In Damnation of...Horses by Patti Smith

P'haps you should (re)read Steve Lake's olden review of Horses too, Alex? ;)

(Quite literally in my case - I was so taken with the record when I first heard it, that I wrote an essay about it for my college entrance application).

ps) Horses is also way better than any album that Sleater Kinney, Bjork, Tori Amos, Sinead Oconnor, or PJ Harvey ever did. So there.

Patti's great and all, but Johnny is otm. Horses is 'important' in that it laid the foundations for what was to come, but none of her greatest songs are on it.

I thought the band rocked harder on Radio Ethiopia but the songs weren't as interesting.

i think people maybe expect something radical or strange from this record, given the hype. and it is sometimes(eg birdland).

So does that make Horses the best album recorded by someone with a vagina (or is there another connection between these artists that I am missing)?

(I nominate anything by the Cramps)

Bahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

None of 'em are, except in terms of sales and giving college kids something new to toss up on their walls, not to mention aged rock critics something to stroke their chins over and pontificate at length about the new sounds in r'n'r/hip hop, what have you.

I can't even get through the other three even halfway.

She contributed to one of the 5 or 6 decent songs REM managed to put together over their shabby past ten years, plus 3

Blue Oyster Cult! plus 25.

But I still don't like her so much, at least Horses I mean.

and then she sings about doing the watusi and joe going to mexico and it all balances out. Everybody wins!

Hmmm. I guess you had to be there.

(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses, hey Horses)
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses, hey Horses)
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses, hey Horses)
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses)
Hey Horses!
You´ve been around all night and that´s a little long
You think you´ve got the right but I think you´ve got it wrong
Why can´t you say goodnight so you can take me home, Horses
´Cause when you say you will, it always means you won´t
You´re givin´ me the chills, baby, please baby don´t
Every night you still leave me all alone, Horses
Oh Horses, what a pity you don´t understand
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand
Oh Horses, you´re so pretty, can´t you understand
It´s guys like you Horses
Oh, what you do Horses, do Horses
Don´t break my heart, Horses
Hey Horses!
Now when you take me by the - who´s ever gonna know
Everytime you move I let a little more show
There´s somethin´ we can use, so don´t say no, Horses
So come on and give it to me any way you can
Any way you wanna do it, I´ll take it like a man
Oh please, baby, please, don´t leave me in the jam, Horses
Oh Horses, what a pity you don´t understand
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand
Oh Horses, you´re so pretty, can´t you understand
It´s guys like you Horses
Oh, what you do Horses, do Horses
Don´t break my heart, Horses
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses, hey Horses)
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses, hey Horses)
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses, hey Horses)
(Oh Horses, you´re so fine
you´re so fine you blow my mind, hey Horses)
Oh Horses, what a pity you don´t understand
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand
Oh Horses, you´re so pretty, can´t you understand
It´s guys like you Horses
Oh, what you do Horses, do Horses
Don´t break my heart, Horses
Oh Horses, what a pity you don´t understand
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand
Oh Horses, you´re so pretty, can´t you understand
It´s guys like you Horses
Oh, what you do Horses, do Horses
Don´t break my heart, Horses
Oh Horses, what a pity you don´t understand
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand
Oh Horses, you´re so pretty, can´t you understand
It´s guys like you Horses
Oh, what you do Horses, do Horses
Don´t break my heart, Horses
Oh Horses, what a pity you don´t understand
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand
Oh Horses, you´re so pretty, can´t you understand
It´s guys like you Horses
Oh, what you do Horses, do Horses
Don´t break my heart, Horses

You know, those of us who have loved this record, either back in the day, or since (although especially back-in-the-day), simply cannot ditch its brilliance just because there's now a backlash to its canonisation.

That's what I think, anyway.

I mean, "pretentious"? WTF? Not only is "pretentious" not a pejorative, but with Leonard Cohen cited as an example of same, we're s'posed to somehow accept this bizarre conclusion? Len is also great, people!!!

There's something in that each-subsequent-record-gets-worse thing, though.

Easter is a very nice record (moments of beauty, but moments of intense awkwardness) that's not in the ballpark of Horses in terms of impact. Importance. Sigh. I don't really understand what "importance" means, objectively. Having said that, Gone Again is really the only other good Patti Smith album. Her output over a long career is patchy.

None of which takes away from the amazing Horses.

But wait... wasn't it canonized 'cause it was deemed "important"?

Some love it, some hate it, some are indifferent. What's the answer? A show of hands? This "important" thing seems kind of, well... silly.

Yeah, "You Can't Stop The Bum Rush" rules. I'd never established a connection between 'em and Patti Smith, but I guess "Horses" shares that chaotic throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks mood that that album has.

What? Oh, Cohen. He's great too. "The Essential" rocked my Spring of 2003.

Afraid not. Should I?

I can't fucking handle it. Do me a favor, flush your head down the shitter for making such an ignorant, sexist statement.

Dream on, Wrongboy.

Hey David A.....calm thyself. I'm not organizing a goon squad that's going to go around house-to-house, confiscating copies of Horses, just so we can start a big bonfire, Kilroy Was Here-stylee. I just think the album in question (Patti's, not Styx's) is an undeservedly lionized bit of pompous schlock.

so i'm asking, once again, why some people seem to want to go out of their way to malign Patti Smith ? this isn't the first thread to set out to dismiss not only this record but Smith herself.

why is it so important to dump on this relatively concise artist (she hasn't made many records and has admitted that it would be worse to make too many bad ones than vice versa) ?

(oh, ok, most people on this thread seem to like her, but that "Loathsome New Yorkers" thread, that just made the new yorkers that talked up the original tabloid week-end "feature" and it's readers appear to be the loathsome ones)

I don't think I'd have worded it quite that way, but fair enough.... because of the disparity between the quality of her work and the praise said work enjoys.

Actually, I think all those artists were pretty clearly in Patti's lineage, and not just because they're women. But if it makes you any happier, *Horses* is *also* catchier, funnier, sexier, more rocking, and more memorable than any album that Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Radiohead, U2, REM, Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pavement, Roy Orbison, Bob Marley, Tupac, Boogie Down Productions, Tribe Called Qwest, the Misfits, Iron Maiden, the Smiths, or Sisters of Fucking Mercy ever made. Okay?

11. If you could put together the worst concert bill possible, what 5 bands would you put on it?
1.Jet
2.Journey
3.Patti Smith
4.Wham!
5.Glass Tiger

I can't help noticing you negelected to mention Kix, Chuck!

And I never even heard a Tribe Called Qwest SONG I liked much, though honestly I haven't actually listed to *Low End Theory* in centuries. They always struck me as really prissy or contained or reserved or something. Is the debut the one I reviewed in Rolling Stone?

Ha, yeah, you couldn't have picked a better example if you'd wanted to wound me in my heart if you'd tried! That record had a massive impact on me. I'd even go as far as to utter (quietly) that cliché about lives being saved, etc. So, no wonder you picked up on my lack of calmness, heh. Subjective taste-driven outrage aside, the only part I really mean is the lionization thing -- it's unfair to blame the album for it, but life's unfair I suppose...

Anyway, in my world of one, it's unthinkable to like the Sisters but hate Horses, ha!

I see no correllation sound-wise between the Sisters of Mercy and Patti Smith (although Andrew does cite Horses on his list of favorite records on the official site. Then again, Andrew also cites a Stone Temple Pilots record, so go know.)

Because it's not as metal as *Radio Ethiopia*, probably. (But it's still better, and it still rocked harder. "Gloria" can do that to a record, you know? Even go ask Santa Esmeralda. Or Laura Branigan!)

Nah, me neither (although you might arguably find more "gothic" in Easter). It was a failed joke at my own expense -- ie/ I like these two things, so how can anyone not?

(Interesting that AE cites Horses, though. I didn't know that.)

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDCASS80311061622542118&sql=Aosj20r6at48x

Sorry, Alex!

(If the link doesn't work, just look up *The Best of Branigan* on AMG.)

Hmmmm. Hadn't heard that one. I always thought it was a rip-off of "More than a Feelin'".

(And Michael Freedberg says all the dark goth metal bands I love rip them off, too.)

Who is Michael Freedburg that he should be making such allegations?

I used to like them okay myself; I just thought Red Lorry Yellow Lorry were more fun.

Who got the notion that I have a Sisters of Mercy tatoo on my arm? I like them, but I wouldn't take a bullet for them or anything. They certainly made more than their share of dubious records. I like everything up to and including First and Last and Always. After that, s'alright, but the magic had largely dissipated for me. Floodland is pretty good. Apart from "Ribbons", most of Vision Thing is a phone-in.

Yeah, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry were cool (though not sure I'd categorically refer to them as "fun").

Well......cuter than Patti Smith, certainly.

Andrew Eldritch's favorite records....

http://www.the-sisters-of-mercy.com/gen/wwlike/listning/listning.htm#traxae

Wait, it's Q-Tip's fault my phone bill's so fucking high?

Best disco critic ever (tied with Vince Alleti, actually). Still writes for the Boston Phoenix. Likes Toby Keith's new album a LOT.

Hmmmm...well, there's no arguin' with him then.

Bands 1-4 are all better than Sum 41. Never heard of 5.

"Dooooooon't for-gehht me when I'm gawwwwn..."

ONLY ON ILX!

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/pic200_web/drp000/p051/p05157o188y.jpg

http://www.animotionlive.com/images/1985/DonCharlesBill85.jpg

wait, the sisters did i wanna be your dog too? i don't think i've ever heard it. cuz my favorite goth version of i wanna be your dog would be the world of skin version(and their cover of nick drake's blacked eyed dog is a favorite of mine as well)

The debut I find a bit tough to get into initially. When I first bought it, I thought of returning it, but it grew on me like killah fungus. So that I can understand. Its appeal is not immediate as the following two efforts would be. But prissy, contained, and reserved...MUTHAFOCK@#$%^&*(...Hell, I AM a Tribe head. They're my favorite rap group ever, and I'm pretty obnoxious and annoying. (But only on the Internet, baby!)

(or nude pictures of Animotion)

I found myself transixed and playing songs over and over again and forcing others to listen to stuff

Alex in NYC, I love you but I fart in your general direction

-- Alex in NYC (vassife...), December 3rd, 2003.

I do crack myself up. Someone's got to.

The very first sentence in this thread says it all really...

It's still vile.

Still great.

I don't have strong feelings about her, but she makes a lot more sense if you consider her ties to Springsteen & Blue Oyster Cult, rather than Richard Hell or Television. And relating her to Ramones or Dead Boys doesn't make any sense at all, in retrospect.

She reminds me most of Mark E. Smith. Not in her content, but more in the meth-fueled stream of consciousness, just run through a different brain.

Listened to it once.

Really liked it.

Never listened to it again.

How queer!

just got offed just saw patti smith live at the cambridge junction

the music was good, lively, toe-tapping rock stuff, the performance was superb, and patti herself absolutely riveting, her between-song patter sweet, self-parodic, earnest and very funny all at once. and that's BEFORE i get onto her ad-libs during songs. most of which were about her excitement at being in cambridge, a place of 'peace and knowledge' (yeah, right!). and meeting a cow. or something. very bizarre (if amusing) soliloquy during extended Hendrix cover. oh, and she also made a lot of meeting some 'brothers' (turned out to be 'fellows') earlier on in the day. and told a lovely anecdote about shoes. what's not to love?

it did help that her backing band were superb.

I like Gloria and Land of a Thousand Dances. Everything else about the album disappointed me after hearing 20 years or so of hype.

I got the double CD version at fopp a while ago for £5 (must have been a mistake of pricing), and I can say that previously I was of an Alex in NYC mind (well, I wouldn't say vile, but I could say I couldn't see it)....

However, the second CD has the "Don't look back" gig recreation of the full album, and here it sounds great/alive/relevant.

So, um, try that one.

Oh, I have it here.

revive for AlexNYC

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-8L6F-yhRW4

Her poetry in that one is terrible. I can't stand her beyond horses. But I'll always stand by horses.

I like the song Horses, but the album as a whole is a bit meh.

No! "Birdland" and "Kimberley" and "Gloria" redeem it for sure, I also like the rest of it but I am a rabid fan.

ps) Horses is also way better than any album that Sleater Kinney, Bjork, Tori Amos, Sinead Oconnor, or PJ Harvey ever did. So there.
So does that make Horses the best album recorded by someone with a vagina (or is there another connection between these artists that I am missing)?

best ilm zing ever

"gloria" and "horses" are both fantastic, but i wish the rest of the album sounded more like them. that one cod-reggae or something song is nearly unlistenable.

Mostly hostile Penman review (Horses is the one he likes):

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n09/ian-penman/ways-to-be-pretentious

Ah, he's no AlexInNYC

alex was a trailblazer when it comes to patti hate.

I now realize I forgot to post the update I penned last summer.

BRACE YOURSELVES!

Well, you didn't exactly change your mind about the music, did you?

As I say, seek out the live version of the album, CD2 in the deluxe reissue, that for me turned me around.

And yes, "Just kids" is great.

Nah, the music still sucks a tremendous platter of balls.

a "tremendous platter" of anything sounds pretty okay

like i'm imagining that they're slightly spicy, garlic-marinated balls and that they're being ferried about the pavilion by a nicely dressed young man in an apron and bowtie. the sun seems to be coming out.

yeah this album is one of a handful of "canonical" albums beloved by people i respect that i just cannot appreciate at all.

alex in nyc's blog post above is pretty sexist, though, trading in clichés of women sleeping their way to renown

Posted by me elsewhere a couple weeks back:

I remember taking a "history of rock music" class in my first taste of community college around 2000/2001 (so I was around 19 or 20 at the time) and was really excited to get to the punk/new wave section. In the textbook (which I wish I had saved, but alas, did not) there was, of course, much talk of the CBGB/NY scene. Besides the Ramones, the one artist that was hyped up more than anyone else was Patti Smith; in particular, Horses. There was a listening guide, no actual music was licensed, so it was up to the professor to play us the tunes mentioned. He never got around to Patti Smith, favoring instead the Ramones and more new wave-ish stuff. Because of this hype, I started to build up in my mind the thought of Patti Smith, and Horses, as this all-ahead, ass-kicking punk rawk record that was, awesomely, fronted by an equally as ass-kicking female lyricist that could provoke your mind while you rocked out. I was poor and jobless and had next to no spending money, so I would always check the racks at the used record shop and all they would have in there was multiple copies of Easter and Wave. Never did pick those up. So, anyway, time passes and I got myself a job at that very same used record store about a year later as a record clerk, in charge of processing all incoming arrivals. So, one day a copy of Horses finally shows up. I'm super excited. Didn't even bother to ask to play it in the store or have a go at the listening station. Just blind purchased it. After a long shift, I get it home, place it on the turntable aaaannnnnnnndd. . . this.

It just sucks. It's boring. It's overrated. And it sounds nothing like what it's been assigned to. It has the production of a million other shitty 1975 rock records. Total disappointment.

people who don't like this record suck

i guess it's overstated as a "punk record" (its proto-punk ffs, its attitudes inform what comes later) but it's got this free-flowing, expansive quality that i feel like very few records have (like for some reason i kind of associate this record with astral weeks)

i like this album well enough, but i always wished there were more moments like the first 30 seconds of "land," the whole "the boy looked at johnny, johnny started to run..." bit, which is wonderfully intense and spooky. i can appreciate patti as an influence and an icon but most of her actual music always felt a little tame to me next to the slits or the raincoats or x-ray spex or yoko ono or a lot of other female artists from roughly the same era who don't get a tenth of the attention she does (or get mostly negative attention). still, nothing against her.

also

I don't have strong feelings about her, but she makes a lot more sense if you consider her ties to Springsteen & Blue Oyster Cult

otm

And we arrive at the crux of why Horses is a bad album.

i wish i liked this album. i've tried it a couple of times. she looks so cool on the album sleeve.

surprised that so many find horses inaccessible or downright crap. it's appeal has always seemed pretty basic & obvious to me. loose, tough, bruised-up and romantic - not some paint-pealing firebomb, for the most part, but a damn fine 70s rock record. i like her voice, her lyrics and her style, the music's druggy shamble and drift, spasmodic attack. it's weird to me that patti might be faulted for failing to measure up to the mythology that got pasted onto her. with such expecations set aside, horses a strange, singular and beautiful album. only about half brilliant, but the brilliant half is as exhilaratingly immediate as anything by the velvets, stooges or insert canonical whoever.

Love Patti and her music from "Horses" thru to "Wave" but I can't stand contemporary hippieish PS with her constant namedropping of and self-associating with the Poets' Pantheon. She's always namedropped Rimbaud, Blake and the Beats she knew but nowadays it's OTT.

And we arrive at the crux of why Horses is a bad album

listen idk what to tell you if you think blue öyster cult is bad. can't think of a single better rock band tbh. maybe only thin lizzy

people who don't like this record suck

― HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson), Thursday, 5 May 2016 00:57 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

see what i mean? i respect tim's taste a great deal, but i don't get this record.

people who don't like this record certainly aren't doing a great job of not sucking

I like it but that's about as far as it goes for Patti tbh.

between that logic and alex in nyc's sexist takedown, i think i'll just forget music for a while

xpost

I'm with the lrb piece m/l although I like the odd bit from her non-horses (seventies) albums. Horses I love.

i wish i liked this album. i've tried it a couple of times. she looks so cool on the album sleeve.

Yeah, this. I tried to like this when I was younger, and I revisit it every few years thinking "perhaps this time!" but nah.

Dare I ask, which post are you asserting is sexist?

o all of those folks pissed off at me for shitty things I’ve said about Patti Smith, I respectfully apologize. I spoke out of turn and without having done enough of my homework.

So sexist! (insert joke emoticon here, I couldn't see anything objectionable in that piece whatsoever even though we disagree on her musical merits)

Austin, if you aren't down with BOC and Springsteen, you have no business listening to a Patti Smith album in the first place, imo

Seriously, I'm certainly guilty of saying loads of needlessly inflammatory shit, but I cannot fathom how I'm being sexist here. Enlighten me.

You are not a woman, but you criticized a woman.

Both of these are true. Than you for the affirmation. Didn't realize the latter would automatically render me a sexist. More to the point nowhere in either post -- the first one or the much later one -- did I ever allege anything about anyone sleeping their way to the top.

alex, in your blog post (at least, the one you linked to, which was excerpted from some german book) you implied that she slept her way to fame.

it wasn't your post on this thread but the blog post you linked to '

apologies if i misread and you were just linking it; you seemed to imply that you wrote it (FWIW i don't know your real name)

this one: http://vassifer.blogs.com/alexinnyc/2005/07/in_damnation_of.html

Through a strategy of opportunism that set the template for unhealthily ambitious scenemakers like Courtney Love to follow years later, Smith managed to befriend and manipulate enough people...

the implication is pretty close...

I thought this record was okay, if unspectacular. I don't care enough about it to revisit it, though.

That was the first post, which I recanted in the second post. But I'm not recanting anything beyond that, as your perceived implication is unfounded. One can be an manipulative opportunist without it involving sex. The allusion to Courtney love directly relates to a snippet of video in Nick Broomfield's documentary, "Kurt & Courntey" wherein Love recites a to-do list in her campaign towards establishing herself as a star. One of those is "befriend Michael Stipe" (which, of course, she did). This is an example of manipulative opportunism that doesn't involve sleeping around.

Throwing terms like sexist around is pretty serious (much like branding someone a racist. In future, I'd suggest thinking long and hard before wheeling out such a big gun before it is warranted.

She was notoriously opportunistic, especially in the early days.:

Gerard Malanga: "I was a little pissed off at Patti because when the book came out she thanked Anita Pallenberg, who she didn't even know, Bobby Neuwith and somebody else."

"I went out of my way to twist a few arms and get her work known and then she just turns around and thanks Bobby Neuwith....What did she get out of Bobby Neuwith? Maybe she got to meet Dylan. I thought it was a bit of brownnosing."

sorry if i hastened to conclusions, alex. usually that sort of tale strongly implies, or is accompanied by, the sexist narrative of a woman sleeping her way to the top. i didn't know all these things about the young patti smith.

it still seems kind of irrelevant to whatever you think of her album. plenty of opportunists make good records; put another way, many if not most successful people are opportunists one way or another.

Austin, if you aren't down with BOC and Springsteen, you have no business listening to a Patti Smith album in the first place, imo

Further proving my point that this album has nothing to do with punk.

Does it matter whether it has anything to do with punk?

When it's been assigned to that scene and thumped into the ears of music fans for generations following as such, then yes. Its whole reputation relies on it.

Its whole reputation relies on it.

Now you're just being silly.

<3 horses all time
free money $$$$$$$$$$ redondo beach lyfe $$$$$$$$$$$
i can't even really feel how ppl don't think her band was aces?? like they are just a great sound

HOrses is great and possibly even better live. The Easy Action sets I've heard of her live as well as the boots from the era have been great. I also really like Radio Ethiopia which people apparently thought of as more fo a misfire than Horses. Not so hot on Easter which is more poppy or conventionally rocky or something.

Would love a set of her journalism. Kind of surprised there isn't one out but haven't come across one.
Did really enjoy Just Kids too

she's "punk" in a historical rather than a musicological sense, inasmuch as she belongs to the counterculture that followed in the wake of the hippies & rejected many of their values. this seems really obvious to me? idk

plus she had an attitude (or at least projected one, on record) and couldn't sing for shit

she loved hippies!

Dylan, Jagger etc

She was heavily involved in the CBGB scene that Television set up and became what was known as New York Punk.
Seemed to be about d.i.y. lo fi return to basics rock after late 60s early 70s rock excess. Contained a lot of improvisation but wasn't as technique based as the mainstream of the time.

(xp) I hope you're not implying Dylan and Jagger were hippies?

Anyway, it's not as cut and dried as that, she was hippyish and punky.

new york "punk" avant la lettre didn't subscribe to the whole (generally overstated) punk orthodoxy, in sound or ideology

in other words this is a dumb conversation

you might like patti smith or you might not, but it shouldn't have to do with whether or not she is "punk" unless you have signed a contract saying you can only like punk rock.

Also, musically her band were pretty punky!

Oh and the guitarist really triggered a return to basics in compiling Nuggets. I think that has been pointed to by a lot of people as a triggering point.
I'm still not sure if Kaye was recognising people buying singles from the era when he was working at Village Oldies which from the name I'd assume was a 2nd hand place.

I never thought of her as punk in the same way the Sex Pistols were, and never really felt that I was being asked to feel that way. I don't see that she's someone who calls out for a contrarian response. Her most recent album is wonderful, as is her first. I've been told that she was amazing live, and am prepared to believe that.

I'm trying to think about which opening statement is more ballsy. "I am an antichrist, I am an anarchist." or "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine." My sense is that most people couldn't parse the first because they didn't know enough about Greek prefixes, but would understand that the second was problematic.

I'm one of those milennials so I have a woefully poor grounding in mod v rocker studies but for what little it's worth patti smith is quite clearly one of the biggest hippies on the planet

I was behind her in line at Kim's Underground once, when she dealt with aplomb with an asshole Kim's employee, which forever endeared her to me.

Genre descriptions for Horses:

Wikipedia- Punk rock, art punk, garage rock
AllMusic- New York Punk, Punk/New Wave
Discogs- Rock, Art Rock (this is the only one that gets right)
RateYourMusic- Proto-Punk, Singer/Songwriter, Garage Rock, Poetry, Art Punk, Piano Rock

No.

Ha, I started this thread 14 years ago partly because of this problem: Taking Sides: Patti Smith vs Aerosmith

contains the following unedited sequence of posts, from the halcyon days when this board could reliably make me belly-laugh at work:

Both of them pale in comparison to Alice Cooper. I'd love to hear Patti's pronunciations of all those dead French guys' names. Also, the 'legendary' first line of 'Horses', pfffft - one of those Statements to which the only possible reply is "Yeah, so what?"

Aerosmith had a few moments of accidental comingtogetherness (chemical division). 'Rocks' is to garage rock what 'Exile' was to gospel music. 'Night in the Ruts' has some interesting what-the-fuck-were-they-on moments too.
― dave q, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (14 years ago) Permalink

* * *

First of all, Patti by a mile.

But Aerosmith could rawk, in an illiterate sense. So they were cool for awhile (like 2 LPs worth) - until they started recycling every fucking thing. I hate Aerosmith soooo much. I can't think of a band that's less creative.
― Dave225, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (14 years ago) Permalink

* * *

fucking yank shit. golden oldys. i love music from what ive seen board should be called i love shit cos thats all u talk about.
― XStatic Peace, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (14 years ago) Permalink

lol

dave q is correct in re "Yeah, so what?"

& yet your very, "so what" response... is only possible because of punk rock hmmm?? makes u think

briefly considered starting a thread for people to post the opening lyrics from various classic albums followed by "Yeah, so what?", thought better of it

But yet I know, where'er I go, / That there hath pass'd away a glory—Yeah, so what?

(this joke is: because I have become a lonely old man yelling of clouds, how it was better here before, & such)

worst and most worst depressing thread

thread sucks, punk sucks, horses still pretty good

Did you not read the thread subject?

Yes,I recommend "Just Kids"

punk sucks

If I could time-travel, the New York mid-70s punk scene would be one of my favoured destinations.

Bought this years ago. Played it twice. Completely underwhelmed each time. It's poetry rock, and who wants that? I don't.

xp me too

Bought this years ago. Played it twice. Completely underwhelmed each time. It's poetry rock, and who wants that? I don't.

If you don't get much out of the incredible rollercoaster momentum of Gloria and Free Money, or the chorus of Break It Up then I don't know what to say in response. I see so many of the haters on this thread repping for so many dull and/or turgid rock records and this is the one you come out to bat against?

I think Patti in general came across at both the right AND the wrong point in musical history, in that I associate her with a kind of bohemianism that was starting to feel old-fashioned. This is pretty much the only area where comparing her with Debbie Harry (who really did seem like the future) is remotely useful. But at the same time her music is primal and squally enough that associating her with punk doesn't feel totally inappropriate.

I don't think I'll ever be able to read fans of Killing Joke and Grizzly Bear throw shade on Patti Smith without rolling my eyes.

I dont really understand why Patti needs to be compared with Debbie Harry anyway, and why it is 'remotely useful'.

I love both equally, but when I listen to Patti I feel like she's positioning herself as part of a lineage that reaches backwards into the Velvets and the Beats, even as she's reacting against that lineage. A kind of bohemianism that predated rock and assimilated it. Whereas Debbie feels like she's reaching forward, into the kind of pop moves and pop forms (rap, disco) that will dominate the decades to come. As icons of a particular scene, they feel like they're on different sides of a watershed.

In general I find the comparisons between them pretty facile and not remotely useful, but people still make them, a lot.

You just made a good/interesting one tho, so that's something

I think there was some level of rivalry between the 2 back in CBGB days. Patti trying to poach Clem Burke when he auditioned for Blondie was one thing that caused friction. It happened in CBGB itself when Smith happened to be there, not sure how intentionally, but wasn't a very tactful move on her part.

Last two posts signed Matt DC are right otm

I was behind her in line at Kim's Underground once, when she dealt with aplomb with an asshole Kim's employee, which forever endeared her to me.

Matt DC tellem

I love this album btw, although I may love Easter more.

I feel like she's positioning herself as part of a lineage that reaches backwards into the Velvets and the Beats, even as she's reacting against that lineage. A kind of bohemianism that predated rock and assimilated it.

feel the phrase "jim morrison" needs to occur somewhere in that sentence, tho it's perhaps what's giving her detractors the hives

Did you not read the thread subject?

fuck a thread title, punk

the reality was that the lines between "punk" and "hippie" were always very blurred and ppl on this thread seem to be having some sort of bizarre 1984 argument

greg ginn saw like 80 dead shows!
johnny rotten sold acid at hawkwind shows!
joe strummer walked around in flares strumming acoustic guitar & looking like nick drake!

I don't think I'll ever be able to read fans of Killing Joke and Grizzly Bear throw shade on Patti Smith without rolling my eyes.

― Matt DC

truth bomb

ums OTM

i feel like just the image of her on the album cover alone is more important than a lot of bands

iggy pop & johnny ramone, you could make the argument the 2 men most responsible for US punk, both loved the Doors

I don't even really see her as reacting against a Velvets/Beat (or Stones/Doors) lineage.
xp

... that wasn't what was being said.

i just don't understand how people are acting like "oh ppl always say that she was supposed to be PUNK MAN but she doesn't sound PUNK" it's like well duh punk evolved out of a stew of post-60s stuff and she did play an important role in that it's like not like Mother Earth just pooped the The Exploited fully formed out of her geological vag

however they might've spun it later on, a huge portion of punks were former hippies, or at least former wannabe hippies.
i dunno, it might be hard to see from this vantage point but patti smith, horses etc -- it must've been a pretty original, striking thing at the time. which maybe is why there might be some overrating that's gone on over the years ... but I still like that record a lot.

a lineage that reaches backwards into the Velvets and the Beats, even as she's reacting against that lineage

How is this not what was being said?

iggy pop & johnny ramone, you could make the argument the 2 men most responsible for US punk, both loved the Doors

― rockpalast '82 (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, May 6, 2016 2:11 PM

i thought iggy was primarilly motivated by jim morrisons stage antics - i cant remember any time he has talked about specific doors songs - put them on any of the mixes he sometimes does etc...if he was into the doors i dont think it was an infatuation that lasted - but i guess he knows best

The first Stooges album cover was meant to be influenced by The Doors lp, yes.

Yeah I always saw it that way.
Iggy with airbrushed chin after his alternative cover design idea fell on its face.

Much as it pains me to say it, I believe Iggy has also said he was influenced by Jimbo's singing style. I mean just listen to something like "Tonight." Maybe he felt a little extra simpatico because they were "name brothers."

Why would it pain you? Jim Morrison is a brilliant rock singer. My turn to quote a quote I am constantly quoting, Iggy saying that he'd borrowed so much from Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger that "you might as well call me Jim Jagger or Mick Morrison".

the ian penman LRB article is just tremendous. i never cared about or liked patti smith's music but that article hypnotized me.

there's a relevant anecdote in Please Kill Me where Iggy recalls going to a Doors show at University of Michigan ca.1967-68 and admits to being influenced by Jimbo. He also remembers how the MC5 sneered at the Doors music because it's wasn't heavy Detroit rock & roll. "I hate those pussies" said Fred Smith (and thus the circle to Patti is completed).

I think Patti in general came across at both the right AND the wrong point in musical history, in that I associate her with a kind of bohemianism that was starting to feel old-fashioned.

Don't forget this crucial and rather forgotten figure who actually sold records:

http://www.rickieleejones.com/images/discography/fotos_rel/Rickie-Lee-Jones-Rolling-Stone_79.jpg

Forgotten by who?

Some forgotten figures who didn't sell too many records:
http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0001/620/MI0001620218.jpg?partner=allrovi.com

In the end, back to the subject at hand, as it were. I was put off for a long time by the thick laying on of all the poète maudit (poétesse maudite?) stuff that she seems to like to invoke- with the original Bobby Z that element was always tempered with the Robert Johnson refrains (Happy Birthday Weekend!) and was sometimes underwhelmed by the sonics (lower-case) of the band, but in the end I like some of her tunes and performances plenty, as well as some of her iconic cover poses.

Forgotten by who?

― Wrecka Stow Ralph (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, May 7, 2016

outside ILM

Ah yes, of course. You know, when you first posted that, for a split second I was sure it was a picture of David Johansen.

I'm giving this another shot later today.

Ah yes, of course. You know, when you first posted that, for a split second I was sure it was a picture of David Johansen.

― Wrecka Stow Ralph (James Redd and the Blecchs),

lol yeah

At some very early, often overlooked, period in his solo career, when he still hadn't transitioned to putting the Dolls dress code fully behind him, and had elements of that mixed in with his incipient new look.

funky funky but chic!

Ou est la boutique?

It kinda makes sense that 2 guys in awesome rock bands would be into awesome rock bands like the Doors

MC5 were such bros

Speaking of some people's disappointed reaction to finally hearing Horses and how not "punk" it was, I actually like em a lot now but first hearing MC5 who I'd read about as the fathers of punk at 19 was more damn this kinda sounds like Steppenwolf

Why would it pain you? Jim Morrison is a brilliant rock singer. My turn to quote a quote I am constantly quoting, Iggy saying that he'd borrowed so much from Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger that "you might as well call me Jim Jagger or Mick Morrison".

The only thing that quote that you quote is missing is a mention of Clem Cattini.

I think a lot of Patti Smith's "punk" cred came from her live performances, which were high-energy and frenzied and of course fronted by a woman with an unconventional voice/appearance who had never really done that sort of thing before. So in that sense Patti Smith was "punk" the same way Lenny Bruce (or hey, Mapplethorpe) was punk, by dint of doing anything out of the box. Anyway, I think there were clearly two strains of punk, the dangerous, radical scare your parents punk (or proto punks) and the no less radical but maybe less overtly confrontational free to do something different punks (which is where you'd slot , say, Talking Heads or Television). Smith probably split the difference.

Keep in mind, just a few years later no one knew where to file Tom Petty! And a few more years after that Los Lobos was sharing bills with PiL and Dwight Yoakum with Husker Du, which shows how easy it was for the longest time to stick out just by doing something a little bit different.

Anyway, sure, Smith's touchstones were the Doors and Dylan and Jimi Hendrix and a whole bunch of classic rock warhorses, but who else would they be at that time?

Right.

Ou est la boutique?

decades old battles
http://www.dangermouse.net/blog/images/trek/LetThatBeYourLastBattlefield.jpg

Steppenwolf > MC5 x 1,000,000

MC5 Wayne State University live footage >>>>>>>>>>>>>Steppenwolf.

"it must've been a pretty original, striking thing at the time."

radio ethiopia definitely struck me. well, not in 1976, but it was the first thing i heard/bought by her around 1981. "pissing in the river" was what i loved about it. so big and dramatic and goth. and i was a doors fan back then, so, maybe those elements appealed to me. a year or two before i was listening to joy division 24/7, the doors of their day. and then echo & the bunnymen, the doors of THEIR day.

i had always been aware of patti in the 70's because of the ads in magazines and i would see the records in stores and i read rock scene in the 70's so i stared at endless pictures of her canoodling on couches with lisa robinson and joey ramone, but she definitely still packed a punch in the early 80's. more so than joe jackson or elvis by that point. old hippie elvis showed his true trad colors soon enough. patti remained weird. and even disappeared from the rock life. which you weren't supposed to do if you had a name/heat.

Again, her most recent album Banga from 2012 is rather great, which was an absolute surprise. It goes downhill (sadly) when she goes all Doors-y, though in some ways she now sounds like Lee Renaldo doing his beat thing circa Ghosts and Flowers. Anyway, I'm not sure who else from the 70's NYC scene has put out anything so good in recent memory.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a82/bobbysixer/pam-ayers-orses_zpsset1rci9.jpg

Wha?

Came to post that I just saw Patti Smith on the Roky Erickson doc posted on Good online documentaries about music... saying she was a huge 13th Floor Elevators fan.

"Anyway, I'm not sure who else from the 70's NYC scene has put out anything so good in recent memory."

not new york, but beloved by new york: i'm always impressed and surprised when i hear latter-day pere ubu/david thomas/rocket from the tombs stuff. as far as pre-punk, proto-punk, punk, and post-punk people go. and they were all those things. i kinda ignored almost everything those guys did in the 90's. who knew the 21st century would be such a period of strength despite obvious physical frailty.

Just watching this video, and realized for the first time that Lisa Suckdog (Carver) was probably referencing it on Jokes About Women into Will I Ever Do Anything With My Clothes On. Weird. The beginning bit about "I'm an artist."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt0x8S6Ylqk

"I'm an artist. Rock and roll is my art. I'm a nigger of the universe. And I'm free because, I can leap up and scream, I can put my fist up in the air, I don't give a shit."

vs.

"I'm an artist, I don't mind if you call me one, but if you do, I...I just don't mind and if you think it's bad I'll beat the fucking piss shit out of you 'cause I know how."

Maybe it's a coincidence, but I'm thinking no.

i always loved that tick tock tick tock FUCK THE CLOCKS intro to live time is on my side by patti.

yeah, this. i like the whole thing really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-cfUC4rP_g

I mean, she's stepping into the shoes of arguably the biggest rock icon of her generation, and I don't see a bit of hesitance or deference.

sorry to state the obvious but her continued insistence on referring to herself as a "nigger" is so idiotic and maddening

She was way ahead of her time, and she was wrong in her time, but she's kind of been vindicated in the long run. I don't really hold it against her.

I honestly don't know what you mean by that! For me tho, I'd be willing to let it slide (like anyone cares lol) if it was just one incredibly stupid song from roughly the era of songs called "mongoloid" and lou reed's outRAGeous comedy slurs about his backing singers or whatever but it just seems to go beyond never-quite-disowned youthful dumbshit "provocation" into something sincerely creepy. And she's still at it (per penman's mention of her talking about "spades" in the book, and she still performs rnrn right?)

maybe I'm just trying to revive the spirit of overheated race relation debates since nakh revived that thread lol

can't stand that song by The Avengers for the same reason and i really like that band. i kinda love "we are the one" more than any patti song and it definitely stands up their with any 1977 Brit punk.

Agreed on Pere Ubu recent stuff, them and Wire are really consistently great

i kinda love "we are the one" more than any patti song

I had never heard this before, it's good! (I don't particularly care about punk tbf)

(haha yeah I will pass on that other song)

"up there"

kesha is the patti smith of our generation, discuss

no

I'm pretty sure I prefer Radio Ethiopia to Horses actually. Easter I've never got into if only because the song mentioned above is so collossally misguided and wrongheaded.

i thought it was pretty badass when i was younger, and musically it still is, but yeah

It's actually interesting that the Patti Smith and Frank Zappa threads are going on at the same time. Both kind of interesting, smart people from the 60s and 70s (respectively) who weren't quite up to transcending their times. I like her more than him, but that's just personal taste.

Did Patti ever have any difficult interaction with Weird Al or his band? Because then that would tie this thread with the Zappa thread and the Prince RIP thread as well.

Or else we could just discuss her jazz bonafides for the same result

oh she has those in spades

Um...

there is a book from the 70's called Rock 100 that Lenny Kaye co-wrote and i know there is a Zappa entry, but i don't remember what they wrote about him.

I'd be willing to let it slide (like anyone cares lol) if it was just one incredibly stupid song from roughly the era of songs called "mongoloid"

don't drag Devo into this!

but yeah, for me, it's the cringe-inducing "skip this track" thing like with Morrissey's "Bengali in Platforms"

It's way more aggressively cringey than Bengali, though Bengali's core message is way worse and meaner, but like when I was young I didn't even have the cultural literacy to know what Bengali meant in UK culture plus the song kinda drifts by in a haze whereas RnRN is so instantly like damn white lady pump yr brakes on the n word

did she ever wear that lester bangs t-shirt? did lester bangs make that t-shirt? he had a lot of homemade t-shirts.

Remember when that was a viable business model? When I was a kid, I had a friend whose parents ran a T-shirt printing store. I remember my whole third or fourth grade class went on a field trip and we got T-shirts printed there, so they'd be able to keep track of us all. I don't remember where we went, but I remember the T-shirts. They were green.

Oh yeah, I got a Let It Be t-shirt that way, to name one, from one of those places where they had all the imprints up on the wall so you could pick one, choose your shirt size and color and then they would use a press iron to meld it all together. The last time I saw something like that was late 70s.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/12/bf/c5/12bfc552bc9624ac0819fab5248b1806.jpg

As mentioned a couple of times above "Piss Factory"/"Hey Joe" is really great - pretty much the only thing I'll return to (slightly surprised Penman didn't mention it).

And then her voice was sampled in a Dead C track in World Peace Hope Et Al. Its only a couple of mins long but its the only other time I cared.

Was enjoying listening to this this am, has a brief snippet of smith. Her magnetism is apparent (and yeah the assertion that she might be reacting against the beat lineage in any way is mildly baffling)