Dancing barefoot (Patti Smith) (LP 3821 - 3828)

Patti Smith  CBGB's 1979 (2CD, Leftfield Media, 2021) ***  

Patti Smith  Gone Again (CD, Arista Records, 1996) ****  

Patti Smith  Peace and Noise (CD, Arista Records, 1997) **** 

Patti Smith  Gung Ho (CD, Arista Records, 2000) **** 

Patti Smith  Trampin' (CD, Columbia Records, 2004) **** 

Patti Smith  Twelve (CD, Columbia Records, 2007) **** 

Patti Smith  Banga (CD, Columbia Records, 2012) **** 

Patti Smith  Land 1975 - 2002 (2CD, Arista Records, 2002) **** 

Genre: Punk rock, alt rock, art rock

Places I remember: JB Hi Fi, Real Groovy Records,  

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: 1959 (Peace and Noise)

Gear costume: Upright Come (Gung Ho), Midnight Rider (Twelve)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6

Active compensatory factors: The earlier albums have been covered already: Horses to Teenage Perversity; Easter to Easter Rising; Wave to Dream of Life. Now attention turns to all the rest of her albums, starting with a recap back to 1979 and a live double recorded at CBGB's. Patti is in good form, and although her voice is showing the strains of repeated performance, she gives it her all.

I've recently read Lenny Kaye's Lightning Strikes, and he mentions CBGB's in his chapter titled New York 1975. A legendary venue and Lenny's book is warmly recommended to the blogosphere.

She kicks this clear-as-a-bell recording off with a great spindly version of Land. Other random highlights - Lenny's take on John Lennon's Cold Turkey and The Yardbird's For You Love, her telling off of an 18-year-old for smoking. 

Her return to the studio after eight years away, was Gone Again. It came with some heavy baggage as many of her close friends and family had passed away, including her husband Fred "Sonic" Smith, her brother Todd, Robert Mapplethorpe, Richard Sohl and Kurt Cobain.

Regardless of this, the album is an uplifting experience, as Patti deals with mortality. It sounds more like poetry set to music, rather than song lyrics and she sounds awesome!

Peace and Noise utilises the same new approach (and deals with the same territory as well) and for me it shades Gone Again. She sounds revitalised and a bit looser on this album, even the music is a bit sparser and accessible to my ears. It has a lovely single on it - 1959, as well.

Gung Ho was her final album for Arista and it's another strong effort. As AllMusic summarises: it's another handsome, shaded, and satisfying work from an artist who has reconnected with her muse. It was also the first album not to feature her on the cover - that fine looking gentleman is her father - Grant Smith. 

The band is in fine form on Gung Ho - in total command. Lenny!! He's joined by long term drummer - Jay Dee Daugherty, and new comers - Oliver Ray (guitar) and Tony Shanahan on bass. 

Next album, Trampin' also met Patti and the band's high standards. Their first album for new label, Columbia, has some terrific extended work outs - Ghandi and Radio Baghdad add up to 20 minutes plus and both are exceptional Patti Smith songs. She also provides songs that range from garage rock to poetic ballads. 

Twelve has Patti and the band working through twelve cover songs. This isn't a new concept for her - Horses starts off brilliantly with Van the man's Gloria, her concerts often featured cover versions (My Generation and others) and Wave had her take on The Byrds' So You Want To Be A Rock'n'Roll Star. 

It's a fun romp through some iconic rock songs and rock icons - Mick Jagger, Grace Slick, Bob Dylan, Kurt Cobain, Neil Young, The Beatles, Jim Morrison and others. My favourite versions on Twelve are songs originally by Nirvana, Tears For Fears and Gregg Allman.

Banga is her last album, from 2012. Its concerns are again of lofty matters. Banga's subjects are - '[the] environmental crisis, the dominion of art as man's greatest gift to the divine -- as well as its own species -- homages, elegies, and love songs, all offered with authority and tenderness' (AllMusic).

Land is a 2CD compilation from Arista. It's an excellent place to start - disc one covers songs from Horses to Gung Ho, and the package offers a number of interesting rarities for collectors on the second disc - with a selection of B sides and unreleased songs.

Where do they all belong? I have a lot of Patti's work - poetry, non-fiction books, CD's, albums, singles, bootlegs, DVDs. She is incredible. She has been a cornerstone of the collection since Piss Factory. Long may she continue.

Tenderloin (Blue Öyster Cult) (LP 411 - 412)

Blue Öyster Cult Agents Of Fortune (Vinyl, CBS, 1976) ****
Blue Öyster Cult CultÖsaurus Erectus (Vinyl, Columbia, 1980) ***

Genre: Heavy Metal

Places I remember: Real Groovy (Auckland, NZ); Amoeba Records (Hollywood)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Sinful Love (featuring the immortal line: I love you like sin but I won't be your pigeon)




Gear costume:  (Don't Fear) The Reaper; Revenge Of Vera Gemini; Tattoo Vampire; Debbie Denise  

Active compensatory factors: Patti Smith appears on the track The Revenge Of Vera Gemini (she was dating Allen Lanier at the time), but that's only one of the highlights on this sparkling album of thinking person's metal.

Of course (Don't Fear) The Reaper looms large over this album but there are other songs here that could have been as huge with repeated exposure: Sinful Love; Tattoo Vampire; This Ain't The Summer Of Love; The Revenge Of Vera Gemini; Morning Final; Debbie Denise; Tenderloin...each one has catchy hooks and great presence.

Only one weak song - True Confessions, means this is a flawed classic.

In truth I only bought CultÖsaurus Erectus for the cover (Spectres and Mirrors were disappointing after Agents Of Fortune and CE is in the same vain), as it's a thing of true beauty!

The album is not bad, it's produced by Martin Birch so it sounds terrific! 


Where do they all belong? On reflection, I'm not sure how much Blue Öyster Cult belong in the Heavy Metal genre - too smart and too much invention, but there's no denying those guitars!

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.

An offering so sweet (Patti Smith) #528

Patti Smith Summer Cannibals/ Come Back Little Sheba/ Come On In My Kitchen/ People Have The Power  (Arista, 1996)

Gone Again, Patti's comeback album, brought a new sophistication exists to the Patti Smith sound. More layered. More arranged.

Gone (for a bit) was the punk poet/pop goddess/eco warrior to be replaced by an introspective earth mother. I guess death of loved ones (including Kurt Cobain) will do that to you.

Having said that, some of her pop sensibilities are still wafting about this weird track. It's definitely a commercial sounding song and so a natural choice as the lead off single from the album.

Hidden gems: It's a slightly bizarre mix on the B side tracks, which, incidentally don't seem to conform to the UK versions of this single. 

The Robert Johnson song, Come On In My Kitchen is a cool addition to the Patti Smith oeuvre and I'm a fan of the big sounding People Have The Power - although that whole sentiment is a little atypical to her back catalogue.

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.

My wave length (Patti Smith)

The Patti Smith hold is still pretty tight. I am now reunited with my records and books and so a Patti-a-thon was a natural place to go.

Wave is maybe the forgotten child in the canon but for me it's a joy from start to finish. The affect it has on me is very similar to Jefferson Starship's Earth album. They make me feel great.

Frederick immediately puts a smile on my face with its bouncy pop-a-rama. It was released as a single, at the time, backed by a weird version of Fire Of Unknown Origin.

Fire... started out as a poem in her Seventh Heaven Collection:

A fire of unknown origin
took my baby away
swept her up and off
my wave length
swallowed her up like the ocean
in a fire thick and grey.

Blue Oyster Cult took the lyrics (but nothing from Patti's B side song) and ran with it on their album of the same name. They know quality when they see it.

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

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup (The Beatles)

Good friend Greg sent me an interesting email recently that got me thinking. He was venting about the lack of appreciation of modern culture by high culture (his description used the term arty-farty people). This is something that I remember discussing at university (probably with Greg!). The something is the low art vs high art debate which is a close cousin of the populist vs niche art debate.

Greg's contention is that 'there are musicians today who may write pop or rock music but they are every bit the genius the art-snobs claim Mozart to be. And there are lyric writers who are, as poets, every bit as good as Byron and Shelley were'.

This is a classic low art vs high art situation. I can love and appreciate poets like Walt Whitman and William Wordsworth (high art) as well as modern poets in all but name like E (from The Eels) and John Lennon. But Greg's saying that art-snobs won't allow me to bracket Whitman and E together. A spurious argument, I think (and so does Greg) because that judgment's based on something that has not been correctly understood. Someone who only listens to classical arias and ignores Jackson Browne doesn't know their elbow from their arsenal (literally). It is therefore a false argument. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

On the other hand - there are plenty of sub standard musicians who give the art snobs ammunition for their argument. For every Beatles or Miles Davis there is a James Last or Hollywood Strings. I love the Big Band jazz sound of Glenn Miller et al but they didn't shift as many units as Hooked On Swing.

On the whole, though, I agree with Greg. An example? While I was typing this a Patti Smith song (Easter) emerged from the p-pod shuffle.

Patti Smith is someone who blurs all sorts of boundaries. She's a visionary poet, a performance artist, a writer, a critic, a singer, a mother, a guitarist, and, amongst other things, a force to be reckoned with.

Here she is doing Easter - a song that has a great lyric and contains a poem (you can tell where the poem is). It's also a beautiful piece of music. Is it great? Not sure, but I certainly like it and reflect on it. It's original. It's haunting. It contains a personal set of resonances. It contains an interesting theme and viewpoint, and it does so with a memorable set of images. She named the album after it so it must be important to her.

Easter Sunday, we were walking.
Easter Sunday, we were talking.
Isabel, my little one, take my hand. Time has come.

Isabella, all is glowing.
Isabella, all is knowing.
And my heart, Isabella.
And my head, Isabella.

Frederick and Vitalie, savior dwells inside of thee.
Oh, the path leads to the sun. Brother, sister, time has come.

Isabella, all is glowing.
Isabella, all is knowing.
Isabella, we are dying.
Isabella, we are rising.

I am the spring, the holy ground,
the endless seed of mystery,
the thorn, the veil, the face of grace,
the brazen image, the thief of sleep,
the ambassador of dreams, the prince of peace.
I am the sword, the wound, the stain.
Scorned transfigured child of Cain.
I rend, I end, I return.
Again I am the salt, the bitter laugh.
I am the gas in a womb of light, the evening star,
the ball of sight that leads that sheds the tears of Christ
dying and drying as I rise tonight.

Isabella, we are rising.
Isabella, we are rising . .

In the spirit of celebrating some more low art here is one of my favourite poems. It's called Across The Universe...

Words are flowing out
like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither
wildly as they slip away
across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of
joy
are drifting through my open mind,
Possessing and caressing me.

Images of broken light
which dance before me like a million eyes,
They call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe

Sounds of laughter, shades of life are ringing
Through my opened ears, inciting and inviting me,
Limitless undying Love
which shines around me like a million suns,
and calls me on and on
Across the universe

...by John Lennon.

Outside of society, that's where I wanna be.

13 Patti Smith, ‘Babelogue/Rock ‘n’ Roll Nigger’

One of my best friends at University, Linley Wood, introduced me to Patti Smith’s Horses album. I remember her telling me about the album and raving about it. When I got a chance I listened to the first track, Gloria, and wow. The opening statement – Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine – rocked my world. The songs on the album bare testimony to her Jehovah’s Witness upbringing, but clearly she was rebelling against that. I loved the songs and her delivery and bought Radio Ethiopia as well. And that, I thought, was that.

That was, until an American Poetry lecture in the bowels of the old Arts building, Auckland University, led by Wystan Curnow and Roger Horrocks. Wystan led off this particular session with a tape by, he said, an American poet – Patti Smith.

Babelogue started and the cosmos reached down and ripped my head off!! I had never felt such a rush of adrenalin as I felt at that moment, listening to Babelogue segue into Rock ‘n’ Roll Nigger. WHAT WAS THAT??????? I have no idea what the rest of the lecture was on. I was gone, daddy, gone. I became a zealot for Patti Smith at that moment, but, more than that, this moment of epiphany made me a zealot for poetry. My own writing was vindicated in that moment and I was now set to gorge myself on poetry. Wordsworth, Rimbaud, Coleridge, Shelley, Bly, Ginsberg, Dylan and on and on. When Babelogue snagged me I realised it was the lyrics that drew me in to experiencing the songs. Not the music. I’m still the same. That’s why nearly all of my posts are titled from lyrics.

Thanks Linley, wherever you are, for kicking me off!

Two versions of this for you to choose from. First is the original version on Easter and then a morphed 2006 version. She's still got it!