Patti Smith, Proto Punk, Touring Albums

Playlist: The Capricorns
Bikini Kill

Knitting: Starting in on the Christmas knitting-- attempt one at an argyle sweater vest

I love Patti Smith. I have only seen her live once, but I hope to see her again one day. This is why I am jealous of everyone that got to attend Patti Smith’s Meltddown 2005. When I saw Patti Smith live a few years ago she did only a handful of songs from Horses, at the Meltdown she played the entire album track for track. I can’t even imagine the crowd as she opened with Gloria. It was not just a Patti Smith event, there were many guests and part of the night was a celebration of spoken word, there were readings done by Patti Smith herself of some Burroughs, Alan Moore and Iain Sinclair also added readings of William S. Burroughs poetry. Another artist that is showcased is the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, the longtime companion of Patti Smith. Cat Power performed, Television reunited and performed with the original lineup and Richard Hell was there too.

The Article talks about the trend afoot of touring classic albums and I am not sure how I feel about that. There are whole albums that I absolutely love and would love to hear all of, but I think that part of the joy of seeing a band perform live is the unpredictability of what they will play next. If The Pogues were to reunite with Shane MacGowan and tour the US (they reunited last Christmas for four shows in the UK, but they have not toured the US with MacGowan since 1990/1???? when they appeared on Saturday Night Live and MacGowan could barely stand) I would travel for hours to see them do If I should Fall From the Grace of God , but even then there is something missing if they don’t do songs off of Rum Sodomy and the Lash, or “Fairytale of New York”. While this did not seem to be much of an issue as Smith did not hold herself to just performing Horses, the spontaneity and variety of seeing an album done would be something I would miss. I suppose it would be an exception if you were to see an entire album done as a cover. Rove did this with John Coltrane’s Ascension this I could understand as Coltrane is dead and the only way one could hear this done is to see a cover of it. Halloween is approaching and when the jam band Phish was around they always did an entire album at their Halloween concert, the most widely bootlegged being the Phish cover of the Beatles’ The White Album. I just can’t resign myself to the idea of an entire album show. It would just take out the fun of so much of the concert going experience.
The Stooges are touring this fall. Along with front man Iggy, they are touring their album Funhouse. Funhouse is the seminal album that we discussed in our presentation, it’s the one about heroin. Since heroin ripped the band apart and nearly destroyed them all, it’s a wonder they want to tour it. It is their most successful album and would draw the largest crowds, but the thing about the Stooges was their youth, their raw energy and their newness. I hope they are energetic because they are neither young nor new any longer. I am not trying to make fun of older musicians touring, I don’t think that there is any age where someone has to stop playing rock and roll, but Iggy Pop was known for his ridiculous stage performances, rolling in glass, breaking things and generally wreaking havoc. Will he still do that? I mean I’m not asking for him to hurt himself, I just want to know if the energy will still be there. Proto punk was just so much about the live show, about the energy that one must wonder if it can be recreated here and now. The energy of proto punk was so intense--- it along with the raucous noise and the primitive musicianship attracted the punks. It is amazing how one subgenre that was so little noted in its time has changed the course of music. To have bands that so few people listened to be so influential--- Patti Smith is protopunk, who would have thought when she was performing at Max’s Kansas City or working in a factory in Jersey that she would be presiding over a festival devoted to her and her favorite artists.