Protopunk

Lately I’ve been listening to some protopunk garage rock. Stuff brings back memories, man, though not of the ’70s or 80s, but rather of the girl who stole my heart. I enjoy the raw energy of this music, not to mention the usually leftist political stance, social critique, or otherwise inspired lyrics. I’m talking about going all the way back to The Velvet Underground, circa White Light/White Heat (1968), and Loaded (1970). Great, though harsh, experimental psychedelia. I’m also thinking of the debut live album by MC5 (Motor City Quintet), Kick Out the Jams (1968), “motherfucker!” Talk about raw power and energy! Then there’s Iggy Pop & The Stooges. Like garage glam punk blues with hints of free jazz. Their album Raw Power (1973) says it all! Don’t forget Alice Cooper, whose early-70s output has a great punk garage rock vibe. (All three bands, MC5, The Stooges, and Alice Cooper, not coincidentally hail from Detroit.) Of course we have the New York Dolls (true glam punks) as well as Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers (Like A Mother Fucker!), fun punk rock ‘n’ roll. And Television, with their intriguing interlocking guitars and much more technically proficient compositions.

When I was younger (“so much younger than today”), I didn’t care much about punk rock, not because I disliked it, but because I was listening to progressively more and more complicated and weird music. It was only a few years ago that I started listening to punk because the love of my life spoke about it. That’s when I picked up albums by The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, and so on. I remember we listened to Blondie together when we were in Hawaii. (They played “The Tide Is High” everywhere we went, until we got sick of it!) She recommended The Buzzcocks to me after we broke up and I was still hoping we’d get back together. Other bands I (re-)discovered on my own, like The Runaways, The Damned, The Jam, The Stranglers, and so on. I remember taking the bus to her place one day when I had just uploaded Iggy Pop into my iPod. So, those are the recollections I get when I hear punk rock. Bittersweet as these memories are, they are some of the best and some of the worst moments of my life.

Patti Smith

Last month I was talking with people about how I believe that Patti Smith is seriously overrated. But if you want to formulate a statement, you’ll also need arguments on which to base it. To be sure, I realize that she helped female singers explore modes of expression beyond merely singing pretty love songs. In that respect, you can draw a direct line to Blondie and to Siouxsie and the Banshees. Unfortunately, that also means that she often sounds horrible, no Janis Joplin or Billie Holiday (singers who likewise can be said to have been limited in their vocal range, but still were unrivaled in their expression). The spoken word delivery of her own poetry is even more annoying (witness “Birdland,” and “Land” on Horses, “Poppies” on Radio Ethiopia, “Babelogue” on Easter, and the title-track on Wave, for instance).

Musically, her albums provide a link between the psychedelic art rock of The Velvet Underground and the American punk rock of Television, The Ramones, Blondie, and The Runaways, via some garage blues rock. If her debut errs on the artistic side, it lacks the punch on the punk side. I prefer the burst of energy on her rendition of The Who’s “My Generation.” In retrospect I find it hard to believe that critics blamed her for self-indulgence on her sophomore effort, as if Horses (1975) wasn’t overly self-indulgent. You might say she sold out, in that onwards from Radio Ethiopia (1976) her sound became more and more polished and mainstream, until Patti Smith sounds just like Stevie Nicks (not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that, just that Stevie Nicks does that better). So, to me it seems that her overall relevance is limited to the late-70s NYC punk rock scene at Max’s Kansas City and CBGB... Admittedly, I wish I could have been there!

The members of her band in the 70s (Lenny Kaye, Richard Sohl, Ivan Kral, Jay Dee Daugherty) are no doubt talented, I’ll give her that, but much of the music remains rather uninspiring and unoriginal. Noted exceptions include “Radio Ethiopia” (ten minutes worth of distorted rock guitar noise), “Chicklets” (a nice outtake with fender rhodes), “Easter” (a religious meditation on death and resurrection), and “Dancing Barefoot” (a celebration of falling in love). Perhaps it’s unfair to dismiss her poetry without so much as a word, but I just can’t force myself to analyze her lyrics. I just think she’s trite. (“Hey Sheba, hey Salome, hey Venus eclipsin’ my way, ah! / Her vessel, every woman is a vessel, is evasive, is aquatic. / Everyone, silver ecstatic, platinum disk spinning”; or “She is recreation. / She, intoxicated by thee. / She has the slow sensation that / He is levitating with she” ... ?)

Sorry if I offend any die-hard followers, but my contention remains that Patti Smith is a clear case of being at the right place at the right time – and with the right people: photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Lynn Goldsmith; producers John Cale, Jack Douglas, Jimmy Iovine, and Todd Rundgren; plus musicians such as Tom Verlaine (Television), Allen Lanier (Blue Öyster Cult), (her own guitarist) Lenny Kaye, and Bruce Springsteen; and the coterie of Rolling Stone writers who praised her to the stars (she was herself at one point an RS writer). That doesn’t mean I find her outright bad, I just could have lived without her music – even if I’ll keep her first four albums in my iTunes...

JSBX

A dear friend recommended that the Music Cricket tries listening to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (JSBX) with the warning, “Not for Purists” ...interesting... As that tends to go, that means I downloaded a whole slew of their albums and started at the beginning. I heard the name before, I think (although it sounds a bit like the Spencer Davis Group) ... but never checked them out... This is “Blues” in as much as it revives Iggy Pop & The Stooges, and toys with clichés of the genre. Other than that, their earliest output is a supercharged, hyperactive explosion of ironic post-modern, alternative punk rock. I guess they’ve influenced The White Stripes and The Von Buddies. Later they drift more toward less incoherent catchy tunes (adding more textures to their bass-less trio, such as strings, horns and organ), like the funky dance territory of Beck, which I find much less appealing, while sometimes shifting toward the Stereolab of Emperor Tomato Ketchup, which I can appreciate better. When I listen to Thrash Metal, I know instantly weather I like a song or not. With this stuff, I really have to make an effort ... and I doubt that repeated listening will pay off. Overall I guess this is not very much my cup o’ tea ... or my cup o’ soup ... but not awful either. If there were room left on my iPod I’d dump it in there, but my 60GBs are stuffed to the gill as it is...