer. In 1969, he published his first freelance
music reviews in Rolling Stone, which
he wrote from his mom’s apartment in El Cajon. In 1971, he finally left El
Cajon to accept a full-time job writing for Creem
in Detroit, MI.
A Box Full of Rocks runs 100 minutes and features interviews
with Bangs’s childhood and high school friends Jack Butler, Rob Houghton, Gary
Rachac, Jerry Raney, and Milt Wyatt. Biographer Jim Derogatis is also featured
along with various music critics and historians, who analyze Bangs’s ultimate
role in post-60s American counter-culture.
A Box Full of Rocks is produced by Grossmont English instructor
Raul Sandelin. The film received grant monies and stipends from the college.
The film also features an original soundtrack with contributions by Thee Dark
Ages, the band Bangs played with in high school. Thee Dark Ages later evolved
into such local legends as Glory, Private Domain, and the Beat Farmers.
-RS-
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