Robert Rosen

The saturation coverage of the 50th anniversary of Patti Smith's debut LP, Horses, reminded me of the first time I saw her, in 1970, when I had no idea who she was. The paragraph below is an excerpt, almost a throwaway scene, from the book I'm working on, about Observation Post, a radical newspaper at City College. 

One December evening, right before Christmas break, I was reading The Campus under a haze of marijuana smoke at the never-ending drug party in Buttenwieser Lounge, in Finley student center on the main campus, when in walked a petite, dark-haired woman dressed in black leather, and a man carrying a guitar and a little amplifier. As the guitarist plugged in and tuned up, a few dozen stoners gathered in a semicircle around them. The woman introduced herself as Patti Smith and the guitarist as Lenny Kaye. Still a good five years from achieving international superstardom with her debut album, Horses, Smith started ranting about how Americans don't know how to treat poets. "In Russia," she said, "they treat poets like gods." Then Kaye strummed his guitar and Smith began chanting and singing and leaping about like Mick Jagger, delivering a mesmerizing performance that held everyone enthralled. The students gave her a rousing ovation, and Smith and Kaye walked out without saying another word. Thirty seconds later, it was almost as if it had never happened.

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