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The 50th Anniversary Tour of Patti Smith's Horses: A Conversation with Caryn Rose
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- [00:00]
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- [01:11]
Rebecca Buchanan
Hi, this is Rebecca Buchanan, host at New Books Network, and today I'm here with Karen Rose to talk about her new chapbook, Three Chords and Blessed Noise. Karen, thanks for being here with me
- [01:21]
Karen Rose
today and it's always awesome to talk to you.
- [01:24]
Rebecca Buchanan
Rebecca, could you start out by telling why you put this chat book out, how it sort of came to be? Yeah, let's start there.
- [01:34]
Karen Rose
So I knew I was going to see a bunch of shows on this horses tour because there was, you know, for the last couple of years. There's a friend of mine that I travel with often and, and she's fond of saying none of this is guaranteed. You know, we don't, we don't know how much longer this goes on. And, you know, when they announced they were going to do another horses tour, we were like, okay, we, we really, you know, we're looking at everybody's. Not that we're looking at their birth certificates, but, you know, reality is reality. And, you know, I ended up picking a bunch of about five shows because she did two in Chicago. I was doing two in New York and then one in Boston. And it all kind of fell into a road. I'm like, okay, I'm going on the road for a week. Wow. I haven't done that in A really long time. And I was really hopeful that somebody would let me maybe do a tour diary. I mean, kind of retro, kind of makes sense. Kind of fits in with Patti Smith. But there's no freelance budgets anymore. Nobody wants. And people are really not paying for concert reviews. I mean, that was one of the first things that we kind of lost in terms of music reportage. And I tried pitching stories at a couple of places and didn't hear back. And there's. People talk a lot about missing fanzines and wanting something physical and something they can hold. And I have a couple of ideas that I've been thinking about. And when I did some, like, local research about printers, there was a local printer that was like, fanzine, you can print, it's low, you can print. You know, the minimum print run is eight copies. And I'm like, oh, maybe I should do this. And the idea also of doing it and getting it out as quickly as possible. So that was, it wasn't a traditional publishing schedule, you know, where it comes out in three years and nobody cares. And I, I, I thought, well, you know, I don't ever have anything to do over Christmas anyway. This seems like a great way to spend my December. And so that's what I did when y' all were having, you know, whatever you do over Christmas. I was, I was writing to try to make a deadline, my own deadline, because I really just wanted, I wanted to get this out in January. You know, there was a, There was a fantastical part of me that was like, oh, I bet I could get this out quicker. And then it was like, no, no, no. And also, like, the editor I wanted to work with has a life, and she's a very proud auntie and needed to spend time with, with her nibbling. So I was like, okay, January still is still a pretty good, you know, it's still a pretty good production schedule. And, you know, I could, I could write what I wanted, and I didn't have to worry about word count. And I had really hoped to have somebody help help me design it. But not, not unsurprisingly, people were not as excited about working over Christmas as I was. And I was like, okay, well, it's time. You know what? It's a good time to learn the new tools. And so that's what I did. I thought it was. She's such a tremendous and underrated live performer. And if this was going to be the band's last outing, I felt it needed to be captured, and it should be captured by somebody who who's been seeing them play together for as long as I have. So that's how we ended up with this book.
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Rebecca Buchanan
I love that I have the same feeling about certain artists that, like, I need to go. Because you don't. I don't. Is this going to be it, right? Is this the end?
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Karen Rose
And.
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Rebecca Buchanan
And nine times out of 10, I'm like, I hate. I hate to sound morbid, but I'm like, please do not die before my ticket. Like, you know, like, I feel that way sometimes with bands and artists who've been around a while. So, yes, I. I know that urgency. Could you talk a little bit about Horses, like the album and why it's so important? I mean, they've done. This is the 50th anniversary tour, and they've done other tours before. But for folks who might not know Patti Smith's Horses, can you just sort of give a little background of it?
- [06:18]
Karen Rose
Sure. So the, The. The big honor of Horses is that they were the first band of what I like to call the CBGB's Class of 1975. They were the first band from there to get a major label recording deal. And so this was, you know, this was the first of punk rock to go into a studio. And, yeah, people put out singles and other. There are other projects, but this was a major. This how they did, how this record would do, how it came together was going to represent the team, for lack of a better term. Clive Davis can believe in Patti Smith as much as he wants. And also, they didn't get signed to a major label and then completely throw out everything that they were. Um, you know, the contract called for complete creative control. And so when, you know, Patti chose, you know, she just. She had the. She and Robert Mapplethorpe had the concept for what the. She knew. She always knew she wanted Robert to take the COVID and he took the picture. And when the art department at Arista decided to airbrush her face or whatever, she was like, no, we're not. We're doing that. We're still doing this the way I want to do it. You know, they picked John Cale as a producer, and for all of the stories about how much they fought in the studio, it was still, you know, it was still her choice. It was still her decision. And the record being impactful and successful by whatever sort of metric you want to choose, I mean, it didn't go to number one with a bullet, but nobody was doing that then. But it was critically highly regarded and the band was happy with their effort and they know they Had. And it was the first real encapsulation of this new attempt to merge poetry and rock and roll. And what does that look like? You know, nobody called Patti a new Dylan, but they probably should have.
- [08:47]
Rebecca Buchanan
So you saw this 50th anniversary tour, but she and Lenny Kay have been playing together for the whole time that they, you know, for these 50 years. Can you talk a little bit about the lineup now that you saw? So, yeah, who is she playing with? Yeah, that kind of thing.
- [09:06]
Karen Rose
So. So Lenny is, of course I call her, I used to call her, you know, he's the second in command. He's the major domo to her, you know, field marshal. And, you know, she's been playing with Lenny since the beginning. You know, he was the person, you know, for people who don't know the way they met was he wrote an article about doo wop and sort of modern resurgence of doo wop in the early 70s really resonated with the article and sent him a letter as, as one did back then. And he was working at a record store in the Village and she used to go visit him and they'd hang out and they'd, they'd play records and they'd dance when things were dead in the store. And she was, she was like, can you, can you make a guitar sound like a car crash? And Lenny said, yeah, I think I can do that. And that was the beginning of a really beautiful friendship and creative partnership. And he's been there on stage with her forever. JD Daugherty also, as she introduced him when they got inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame, when she got inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame, you know, she pointed out he's been her, her only drummer. You know, also in the band is Tony Shanahan, who plays bass. But Tony's kind of. I call him the Swiss army knife of the band because he can play anything. He can play piano. You know, Horses was a very piano heavy record. So he could step in and you know, do an excellent job of filling the late Richard Sowell's shoes. And then she has her son, Jackson Smith. And it's always, I always manage to sit near someone who doesn't know that A, her son plays guitar and B, that her son is in his mother's band. And there were these guys in Chicago right behind me. You know, they were the second night in Chicago and they were very, you know, interested, enthusiastic, but they probably just didn't know. And when she introduced them, they just couldn't get. They were like oh, my God, that's her son. That's Fred Sonic Smith's kid. And yeah, that is exactly kind of the attitude that you should take to, to the presence of Jackson Smith on stage and her daughter Jesse Smith. Jesse Paris Smith was also around. She only came out like at the end, at the encore because they definitely had enough people. But that's, that's the band. You know, it's a pretty. It's. It's a co. It's. They've had other guitar players, great, other really great guitar players over the years that have, you know, fit in really well. I want to sort of shout out Tractor Celli for one of them. But this, this was. And it's, you know, it's always. I always think it's interesting when an artist chooses to bring their kids or a family member on stage because sometimes it's convenience, sometimes it's comfort, but sometimes that person doesn't perhaps play at the level of a session musician or somebody who has that. You know, Jackson had bands when he was younger, but he doesn't. He doesn't really do that anymore. But like, the choice, the choice of Patty's choice to be on stage with her kids is. Has so many different layers of meaning and it's really, it's. It's just really. It, you know, it helps so much that Jackson is such a phenomenal guitar player. You know, I would probably be. Be choosing my words a lot more carefully if he wasn't as good as he is. But. But he's fantastic. And there's such. There's, you know, there's all this muscle memory and there's all this emotional memory and that, that's what this group is bringing every night. And, and it's really, it's really wonderful.
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Rebecca Buchanan
And it sounds like there's connection between siblings that you kind of talk about too in here. That, that adds a layer. And as you know, when you see the show multiple times, you're kind of seeing these little things that go on with that too. Right? The connection between siblings are like their mom forgets something and it's like, okay, we'll just go with it.
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Karen Rose
Yeah, it's. And it is, it is. It has been really amusing over the years because when they were younger, you know, Jack. So it's interesting because, you know, Patty and Fred did this, made the decision when they put out Dream of Life that they weren't going to tour and they weren't going to tour because their kids weren't old enough. And they know that people bring their kids on the road. And that was just not something they were interested in doing for a lot of reasons. And I really think that that's their choice. And I also talk about how Jackson didn't play guitar until he didn't even know who his father was until after his father had passed away. And it's funny because friends of mine here said they did not. Who, like, I just read your book and I did not know that I get to hang out with Jack. But Lenny, especially when they were on the road in those early days after we lost Fred Smith, he brought up the idea of having Jackson come on stage and play Smoke on the Water in the encore and really tried to. They really tried to foster that and encourage that. And now we're at this point where Jackson is part of the interlude where Lenny, where Patti takes a break for her voice, which is a thing she's always done. And Lenny kind of plays some oldies or some nuggets to go back to that compilation that he's so well known for putting together. But to the Jackson and Jesse thing, it's. You see, you do see the sort of exchanges between siblings that anybody who has siblings will recognize. The sort of, oh God, mom's doing it again. Eye rolls. Or when Patti will tell a funny story. Like the last time she played this show at this golf course in Evanston, like post Covid and she was telling a story about how they had driven, she had driven with Jackson to Chicago and he had been playing her Yngwe Malmsteen, who she had never heard. And you know, just. They're still her kids, you know, they're still very much her kids. And that element is on stage. She did a reading and a sort of mixed reading performance in Ann Arbor two weeks ago. And I was sitting there watching, you know, trying to really sort of watch the kids reactions to things like their mom telling the story, reading from Bread of Angels about, you know, the day Robert Mapplethorpe came over with peyote and the two of them took peyote together. And I'm like, wow, what must it feel like to watch your mom talking about like drug use on stage in front of God and everybody? You know, I mean, forget the fact that she's Patti Smith. Like she's still their mom and still does very mom kind of things. Like she and Jesse clearly have a little joke that they do during. People have the power where they play like this hand clapping game. And it's just such a mom and daughter thing. It's just the, it's, it's really sweet. And it's. And as. As a famous. I'm also. I'm. I'm. As a child, as a sister, I can recognize these things. But I'm also glad that they don't really deny themselves this sort of expression of love and connection on stage, because the rest of the audience can identify with it as well. And I don't think that that's accidental or unimportant.
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Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah, I love that idea. And I love thinking about how some people might perform in much more of a clinical way. I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but they have that relationship there. You know, one thing I. You mentioned it, because it's something I wanted to bring up is the. The television, the interlude.
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Karen Rose
Right.
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Rebecca Buchanan
Like.
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Karen Rose
And I, I.
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Rebecca Buchanan
Yes, yes. I love how frustrated. Maybe that's a nice way to say it, you get with the people who leave. Because I never get that either. I'm like, unless you really, really, really have to use the bathroom or something. Like, why are you leaving at any point? So can you talk about. Because that medley is like, you were saying, like, they're missing something just by your reaction. Yes, talk.
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Karen Rose
So I didn't. I did not know. I did not look at the set lists from the early shows. They started on the west coast and I didn't look at the set list because I'm like, is a horse's show.
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Rebecca Buchanan
I know.
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Karen Rose
I know what the set list is. You know, there's gonna be. I mean, there's gonna be. I could. If you. If you told me to guess the set list, I could have done it fairly easily because I seen her many times, but I did not know they were doing this. And when Lenny introduced it, I was like, what? You're doing what? And then they started. When they started, I was delighted at the mere concept, but they just delivered. They wouldn't have embarrassed themselves or embarrassed their friends. I mean, Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine have played in that band with them. And again, this sort of. We're representing the team. We're not going to screw this up. And it's. It's also about, like, Patty. The Patti Smith group has always been about. We are part of. Of a lineage. We are establishing a new generation of that lineage. But we are. They probably more. Well, not more. More obviously than any. Any of their peers, because obviously Blondie had a connection to the girl groups and the Ramones had that connection and other connections as well, and other people did. But, you know, people, People. I don't. I don't want to say kids these days, because that's not true. There's a lot of kids these days that really do care about history, but they were always about representing that history. And it. I just don't understand if you care enough about Patti Smith to get a ticket to this concert. I mean, I guess if you're thinking, well, if I have to pick a song to run out of the. To run out of, and we're all getting older, I'm not going to. You know, from an ableist perspective, I'm not an anti ableist perspective. People have to use the facilities, fine. But there was just this exodus when I wouldn't have run away from the stage. I would have been running towards the stage and. And you know, a friend of mine who's a former music journalist still works as a journalist, and he was the one that had the line which is, you know, marque Moon is your bathroom break when you're a college DJ at 2am, not when Patti Smith's band is playing. Was just. Even if you like, were like, okay, this is the COVID set. I'm gonna run out. If I had been walking out and I heard the opening chords to See no Evil, I would have stopped my tracks and ran back to my set seat. Because I would have been like, no, no, this. I'm not going to miss this. And I want. You know, I just saw the who's Tommy movie in imax and I was thinking about. It was a really sort of collective feeling of unity. Like nobody got up at the end and ran out. Everyone stayed for the credits. And I was saying, like, there aren't a lot of places you can feel that anymore. You certainly don't get that feeling of unity at a concert. Because it used to be hard to buy a concert ticket. You had to know where to go. You had to physically go somewhere. And even when we had ticket Tron and you could call or you could go to an outlet, it was still an effort. And so you were with people that really, really, really wanted to be there. And now you're with people that this is the thing they decided to do because they will just talk through the whole night. And I sort of saw it as a symptom of that. And I was mostly just sad that these people were going to. Were going to miss out on this really incredible moment. It was a really incredible moment. From a tribute perspective, from a historical perspective, and just from a performance perspective, they played the shit out of those songs. And those are hard songs to play. You know, your local bar Band is not playing those on a Friday night, or if they are, let me know because they're going to. Got to be pretty good if that's what's happening. So that was, you know, as somebody who is about. Whose work focuses on the historical lineage and historical continuity, it was such a tremendous lost opportunity. But I also can't make people feel why it's important. And I tried to explain it as much as possible in here instead of just losing my mind that. That people don't see it. And, you know, it's sort of a failure of the whole. Of the whole system. You know, we don't have radio anymore to explain this to us. We don't. We have very limited music media to explain this. People don't read anymore. So they're not going to be, you know, learning these things and carrying the same sort of shared understanding with them anyway. I have now, you know, made a lot of people.
- [24:00]
Rebecca Buchanan
But no, I mean, and I do think, I appreciate, like, because you did bring up, like, you talked about CBGBs, you talked about kind of why that space is important to the band, to, to the Patti Smith Band, but also to sort of the larger community. And. And we lose places like that. Right. And so it's kind of this name or it's on a T shirt I can buy at Target, but I don't know the history of the T shirt that I bought at Target. Right. Like, and so I think there's. Right. There's this commercialism without this sort of knowledge about the commercialism, you know, the capitalism that you're buying into.
- [24:37]
Karen Rose
Yeah, it's like, you know, every woman that wears a band T shirt gets interrogated. But I really want to stop every guy I see wearing a CBGB shirt and be like, where the hell did you get. What. Why are you wearing that? I mean, I'm not going to do that because I'm not a dick. But what I, But I'd. I. And I, you know, I'm. I mean, again, this is why I do what I do. I find the history fascinating and the digging and the learning and, and the unearthing and the making the connections that's. And, and. And kids were not running out. There was older people that were. Oh. That, you know. Or there was like a woman sitting next to me one night, the second night in New York who just, you know, ran out at that moment to buy a T shirt and get a drink. You know, she arrived like two minutes before the band started. So she probably didn't get to do any of that. And I'm just like, you're. Miss you. I just feel like all those people were missing the point. They were missing the point. So I'm going to get off the soapbox now.
- [25:44]
Rebecca Buchanan
So one of the things that, well, one thing I thought was because you just brought up like running out to buy a T shirt. One thing I thought was really interesting you talked about is kind of that like again, this is not a band where it's just mass produced merchandise. You can get anywhere. So can you talk about the merch a little bit too? Because you are also, I mean you're kicking yourself for not buying a poster. But like every, it wasn't like every show had the same merch and that kind of thing.
- [26:13]
Karen Rose
Yeah. So, you know, they don't have a contract with whoever is doing T shirts. You know, it's always kind of been a cottage industry. And I'm not, you know, there was a band member who was doing, who was working. Him and his wife for a while were handling sort of like the design and the manufacturer and you know, getting, getting the shirts done. And I know on this tour, Jesse Smith, I don't think I'm speaking out of, out of school here, was, was handling the merge. And I know she and I, and I also know this because people. She was texting her friends here in Detroit and they're like, hey, I got a text from Jesse. She's trying to figure out a good place to manufacture T shirts in Washington D.C. and um, you know, a friend of ours, you know, gave her the name of a, of somebody that, you know, Ian McKay worked with and you know, trying to, to, to keep it local and keep it locally sourced is, is a wonderful effort because you, you cannot do that. You can just, you know, offload it to the, the various concerns that make merch. But it does, you know, it's, you know, there were, there were many people who were like, oh, we can just get it online, right? And I'm like, no, you, you can't. I, I wish for Patti's sake that she would, it would be a nice income stream for people and, and people would like to buy. People who couldn't get to the shows would probably like to buy an official Patti Smith shirt. Because if you don't have official merch, well then that just opens up the door to all of the bootleg merch. There were bootleg T shirt sales on this tour, which I always, you know, that that's definitely a significator of some kind of perception of success. They were, they Were ugly. And I did not buy one, even as. As a joke. But. But it is. It's. It. It's really, you know, that they. They operate the way they operate and they operate. You know, Patti hires the same crew. You know, the. Some of the people that she. She thanks at her Rock hall induction are still working with her, and there's a reason. They're still working with her, and there's a reason that. That she thanks them. And it's a really sort of old, lovely, old fat fashion ethos. You. And it would be so much easier to just do it a different way. And they don't. They don't. And I really. I. I know, like, it's. I'm not. I'm not bitch necessarily bitching that it took me three tries to get the shirt I wanted. But I just. I know how it works, and so I can do it. And the problem is that. That everyone. The 99% of people that don't know all of this were stuck waiting in a really long line that went across the lobby of the Beacon, which, let's be fair, is very small to begin with. It's not a massive lobby. We're not talking Radio City Music hall here, you know, that went across the lobby to the back door on Amsterdam Avenue and then outside, down the sidewalk to the corner, and then wrapped around the building towards Broadway. That's how many people wanted to buy a T shirt. So, you know, I. I wish they would do things a little differently, and I think there's probably a middle ground between the way they're doing it and the way everyone else does it. But. But they're going to do it the way they're gonna do it because that's how they've always operated.
- [30:04]
Rebecca Buchanan
So you saw five different shows, and they have. Even in the same city. Right. There's a very different feel for every single show, which is what I kind of love about, like, getting kind of a tour diary thing right from whoever it's coming from, because you get to hear, like, this crowd did this or this performance, you know, felt this way. So can you talk a little bit about that? The different fields, like, you know, you saw what it was. It two in Chicago and two in
- [30:32]
Karen Rose
Chicago, two in New York, one in Boston.
- [30:34]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah. And the Boston one. You were like, I'm so glad I went, you know, but can you talk a little bit about that and the different feel at the different shows?
- [30:44]
Karen Rose
So it's interesting because now that I live in Detroit, Chicago is sort of the neck is. I was going to say it's my Philly, but it's really not. Cleveland is my Philly. But even though it's three hours and not an hour and a half, you know, I grew up in New York, where it was. And, you know, we thought nothing of going to Boston or going to Philly or going to D.C. even in my 20s, I would go to Boston for a show and drive home after the show and go to work the next day. Cause I could do that. And one of the things that was interesting to me, appealing to me about Detroit, is that it would change my locus a little bit, that I would be closer to Toronto and Cleveland and Chicago and then to a certain extent, like Nashville, Memphis. So I've started going, attending shows in Chicago and. And the Chicago show was important because that's where Patti was born. And she feels a real affinity to them. And she was playing not at, like, the Salt Shed, which is the big, you know, open, warehousey kind of venue that that's there now, but she was playing at the Chicago Theater, which is, you know, an old movie palace. And. And that was. It was very meaning. I know it was. The choice of venues was deliberate and meaningful. And it was meant to, I believe, was meant to sort of give an elevation and a dignity to this particular outing. You know, it's different than the kind of, you know, ragtag club she usually plays where everyone just sort of jams up front. And there's a lot of people that.
- [32:24]
Rebecca Buchanan
For whom.
- [32:24]
Karen Rose
Who can't stand through a whole show anymore. I mean, it's the fact that I was not spending my entire day queuing. I was very. I was very grateful for. To be honest, you know, I'm 62. Like, I can do it. I don't know. But at some point I'm not going to be able to do it, or it's going to be very hard for me to do. But. But the. It just was so interesting to see the differences in the audiences from night to night. And, you know, the audience definitely impacts the band, especially this band, especially Patti. Patti is so in tune to the energy that's coming, coming from the crowd. And when she's not getting what she wants, she will make it. She will get it. Not just by asking for it, but, like doing the work on stage to get the crowd focus. But sometimes you can't. Sometimes you can't do that sometimes. You know, the first night in Chicago was just so strange because people seemed to be surprised. The reaction to each song on the record as it was performed was surprised. And it was. It definitely impacted the energy of the show. And I definitely had a challenge when I was writing this book because I didn't want to be like, hey, Chicago won. You sucked. Because they definitely were. I was like, how? It felt like they did not know that horses was the reason they were there. The record has a. Has a running order. Yes, they changed some things around, but that wasn't what the crowd was reacting to. It was more like, oh, we're starting with this song. Oh, that's. That's great. No, that. We're starting with this song because that's how the album opens, guys. Um, and. And some of it may be that I, I, I am. It's not. I, I don't need to be close to the stage because I'm a snob. I need to be close to the stage these days. I was telling some friends the other night that I don't go to shows anymore unless I care enough about it to get there early enough to be close to the stage. So. Because people talk, people talk. The further you get back in the crowd, the louder the chompers, as the modern parlances are. And I can't. I can't deal with it. Because you can't ask them to not talk. When you ask people that think that a concert is a place to have a conversation, to not talk, they just talk more. They consider. Yeah. So it was just. It was the. And from my observation, the audiences were similar in construction. You know, there were young people who had probably, maybe not seen Patti before. There were older people who had definitely seen her before. There were general music fans who had paid attention, like, this is the 50th anniversary of horrors. I've never seen Patti Smith before I met her. Get there. You know, like I said, there were the guys behind me who had no idea that Jackson Smith played guitar or was in her band in Boston. I went to Boston. Mostly I went to Boston because my nephew is now living there. And it was. And he's a big classic rock kid, and he just. He's in his early 20s. He just graduated from college two years ago. And when we were sitting. And we were sitting in our row in Boston, it was a row with four seats in it. And the people that had the. The first two seats on the aisle was a. I was a. An older woman and a younger, younger gentleman. And she looked at us and she's like, oh, is this another mother son combination? And I'm like, he's my nephew. But I'll. But I'll take it It's. Yeah. You know, so there. There were definitely those pa. Older relative, older adult with younger related person with them. That. That sort of sharing. I love the. The sort of share. Wanting to share the moment and like. And the people who are sitting next to me. That kid knew every song like these. This. He wasn't being dragged to this show. He definitely wanted to be there. So the makeup of the audience was the same, but the reaction was. Was just different. And then, you know, in New York, you have a lot. You had a lot of. There was a lot of guest lists. There were a lot of fancy people. You know, I had. Was. Was led to believe that to buy whatever. To buy whatever ticket came up and not think I was going to get something better because there were going to be so many invited guests because that's their home base. That's, you know, where they started.
- [37:18]
Rebecca Buchanan
So.
- [37:19]
Karen Rose
And it's. It's not. You can't predict what it's going to be like, you know, the amount of times. And it's not just Patty, where I've been like, oh, this is Saturday night in this city. This audience will be awesome. And they're completely lame. But you go to a Tuesday night in. I don't know, I'm trying to find a city I don't want to insult in Columbus. I don't care if I insult Columbus. You go to a Tuesday night in Columbus and it's fantastic. But there are other times where I've been like, oh, I'm going to go to this show in Iowa, because they don't get a lot of shows, and they're going to be really into it, and they're not. So you can't. If you couldn't pick that, I would be a rich woman. But it's also, you know, it's still rock and roll.
- [38:06]
Rebecca Buchanan
Still.
- [38:06]
Karen Rose
It's organic. As much as they try to. The industry tries to commoditize it, you can't. You still can't. And that is the beauty of. Of going to multiple shows is that you're going. You're. You're just sort of. You're really rolling the dice every single time, and you have to just kind of go with it. And there's. There's always that part of me that's like, it is what it is, and I'm just gonna deal with it. And then there's a part of me that's like, what are you doing? Like, how. Why are you getting. Why is this entire row going to get fear right now? What are you doing compared To Boston, where nobody, like, they were with her from the first note. And Boston audiences are generally reliable in that way. But it's. Again, it could have been something completely different, and it ended up being the best show out of the five I saw. So I don't know if I answered your question.
- [39:08]
Rebecca Buchanan
No, you did. Then you were like, and then, I'm gonna go to Philly. Should I go to Philly? Right?
- [39:12]
Karen Rose
Oh, my God. Then it was just like. I was just. I Like three songs in. I was like, maybe I should go to Philly. Maybe I should. And the reason I didn't. You know, it would have made. The reason I didn't is that there would have been a big break between Boston and the next show, and I could have stayed with my family on the east coast, but I didn't want to do that, and I didn't want to travel over a holiday weekend. It was thanksg and did not want to travel for Thanksgiving. But, you know, you get seduced by the magic and. And you think, maybe I need one more time. Maybe I just need one more. That isn't. This isn't the first time I've gone to see somebody where I'm like, I'm going to these shows. That's it. And then I stand there going, maybe I should just add this one. You know, like I say in the book, I came to my senses when I got off the plane in Detroit, because when I got. When I got on the plane and bought. Boston was very early in the morning, and the airport was busy, but it wasn't Thanksgiving crazy yet. But when I got off, got off the plane in Detroit, two hours later, Thanksgiving crazy. Was it full? And I'm like, no, I'm not. I am not going on the road. I am not trying to get on a plane. I had my run. It was a good run. I am sure Philly and D.C. will be great. I do not need to be there.
- [40:30]
Rebecca Buchanan
Well, I think the other cool thing that I appreciated is, like, you know, it's. There's the music, but also, like, I think with. For me, with Patti Smith, there's the stories, right? And, like, you kind of talk, too, about how some of this. She's telling a similar story, but how she gets to that story or how, you know, the. The details change, or she pulls things out and. And so being seeing it multiple times, you get to kind of see that organic, like, how do I make this story resonate with the audience kind of thing.
- [41:02]
Karen Rose
And she also, like, she'll. Something will.
- [41:05]
Rebecca Buchanan
Will.
- [41:05]
Karen Rose
She'll See something or talk to someone and it'll inspire, like, an additional detail. I mean, you know, I wrote a book about Patty Smith, so I'm, I'm definitely not. It's definitely not. I'm never, I'm never really tired of hear. I'm never, I'm never going to be tired of hearing her talk. Like, I, I. And it, I really thought about this when I was in Ann Arbor, because for, like, two seconds I thought, you know, I don't know that I, I don't know that I need to go to this. It's. It's general admission. We're gonna have to wait outside. It's really cold. I don't want to do it. But, But I had offered to, to carpool. I'd offered me to be the designated driver, so I was kind of committed. And it was. So she, she just. I've heard these stories so many times that it doesn't matter because she's always either telling it in a different way or making a different joke or, or she's feeling. She's sort of feeling herself or she's not feeling herself. And even when she makes a mistake, even when she makes mistakes, you know, during. When they were playing rock, you know, so you want to be a rock and roll star is like, this is amazing. And, oh, my God, like, they wrote the event that inspired her to write the sort of free range verse at the end of the song happened just down Broadway at Hurrahs. And we're like, in the middle of all of this. But it was also a train wreck. They had clearly not rehearsed it. They had not talked about what was going to go on. It was one of the few times she played, she put on an electric guitar. And I just remember, like, there was a guy in front of me who had, you know, he'd been reasonably into the show, and when she puts the guitar on, he just, you know, sat up at attention and went, yeah. And I was like, I love you, sir. I don't know what, what inspired this, but, but it's. And it was such a mess where I was just like, great job, everybody. Great job. And I know I didn't mean to say it as loud as I did, but the people who were sitting next to me who I'd sort of been talking with before the show, they were. One was local, one was from Tennessee. And, you know, people who don't have a parasocial relationship with the musicians, they like, you know, I know I don't know them, but, you know, there is that parasocial relationship where I am going to sarcastically be like, great job, folks. Go, what song are we playing? Let's all figure it out together. I. I do this at Bruce Springs D shows often where I'm just like, we are not playing the same song. What?
- [43:55]
Rebecca Buchanan
And.
- [43:56]
Karen Rose
And I also know that 99% of the people are not. They're. They're not. They don't have 300 shows on their hard drive that they listen to all the time. And I don't. And I think that I can turn that chip on and off, you know? But I still. No matter what happens, I'm still happy to be there. I've never said, oh, I wish I wasn't at this Patti Smith show. There's never. There's also never been a show where she's phoned it in. There's. You know, the worst that'll happen is maybe the band should have rehearsed a little bit more before they went out on the road. But, okay, we are where we. There was a show at the Orpheum a couple of years ago, another show at the Orpheum. Last time I was there, where I met up with an Internet friend after the show, and I was like, wow, that was a train wreck. Like, they had just sort of started this small east coast run, and. And they were definitely, like, not connecting. I was like, what? You know, I talk. I've been talking to this person on the Internet for decades. And so I felt very comfortable walking up to them being like, wow, that was a mess. But her friend was not someone that I knew who did not know who I was and were like, well, you don't know how hard it is to get on stage and play a concert. And who do you think you are, like, criticizing them like that? And I'm like, you know, they're not here, right? They don't care. I was talking to my friend, who I have been talking to for a very long time on various Internet mailing lists and message boards. She knows what I was saying, but I was still, like, delighted. I'm always delighted to be there.
- [45:44]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah, I laugh, because when I see me, Mellencamp is probably the one I've seen more than anything when somebody screws up at Mellencamp. I'm like, somebody's getting fired. Somebody's getting fined or in big trouble. Right? It's a very different. I. I know, right? Somebody's in trouble because that guy runs it. Like, I know how he runs his band.
- [46:03]
Karen Rose
Right?
- [46:03]
Rebecca Buchanan
So. Exactly. You have.
- [46:05]
Karen Rose
You. You have that inside knowledge, which which is a layer. And, and you can turn it on and all. Yeah, you know, it's there. But it. You're still. You would still rather be there than anywhere else.
- [46:16]
Rebecca Buchanan
Oh, totally, Totally. Exactly. Exactly. But yeah, but I laugh because I'm like, oh, yeah, I know that feeling. We could probably talk about this forever, but because there's so much. Patty is so great. But like, can you let people know where they can maybe where they can get your book and anything else that you're working on or anything that people really need to know about Patti these days.
- [46:48]
Karen Rose
So you can go to KarenRose.com and there's a. The one of the top posts is going to be a link to where you can get this. It's also@jukeboxgraduate.bigcartel.com but I put it out under an imprint called Till Victory Press. And this was something. When I wrote, when I wrote my first novel back at beginning of the os, I had an agent and I was trying to go the traditional way and we couldn't sell the book. And so I self published it back when people were not self publishing. And that was the imprint I set up. But given the kind of climate that we're in where there's very small freelance budgets and no editors are buying nonfiction books right now, it's a very, very bleak landscape. I really have plans to put out more of these small press sort of books and sell them myself. So there's definitely going to be something Springsteen related that comes out this year. I'm trying to decide between one or two things. I just wrote an essay about again, I mentioned earlier about the who's Tommy movie. And I mentioned in that essay that I was like, well, I'm not going to talk about quadraphenia, although at some point I will. And I've got a lot of feedback from readers saying, please write about quadrophenia. And what I said. And I was talking to my best friend last night and I was like, the problem with that is I could write a book about quadrophenia. And she's like, you could write a book about quadrophenia. And that might actually be a thing that comes out. But if you go to KarenRose.com, my mailing list is there. I use that site to publish anything I can't find a home for. I have a bimonthly column at Salon where I just wrote about the U2 episode. I'm writing about the Melissa of de Mar memoir. That's my next column. And I have the freedom to Sort of. I'm kind of all over the place. I wrote. I did not write about seeing Mellencamp for so long, but I did. I did see him. I think it was the first or second time I'd seen him. And I definitely. I was like, we could talk about Mellencamp because I'm like, I really should go see a full show. Because I spent the whole show kind of like doing the. How is he different from Bruce? How could. This could have been Bruce's trajectory where things are not different and not in a bad way, in a sort of complimentary way, but you can go to those places. And I'm writing stuff and I'm doing stuff. I'm trying to do stuff all the time. You know, the book is. You can buy the book. I'm sending them out from my house. I'm probably going to figure out how to get it onto a commercial website simply because there's only so much reach I have as one person yelling against the Internet. You know, people, it's interesting because everyone says they want, you know, I know there's a million mailing lists. I know there's so many music book, great music books coming out this year, but. And I know we are all dealing with low budgets right now, but everyone says they want something tactile that they can hold, but then they don't want to spend. You know, unfortunately, things cost what they cost, so. Because I know I've had some people say, well, that's more money than I want to spend. You know, fanzine should be cheap or free. And I'm like, the paper, the ink, the. This is even before the time. We're not even counting the time. Support, please support your independent writers and creators and musicians. And, you know, there should be a band camp for writers putting out small projects.
- [50:59]
Rebecca Buchanan
I love that idea. Karen, thank you so much for talking with me about Patti Smith and your latest three chords and Blessed Noise for New Books Network.
- [51:10]
Karen Rose
Thank you for fitting me into your demanding schedule. And it's always good to see you. Yes.