Patti Smith @ London Review Bookshop

[garth cartwright]

I've been dipping into Patti's Just Kids autobiography for several months now. For those unaware it details her life up to becoming a rock star with a particular focus on her long and intimate relationship with Robert Mappelthorpe, the photographer who would also rise to fame due to his excellent and often controversial work then die of Aids in '89. As a book it is well written if, typical of PS, rather indulgent. Interesting to see that even in her early 20s in NY she was buddies with Janis Joplin, William Burroughs and others - definitely a girl with eyes on the prize.

I've never really cared for PS's music - Piss Factory, the first thing I heard of her on a Punk compilation, remains my favourite as it is an abstract spoken word piece. But I'm aware that she remains a radical individual, never conforming to the conventions of rock stardom, always trying to chase some romantic wild poetic desire. Hearing she was reading at LRB - a wonderful bookshop, so filled with great titles - i bought a ticket (£6) and she was excellent, reading from Just Kids, reciting poems, chatting on Mappelthorpe and Corso and Ginsberg and other friends now departed, taking questions and then, for a finale, leading an a capella singalong on Because The Night. Nice to see someone from the original punk generation not reduced to John Lydon-style self parody.