Dream of life (Pati Smith) (LP 409 - 410)

Patti Smith Group Wave (Vinyl, Arista, 1979) *** 
Patti Smith Dream Of Life (Vinyl, Arista, 1988) *** 

Genre: Alternative rock

Places I remember: Marbecks Records (the record cover has the sticker to prove it!)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Frederick




Gear costume:  Looking For You (I Was); Dream Of Life; Dancing Barefoot; Citizen Ship. 

Active compensatory factors: These two albums were much appreciated by me at the time, but, in hindsight, they are somewhat spotty mid period albums. 

Both tried out more mainstream rock sounds and so I've grouped them together here.

Wave is the last album by the Patti Smith Group and when she returned to music nine years later it was without the brilliant Lenny Kaye on guitar (he was replaced on Dream Of Life by her husband - Fred Sonic Smith). Fred was probably a better guitarist technically, but Lenny is the perfect foil for Patti and I missed his presence.

Stylistically Dream of Life is more consistently successful than Wave, but Wave has more peaks (no apologies for the pun), and more connections to the firey PSG of old.

Still, it's Patti and she is yet to put out a bad record y'all!

Where do they all belong? When Patti's next album, Gone Again, came after Dreams, it was another 8 years later and Lenny was back. What's 16 years between friends?

'Till victory (Patti Smith) (LP 337-338)

Patti Smith Easter (Vinyl and CD, Arista, 1978) *****
Patti Smith Easter Rising (CD, Leftfield Media, 2011) **

Genre:  American pop/rock 

Places I remember: Marbeck's Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Babelogue/Rock n Roll Nigger (the link below gives you access to this visceral slab of brilliance)

Gear costume:   25th Floor; Privilege (Set Me Free)




Active compensatory factors:  
I've written about Rock and Roll Nigger before. Babelogue seguing into the song is one of the best moments in music. Full. Stop!

Unlike a lot of music from the late seventies, none of this feels dated. Commitment + passion + intelligence = Patti Smith. Always.

Side Two in particular is a rush. Perfect songs, perfect playing (Lenny Kaye is terrific) behind Patti's perfect lyrics.

Easter Rising is a 1978 broadcast from a concert in Oregon. The quality is okay, the performance is rough and ready. One of those - you had to be there moments.


Where do they all belong? Wave is next up.

The words are just rules and regulations to me (Patti Smith) (LP 228 - 231)

Patti Smith Horses (Vinyl - Arista, 1975) *****
Patti Smith Group Radio Ethiopia (Vinyl - Arista, 1976) *****
Patti Smith Live at Bottom Line (Vinyl, 1975) *** 
Patti Smith Teenage Perversity and Ships In The Night (Vinyl - Free Flight, 1976) *****

Genre: Alternative rock  (she's not pop, she's not rock, she's, um, something else)

Places I remember: Marbecks Records x2 

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Pumpin' (my heart); Gloria 






Gear costume:  Land, Pissing In A River, Ain't It Strange 

Active compensatory factors: These two landmark studio albums are linked here in that they represent Patti Smith's great creative gush of 1975/1976. 

For me, Radio Ethiopia shades Horses in the canon - just for personal reasons. I realise everyone is amazed by Horses because it was so fresh and revolutionary in 1976, but Radio Ethiopia felt even more on the ledge to me in 1976. 

And I believe the songs on these albums stand up better in 2018. It shouldn't be possible but the depth and heft of these songs just increases over time. Extraordinary.

When I started at varsity in 1977, I'd bought all of Patti's poetry books I could find from the Auckland University bookstore. I especially loved Babel and her way with words. It was a constant companion during those wonderfully self indulgent years. Now it sits on my shelf alongside Woolgathering, Just Kids, M train, Seventh Heaven, Ha!Ha! Houdini!, The Night, WITT, and The Coral Sea.

Pleasures and charms abound: Lenny Kaye's guitar; voices voices mesmerize; words twist and shout; the spirit of rock'n'roll (Gloria - holy moley!); the pop of an intellect and connections beyond earthy understanding; experimentation; Richard Sohl's perfect piano; love and energy; hard driving rythum by Jay Dee's drums/Ivan Kral on bass; and always, always - the one off visionary poet/priestess sole/soul screamer - Patricia Lee Smith!! 

She moves in another dimension.

The two bootlegs which present Patti Smith in live settings  [The Roxy (January 1976)/Bottom Line (December 1975)] provide different visceral punk pleasures entirely. 

The sound quality is pretty good for bootlegs (better on Teenage Perversity...) and the performances are brilliant (especially on Teenage Perversity...).

Highlights of Live at Bottom Line: three stars because the sound is a tad murky and because of the edits between songs; the album kicks off with a spirited version of the Velvet Underground's Real Good Time Together; a perfectly formed Privilege (Set Me Free) and Space Monkey (called Spunky on the cover) - they wouldn't turn up on record for another three years; Free Money is turbo charged; then there's the one two three punch to end the album - Land/Gloria, Time is On My Side, and an amazing version of My Generation with John Cale on John Entwistle style bass.

Highlights of Teenage Perversity and Ships in the Night: An extra couple of stars for this one because the sound is much better and it retains the links between songs, plus the electric energy hisses and pops in a live scenario; A month later and opener Real Good Time Together sounds even tighter; Privilege (Set Me Free) is great (bizarrely called Watching The Breeze on the cover); Ain't It Strange (called Strained On Strange on the cover) is such a great song - transcend, transcend; a starkly beautiful Pale Blue Eyes; a brief but hard driving prototype of Pumpin' (My Heart) here prosaically named The Smooth Stone Beyond on the cover; Gloria (everytime, a highlight); and, again, the perfect encore - My Generation.

Where do they all belong? Easter and the rest of the Smith discography to come.

A blade of grass through the vortex of sound (Patti Smith) #346-349

Patti Smith Group because the night/ GOD SPEED (Arista Records, AR 11688, 1978)

Patti Smith Group Privilege (Set Me Free); Ask The Angels/ 25th Floor; A Poem Babelfield (Arista records 12", POP 1, 1978)

Patti Smith Group Frederick/ Fire Of Unknown Origin (Arista Records, ATA 709, 1979)

Patti Smith People Have The Power/ Wild Leaves (Arista Records, 104889, 1988)

Because The Night (upper or lower case- it matters not) was huge in its day but over familiarity since then (it's turned up on countless compilations)  has led to...well- not contempt - this is Patti bleedin' Smith after all, but a diminishing of power. Though, having said that, the version on her Live at Montreaux DVD from 2005 definitely rocked. Maybe it's context, being surrounded by other Smith songs, that helps. 

Patti is no elitist snob; she is obviously not opposed to having hit records. Frederick and People Have The Power are attempts at writing pop songs and she manages that feat with aplomb. Frederick, in particular is glorious. Todd's pop sheen production is perfect!

Hidden gem: Patti subscribes to the notion that B sides should contain nuggets not included on albums so all of these singles contain interesting material.

The live version of 25th Floor and the poem Babelfield (with its torrent of words and images) are especially extraordinary.

Shake it up, baby. (Patti Smith) #344-345

Patti Smith Hey Joe (Version)/ Piss Factory (Sire, SRE 1009, 1974)

Patti Smith Hey Joe (Version)/ Radio Ethiopia (Live version) (Arista Records 12", 2CO52-60133z, 1977)

Patti Smith!!

I've blogged before about Patti because I've had a long term relationship with her music and poetry since 1977: http://googoogarjoob.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/i-impure-thee-come-explore-me-patti.html. 

Hey Joe is an interesting choice for 1974. Patti wraps the surreal story of Patti Hearst around the song made most famous by one her idols - Jimi Hendrix. Hey Joe was also his debut single!

Tom Verlaine's on guitar with Lenny but, unfortunately, like the Hearst story, this one has dated a lot.

Hidden gem: The real Patti is on side 2: Piss Factory is for me one of the greatest performances ever. It's at heart an autobiographical rolling poem about punching the clock on a production line. Patti's delivery is total commitment - she absolutely shakes it up! Richard Sohl's piano is an equal star - his driving piano drives Patti ever forward and the peaks just keep building up. An amazing song!

The 12 inch version of Hey Joe has a live version of some songs loosely called Radio Ethiopia. Sure enough, it includes that riff from Radio Ethiopia but there are also excerpts from other works including Rock and Roll Nigger in early pre Easter form.

I impure thee, come explore me (Patti Smith)

Dear Patti

I am coming to the end of Just Kids and feel the need to write.

It sometimes feels like I've loved you forever and it sometimes feels like I only started to live differently the day Linley Wood told me about a great record called Horses. I was 19. We were standing outside the entrance of the library at Auckland University, half way through our first year at Auckland University (1977). She knew I loved music and she told me about a record she loved by Patti Smith. You had tentacles and you reeled me in.

The Auckland University Bookshop had copies of Seventh Heaven and Witt and The Night (with Tom Verlaine) and Ha! Ha! Houdini and Babel. I'm not sure how some pretty obscure poetry books by a pretty obscure New York poet found their way to far away New Zealand but I loved each one.

Then it was singles and Piss Factory and suddenly it's Easter and my American poetry lecturer blows our minds with John Giorno's Suicide Sutra, Robert Mapplethorpe and Babelogue. Then I find myself going to shows with Dallas Smith, then I come out of the university years and I'm married to Jacky Smith, ain't it strange?

Patti, I loved reading Just Kids. I didn't want it to end because I knew it would end as it began and I wanted your liquid prose to keep me adrift.

Simply - thank you.

Sincerely - WNP