Words and Music

Jim DeRogatis has been writing about music almost as long as he's been able to hold a pen, and he sounds as passionate about it as he was as a precocious teenager interviewing legendary rock critic Lester Bangs nearly 25 years ago. The Weekly caught up with DeRogatis, pop music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, writer and co-host of radio talk show Sound Opinions, prior to his first-ever visit to Las Vegas for this weekend's Vegas Valley Book Festival.

How often do you typically listen to an album before reviewing?

It really depends. If you're dealing with a new Bob Dylan album or the Decemberists, you might listen half a dozen times. If you're trying to swallow the new My Chemical Romance, one good listen probably covers it. Though I actually like that record. I think it's Bat Out of Hell for Generation Y. It's certainly over-the-top entertaining.

Do you find it harder or easier to review your own favorite artists?

It's always harder to write a really glowing review about something that you really think is a great piece of art than it is to write about something that's just a piece of crap. It's harder to convey what your emotional and intellectual response to something great is, and to pass that enthusiasm along to somebody. It's also always harder to write about a band that's just good, not extraordinarily great or amazingly crappy. They're just there. That can be hard to convey. It's like asking a really great food writer to write 3,000 words on a glass of milk.

Have artists confronted you over negative reviews you've written about them?

Ryan Adams has this thing with me. He had called after I reviewed a live show he did in Chicago, and it was really the only time I'd ever written about him, 'cause I just think he's pretty slight. I mean, I'll go back and listen to [Paul] Westerberg, I don't need to hear his take on The Replacements. But I'd written this review, and he called up and left this long voice-mail message, and I'm a big believer in, if people disagree, giving them their side. I never look at is as I'm the final word on whatever; I'm just starting the conversation. So I played Adam's voice-mail on the radio show, and that got downloaded all over the place. People love that MP3. 'Cause he was clearly drunk, like, "You just don't realize my genius" and "Man, you're a jerk."

What did you take away from your interview with Bangs, the last one he ever gave?

I spoke to him two weeks before he died, two weeks to the day. And he was tired and kind of down. But he was incredibly kind and very generous and very encouraging. I thought that he was as interested in my opinions about music as I was about him, except I was this stupid 17-year-old high school kid from Jersey. But that was him, and Philip Seymour Hoffman really did capture that side of him in Almost Famous. Hoffman was walking around the set listening on a Walkman of me on a tape at 17 interviewing Lester in order to get the speech patterns.

Cameron Crowe and I had had a very similar experience. Cameron met and was encouraged by Lester when he was 17 in 1972, and I met and was encouraged by Lester when I was 17 in 1982. There was definitely that very mentoring side of his personality, which was great. And I think it's rare in a really great writer. A lot of writers are very insecure, and they don't encourage other writers necessarily. Bangs was a great talent, and he believed this notion that rock 'n' roll was the ultimate democratic art form. Anybody can do it. If you've got something to say, don't let the fact that you don't know how to play an instrument stop you. And I think that's just an incredibly inspiring message.