![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhythmaningYou may already know that I am a fan of Patti Smith, and in particular Horses. Her first three records - Horses, Radio Ethiopia and Easter - are amongst my favourites,
I recently read Break It Up: Patti Smith’s Horses and the remaking of rock and roll. A biography of the album in much the same way that Ashley Kahn’s books on A Love Supreme and Kind of Blue are, this was a very interesting - and rather exciting - book.
It charts the making of the record, from its earliest inception - Smith’s poetic monologues and rants - through the formation of the band and how her poems became songs - through to her later career and the impact of Horses on rock music.
It is fascinating to see how the music was put together: how, for instance, the manic chant of
from Privilege (on Easter, not Horses) emerged from her live performances of My Generation - long before she wrote Privilege. How the tracks of her first three albums were written long before the recordings - most of them featured in live performances before she had a recording contract.
Best of all, it captures the mood of the times - the first stirrings of US punk, what came before and how Horses changed the rock. The US punk scene was very different to the UK; it grew from a different place, it lacked the political backdrop and the social tribalism. The music was more adventurous, stemming from a similar disillusion with what went before, but it didn't dismiss technique. It had the garage-band simplicity, but the US bands could play, too.
They had ideas; they liked ideas, even. It was British punks' totem, rotten Johnny Lydon, who said "I 'ate innerleckshals": in the States, punk musicians took their names from dead romantic French poets1, instead.
Break It Up captures this milieu: how the New York scene got to be where it was - the influence of the loft art scene, Andy Warhol and his protégés, the Velvet Underground; how Patti Smith became a performer by accident - her first gigs were as a poet, accompanied by Lenny Kaye (Lenny!) on guitar; how they were happy to use jazz moods, reggae (taken up by the British punk bands, too) and other ideas; how it wasn't all about speed.
It also reminded me about lots of things I had forgotten in the last thirty years. How Patti Smith had released four albums and then stopped - after she had broken her neck in a fall from the stage, made a comeback and then been slated for selling out. How her second album was radically different from the first - allegedly aimed at a more mainstream audience. (I'd disagree. Radio Ethiopia has moments of brilliance, but at the time I found it difficult, verging on noise and quite abstract sounds at times. Now I think it has some truly excellent songs - Ain't It Strange, Pissing In A River - but then it seemed anything but mainstream, and largely unlistenable to.)
It made me think about Easter, too - the third album, and a genuine rock album, but brilliant, too.
It was an interesting book, reminding me of my youth, and where I was back then. (And how I got to be here! It seems a long way away.) And the redemptive power of music.
1Tom Verlaine, from the very wonderful Television. Both the track and the album Marquee Moon are superb.
I recently read Break It Up: Patti Smith’s Horses and the remaking of rock and roll. A biography of the album in much the same way that Ashley Kahn’s books on A Love Supreme and Kind of Blue are, this was a very interesting - and rather exciting - book.
It charts the making of the record, from its earliest inception - Smith’s poetic monologues and rants - through the formation of the band and how her poems became songs - through to her later career and the impact of Horses on rock music.
It is fascinating to see how the music was put together: how, for instance, the manic chant of
oh so young so god damn young
from Privilege (on Easter, not Horses) emerged from her live performances of My Generation - long before she wrote Privilege. How the tracks of her first three albums were written long before the recordings - most of them featured in live performances before she had a recording contract.
Best of all, it captures the mood of the times - the first stirrings of US punk, what came before and how Horses changed the rock. The US punk scene was very different to the UK; it grew from a different place, it lacked the political backdrop and the social tribalism. The music was more adventurous, stemming from a similar disillusion with what went before, but it didn't dismiss technique. It had the garage-band simplicity, but the US bands could play, too.
They had ideas; they liked ideas, even. It was British punks' totem, rotten Johnny Lydon, who said "I 'ate innerleckshals": in the States, punk musicians took their names from dead romantic French poets1, instead.
Break It Up captures this milieu: how the New York scene got to be where it was - the influence of the loft art scene, Andy Warhol and his protégés, the Velvet Underground; how Patti Smith became a performer by accident - her first gigs were as a poet, accompanied by Lenny Kaye (Lenny!) on guitar; how they were happy to use jazz moods, reggae (taken up by the British punk bands, too) and other ideas; how it wasn't all about speed.
It also reminded me about lots of things I had forgotten in the last thirty years. How Patti Smith had released four albums and then stopped - after she had broken her neck in a fall from the stage, made a comeback and then been slated for selling out. How her second album was radically different from the first - allegedly aimed at a more mainstream audience. (I'd disagree. Radio Ethiopia has moments of brilliance, but at the time I found it difficult, verging on noise and quite abstract sounds at times. Now I think it has some truly excellent songs - Ain't It Strange, Pissing In A River - but then it seemed anything but mainstream, and largely unlistenable to.)
It made me think about Easter, too - the third album, and a genuine rock album, but brilliant, too.
It was an interesting book, reminding me of my youth, and where I was back then. (And how I got to be here! It seems a long way away.) And the redemptive power of music.
1Tom Verlaine, from the very wonderful Television. Both the track and the album Marquee Moon are superb.