“Mayakovsky
would read poems in the streets of Moscow and people would riot. It was just
like a Who concert.” – Patti Smith
KRYPTONITE & WILHELM REICH – Milwaukee, March 10, 1976
“How is one to describe all this?” – Gertrude Stein
Two events. Almost two separate occurrences. One transcends the other.
I had waited a long time for the Sigmund Snopek Group to open a concert ever
since I first heard them perform “Nobody To Dream” at an east side
club four years ago. But there were problems.
Snopek’s pieces are written and performed in a flowing, ongoing manner, and
getting this across to an audience that insisted on clapping at each infinitesimal
break between sections of “Dreams” was a bit difficult. Even with
the usual equipment problems, Snopek handled it well.
And Snopek himself, between Gabriel with horn and Attila The Hun on the rampage,
attacked the audience with a tour de force so strong it knocked the rest of
the band for a loop — with the exception of Ding Lorenz who came back
quickly enough to a catcall of “Hi Ho Silver” to perform an extended
“William Tell Overture” on xylophone. Lorenz, always impressive in
concert, stole the show for a few moments.
This is not to say that Snopek failed or even that Snopek fails. He does not.
His conceptions are far-reaching and brilliant, but his context is not a Patti
Smith concert and his competition is not the Patti Smith Group. Snopek has earned
his place in the galaxy, but no one deserves to be followed by the Patti Smith
Group. No one could be followed by the Patti Smith Group. And that, of course,
was the other thing I had waited a long time for.
In September 1974, Bob Reitman called. He’d just got back from New York
where he heard a singer named Patti Smith. He claimed she is going to be the
biggest thing since Bob Dylan. She’s not well known outside of New York, but
just had an offer from Lou Reed to produce her. At any rate, Reitman has a long
taped interview with her and wants to know if we want it?
So there she was. And there we were. But were we ready? I doubt it, for we
are never ready for a revolution. How am I to describe all this? “We’re
Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together,” Patti’s Lou Reed show opener set
it all up, with the singer in a jacket/dress shirt/t-shirt/red flannel sweat
pants/knee boots. She threw the jacket, pulled off the dress/shirt — something
like “I See It All Around Me.” Rhythms, words; rhythms, words; she’s
listening to us (the local slang, you know?)…
Earlier in the day, Patti had described another rock singer with the words:
“She moves like a boxer.” She moved like a boxer — that’s it;
that’s Patti…one fist out, one fist in, one fist out, one fist in; pompom,
pompom, pompom, prom queen — yeah team!
She led. She fed. She drained. She sustained. We weren’t ready for this no
matter what they tell you. We weren’t ready for this, but she took us anyway
and we went. Trudeau said: “I predict that the universe will unfold as
planned,” And Patti sang “Kimberly”…”I tell you right
now I’m listening to everything you say…” And she was.
Union Jack, it’s her bicentennial t-shirt. Ivan Kral’s Brave jacket in the
home of the Braves (and the land of the free?) “Money.” Then a song
that “Lou Reed wrote (Pattism, please leave alone) for Hank Williams, disguised
as Patti Smith “lingering on your pale blue eyes…oh, ‘Louie, Louie.'”
“Do some T.S. Eliot!” someone screamed. “Kryptonite & Wilhelm
Reich” said Patti. Extraterrestrial rhythms, interterrestrial rhythms,
the technology of rock ‘n’ roll (“she’s not human!”).
“I Give You My Soul,” “Gloria – G-L-O-R-I-A.” Fuck the
word, ‘my generation.'” (“I don’t need your fuckin’ shit ’cause I’ve
had enough of it.”) The Velvet Underground wall of white noise-first encore.
“Hey Joe” faked intro (“tick tock, fuck the clock!) to “Time
Is On My Side” — second encore. And we just heard the Stones.
…Transitions, transmissions, rhythms, revolutions…and ‘how is one to describe
all this?'”
“Let’s swing betty boop hoop
let’s birdland
let’s stroll
let’s rock
let’s roll
let’s whalebone
let’s go
let’s deodorize the night…” – Patti Smith, 1973
