|
Peace And Noise
09/30/1997 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Bill Holdship
The return of Patti Smith has been a bit of a "Be careful what you wish for..." scenario. When Smith returned two years ago, following the death of her husband Fred "Sonic" Smith, it was nevertheless cause for celebration. And when she made her first L.A. appearance in nearly a decade at a Long Beach "spoken word" festival, it too was cause for celebration. She totally ruled the audience that evening, utilizing humor and charisma, while performing only several songs--"Dancin' Barefoot" (seemingly her anthem now), "People Got The Power," "Because The Night"--backed by current bassist Tony Shanahan on acoustic guitar. Alas, when she made her official electric "comeback," releasing last year's Gone Again (and a track for the Dead Man Walking soundtrack), the result was a disappointment. Gone Again just wasn't a very listenable album--and the subsequent live shows weren't nearly as memorable as the Long Beach gig. Peace And Noise is only slightly better than last year's effort. Problem is Smith now writes most of her tunes with newcomer Oliver Ray, who also penned the music for the Dead Man Walking song. As that tune suggests, Ray writes dirges. In fact, the best track on Peace And Noise was composed by Shanahan--"1959," a testimonial to the Beat Generation, featuring some great pop music that will at least make you recall Smith was once capable of it on classics like "Kimberly" and "Frederick." To be fair, Ray's "Dead City" (which looks at the world's most recent mass cult suicide) works better than anything else except "1959." Still, Lenny Kaye contributed some great music to Patti in the past--"Free Money" alone is an incredible moment in rock 'n' roll excitement--so why isn't he contributing more to the mix these days? His name only appears as a third party on "Whirl Away" (I'd wager that the melodic turnaround that moves it away from dirge is his) and "Last Call," an improvised studio jam that tries to recall both "Radio Ethiopia" and "Land" (even using the name "Johnny," though it may be more about the dude who was s'posed to come "marching home again, hurrah, hurrah")--but much like "Radio Ethiopia" wears out its welcome by going on far too long. Maybe she's still just trying to regain her footing--and she's certainly always deserving of our respect. But for the moment at least, I think I'd rather read Patti's words than listen to her new music.
|
