Advance CD Review:

Patti Smith Covers Twelve Of Her Favorite Songs

Music Review: Patti Smith - Twelve

In a lot of ways, this is a really bizarre release--even by the artists own standards--for Patti Smith.

At this late stage of her career--Patti Smith was just inducted into this year's class of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame--an album of well chosen covers by other artists could either be regarded as a brilliant career move or an uncharacteristic attempt at commercialism.

Twelve is actually neither of these things, which is what makes this album such a perplexing proposition. As hardcore fans already know, Patti Smith's best work can be found in the stream of consciousness poetry of such late seventies albums as Radio Ethiopia and the brilliant Horses. What many more casual fans may not realize, is that Patti Smith's live performances from this same period were often chaotic affairs that were as notable for the band's choices of cover versions by other artists, as they were for Smith's own cosmic excursions into the spoken word.

Right now you can even find one such show from 1979 at CBGB's in New York streaming for free at Wolfgang's Vault. Here the original Patti Smith Group charges through versions of everything from Pete Townshend's "My Generation" to John Lennon's "Cold Turkey."

Coming nearly thirty years after such exhilarating live performances as that, Twelve is Patti Smith's first album to marry these two sides of the artist on a single album. On these cover versions of songs by the Stones, Doors, and Nirvana--as well as less likely choices by Tears For Fears, Gregg Allman, and Stevie Wonder--Smith shows both intensity and reverence. But she also gives each song here her own unique individual stamp--occassionally in the form of her own stream of consciousness poetry--while remaining true to the spirit of the original versions of these songs.

Nowhere is this more evident than on her radical reworking of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Patti Smith re-envisions the post-punk anthem as a gothic sort of folk tune crackling with banjos and violins, before injecting some of her most hauntingingly beautiful spoken poetry since "Birdland" from the Horses days. More straightforward (and unlikely to the point of being a little strange) are Smith's versions of Gregg Allman's "Midnight Rider" and Tears For Fears "Everybody Wants To Rule The World." Both of these receive very straight sounding treatments by Smith--although her haunting vocal style adds particular weight to the dark lyrics of Allman's tune.

Coming closest to the punk rock abandon of her 1970's concerts with the original Patti Smith Group--and also the strongest vocal performance here--is Patti Smith's take on the Rolling Stones classic "Gimme Shelter". While nowhere near as chaotic and incendiary as those legendary performances, here Patti Smith shrieks, howls, and growls her way through the lyrics with the sort of passion and intensity that lends a newly dark urgency to the original lyrics.

Curiously a reading of "Soul Kitchen" by Jim Morrison--by all accounts one of Smith's biggest influences--is much more somber sounding. Smith's version of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit"--proceeded as it is by a psychedelically tinged spoken word intro--is also still a pretty straight forward reading. More interesting is her take on Bob Dylan's overlooked "Changing Of The Guard," reworked here in a lushly strummed (and gorgeous sounding) acoustic arrangement which allows the lyrics to stand more front and center than the more familiar electric version from Dylan's Street Legal album.

If you've only previously thought of Patti Smith as a poet, Twelve is an album sure to surprise you as much as it did me. While Patti Smith's voice may be an aquired taste to some, her vocals here are not just strong--they also reveal her considerable, previously hidden powers of interpetation.

Patti Smith's Twelve features Patti Smith's original band--Lenny Kaye (guitar), Jay Dee Daugherty (drums) and Tony Shanahan (bass, keyboards)--as well as guest appearances by the likes of Flea, Tom Verlaine, the Black Crowes Rich Robinson, and playwright Sam Shepard (on banjo). It will be available in stores on April 24.

Neil Young Continues To Mine The Archives With 'Live At Massey Hall'

Music Review: Neil Young Archives Series: Live at Massey Hall
So I've got to be honest and say that at this point I am a little underwhelmed by this.

Don't get me wrong here. I am as big a Neil Young fan as you will find anywhere. And I am as happy as a clam in shit to see the so-called "Archives Series" finally coming somewhat to light. I guess the problem is, that I just expected more.

When last years Live At The Fillmore East 1970 deal with Crazy Horse came out, I was hoping for some truly radical, never before seen DVD footage. When I didn't get that, I was more than happy to settle for the amazing live versions (and they really are amazing) of "Cowgirl In The Sand" and "Down By The River" on that CD.

But you've just got to understand something here. As pretty much a life long Neil Young fan, I've been waiting for these "Archives" tapes to finally surface for something like twenty five years. So now, here they finally are. And what is really new? You tell me.

The story here is Neil did an acoustic show at Massey Hall in Toronto in 1970, debuting much of the material that would eventually show up on Harvest. The set that night was so good that Neil's producer implored him to put out this concert, rather than the album which eventually became Harvest.

The thing is Neil did eventually put out the absolutely classic album Harvest. True enough, many of the songs heard here from that album were played for the very first time. Equally true is the fact that they sound damned good here. As do the acoustic versions of songs like "Cowgirl In The Sand" and "Down By The River".

This is a great Neil Young show. No doubt about it.

But as someone who has salivated for these "archives" for the twenty years or so they have been rumored, personally I'm still waiting for something new.This is without a doubt an awesome Neil Young acoustic show. I'm just not entirely sure that the twenty something year wait for stuff like this lives entirely up to the hype. Hopefully, the really good shit is yet to come in the form of the Big box coming this fall.

Do ya hear me Neil?

Yes They Can Can Live At Montreux

DVD Review: Yes Live At Montreux 2003


Say what you will about Yes.

Jon Anderson's lyrics seldom make any sense and he seems to favor words like "sun," "sunset," and "sunrise" quite a bit. And yes, their songs do have a tendency to meander in such a way that you'd be forgiven for occasionally thinking they simply can't figure out how to end them.

True enough.


But damned if they still haven't created some of the most stunningly beautiful rock music of the past thirty five years or so. They also aren't half bad musicians by the way.


The first time I ever saw Yes was around the time of The Yes Album where they were opening for the white hot at the time Jethro Tull, who were on tour behind their own biggest selling album ever, Aqualung. Tull's fans of this era were well known to be rabidly loyal to their heroes, and they had an equally well earned reputation for being brutal to Tull's opening acts. When Yes--and this is pre-Rick Wakeman Yes by the way--opened for Tull that year, they were called back for so many encores that a pitchman for the headliners finally had to run out to ask the crowd if "anybody here had ever heard of Jethro Tull?". This was absolutely unheard of.

Yes have made numerous live DVDs over the years, but absolutely none of them are as fine as this one. Recorded live at the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival in 2003 (sharing a bill with the likes of Radiohead and the Flaming Lips no less), this DVD features what most regard as the classic lineup of Anderson, Howe, Squire, Wakeman, and White. Some folks would probably quibble with that assertion, choosing Bill Bruford on drums over Alan White. But for a band that has endured more personnel changes than Spinal Tap over the years, it's a minor point. White sounds great here, as does the rest of Yes.

So a few things have changed since you probably last remember Yes. They've gotten older for one thing, which means the balding Steve Howe looks a little like a cross between a college professor and a bespectacled version of Skeletor. Chris Squire looks like he's gotten a bit wide around the middle, and Rick Wakeman's got a little wrinkly despite his maintaining the trademark long blond locks.


But much more about these guys remains unchanged. The cherubic Jon Anderson still has that goofy, New Agey sort of stage presense, but has also flawlessly maintained his voice. He still hits all those high notes you remember clear as a bell. And unlike most bands from the classic era who are still touring, this band doesn't play these songs in a lower key to intentionally avoid those highs (well okay, maybe they do once during "Roundabout"). As for the rest of the guys, they remain simply unmatched as virtuoso players on their individual instruments.

On this night in Montreux, Yes delve deep into their catalog performing most, if not all of the classic Fragile album, and making those songs sound as fresh now as the day they were recorded. Even a song like "Roundabout," which Yes have no doubt played so many times they could do so in their sleep, crackles with a rich energy here. "South Side Of The Sky" glides effortlessly between Steve Howe's still remarkable guitar and slide playing and the more subtle nuances of Rick Wakeman's piano during the middle section. On "Long Distance Runaround" and "Heart Of The Sunrise" the band changes tempos as rapidly as some people change underwear and never miss a step along the way.

Not everything here is perfect. On the Dolby 5.1 mix the sound is actually so pristine, that it also reveals the very occasional missed note or sound glitch, most notably so at the begining of "And You And I." If you watch closely, this actually produces a few genuinely funny moments as you see Jon Anderson grimace and Rick Wakeman crack up during some of Chris Squire's occasionally off-key background singing.

Speaking of Squire, those great bass runs of his are also sometimes buried in the mix, particluarly when Steve Howe is producing his own ghostly sounding sounds on the slide. By the second half of the DVD though, this pretty much gets straightened out in the mix and Squire takes a particularly filthy sounding bass solo on "The Fish."

The other highlights here include a majestic sounding "Awaken" from the band's underated Going For The One album. Here Yes builds from the Wakeman keyboard flourishes in the middle to an absolutely gorgeous sounding climax rife with mellotron produced choir backing Anderson's own voice, which once again effortlessly hits all of the high notes.

It should also be mentioned that the newer songs from Magnification sound nearly as good as the classics do here, with both the title track and "In The Presence Of" being among the standout performances of this concert.

Frankly I don't know how Yes has survived all these years not only intact, but sounding better than they ever have on this great DVD. It is an equal mystery to me how they managed to become one of the biggest bands in the world while making records as adventurous and musically complex as anybody did at the time--even if it was during the somewhat more wide open climate of the seventies.

For Yes to produce a concert like this one in 2003, and sound better than they did in 1972 is to me nothing short of miraculous. As far as I am concerned, they can make the damn songs as long as they want if they sound this good.

Yes, they can.