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BOOK KINDA THINGY REVIEW - PATTI SMITH --- HIGH ON REBELLION (Babylon Books, England)

Not a fanzine, a magazine or a book for that matter (actually its one of those quickie churn outs that Babylon Books used to splatter all over the place a good fortysome years back), but HIGH ON REBELLION's bound to get people like myself who are obsessed with sixties/seventies rock mythology and the one called Patti Smith's involvement with it somewhat excited. Not totally excited like I was while reading through Sandy Robertson's WHITE STUFF but good enough to rekindle the old nodes of rock energy and ranch house suburban slob bliss that sorta petered out once the early-eighties really got into gear. 

To be as honest as J. Neo Marvin about it this 'un really ain't worth it if you've been in on the Smith game since the early-seventies. I'm sure that there are more'n just a few of you out there who were on to her back then anxiously pouring through her write ups and articles for a wide variety of pubs, not to mention latching onto your own prized copy of HORSES as soon as that 'un hit the bins. There are TONS of reprints of articles and other Patti ephemera that you probably already read once or at least copped via choice nuggets that popped up in WHITE STUFF or ANOTHER DIMENSION, and really do we need to see those nude snaps of her once again lest our testicles shudder in fear and run back up to the ribcage for safety? 

Still, the original text regarding the lass and her history is well written (although nothing out of the ordinary is revealed) and there are a few bits that have passed me up even this late in life such as a NEW YORK TIMES piece by then-contributor Jonathan Cott. You may remember this guy --- he's the same Jonathan Cott who whipped up some rather high-minded and somewhat flitzy material in the early edition (and even later) of ROLLING STONE. (To me he's best known not only for the interviews with John Lennon and Karlheinz Stockhausen that appeared in the mag's early pages but a snooty high-minded putdown of the Red Crayola in their tenth anniversary issue calling them the bummers of the San Francisco Summer O' Love going against the entire grain of the spirit and warm 'n toasties those days exuded. Well I definitely am exaggerating but Cott sure didn't go for the group's atonal shenanigans which thankfully did a good nose thumb at all of the youth-gone-rancid loveydoveyness that was in the air.)

Cott aside I will admit that this entry fits in with my own ideals of just how much 1964-1981 were the real hard-driving years for rock 'n roll (and I don't mean the same kinda LSD haze that I assume Cott reveled in nor the whole James Taylor First Family of Rock spew his mag foistered on a generation of gullible kids) and how Smith, for all her rather creepy eccentricities, was a rock 'n roll fan like the rest of us who fortunately got to live her fantasies of being as big as her idols out unlike a schlub such as I. But given the oft-seen reprints and same-old packaged in a nice 'n glossy color cover effort I coulda done without it. I didn't and like well, it does snuggle nicely into my own '64-'81 homage to an era long gone and missed (at least by me) library that's cluttering up the place to the point where I just might be the next subject matter on the HOARDERS television show!