lester

This writing-about-music business has ushered all sorts of intriguing new experiences into my life over the past eight years. One that I'm hoping not to make a habit of, though, is the most recent -- picking a fight in my head with the fictionalized version of a real dead person. In Cameron Crowe's autobiographical movie Almost Famous, noted '70s music writer Lester Bangs warns fifteen-year-old Crowe doppelganger William Miller that "you CANNOT make friends with the rock stars!" Bangs' warning is based on his firm belief that making friends with the musicians will corrupt a writer's objectivity and make it…