Rock's First Lady

 Patti Smith is more prophet than poet, more citizen than rock star, an iconic artist who insists that she doesn’t even have a career, despite her recent induction into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame last March.

“Well, I mean, I just think I work,” she says in her surprisingly soft voice, which still retains the hard scratch of a South Jersey accent. “I’ve always worked. It’s a question of motivation, why you do stuff,” she sniffs. “To me, to be an artist has nothing to do with career because you might have whole years where you’re not publicly visible, or that you’re not doing work, you’re only contemplating.”

Smith has been contemplating since she was a toddler. “I’ve known I was going to be a big shot since I was four,” she said back in 1976. “I just didn’t know it had anything to do with  my throat.” 

photography by Brad Hodge

Caverns of swirling light patterns cast flickering shadows as they envelop the band onstage. The members move hypnotically with the pulsing wall of sound they create as the frontman paces, tambourine in hand, drifting toward the microphone. The room is filled with an anxious melancholy reminiscent of the early days of The Velvet Underground, but this dark psychedelic scene is courtesy of The Black Angels. 

Formed in 2004, The Black Angels are, amongst such contemporaries as Vietnam and The Secret Machines, part of a post-psychedelic revival which has become re-envisioned as the new underground. Singer Alex Maas first began playing with guitarist Christian Bland in a group called The Black and Green  Scarecrows and decided to start a new band that better expressed the sound both were searching for. Together with drummer Stephanie Bailey, keyboard player Kyle Hunt, organist Jennifer Raines and bass player Nate Ryan, The Black Angels were formed. Drawing inspiration from a ranges of sources, including Pink Floyd, The Doors, Clinic and The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Black Angels grew out of the Austin, Texas rock scene. Once associated with the rawer side of country, the Austin scene has evolved into a launching pad for artists of all genres. 

There’s a photo of Angelique Kidjo visiting a school in Ethiopia in which she’s  surrounded by children, all of whom are purely magnetized to the singer, and eagerly showing off notebooks charting their progress in learning the English language. If you know Kidjo from her spellbinding performances, you’ll notice something different about her in the snapshot. Her normally fiery eyes are sad and almost drooping.

“I was beaten down, man,” she says, looking at the shot. “It was too much. All the children in that school had HIV or AIDS, and they were trying to cheer me up, showing me how well they were learning to write in English, and I was correcting their grammar. They were just being kids, and I had to leave my grief aside, because they have a lot of dignity and courage, and a lot of strength.”