The 1960s and 70s were not all about teenage experimenting with LSD and gays creeping out of their closets in a sexual revolution like the media have always seemed to project. This period also had something positive to write home about as some of the most creative musical and poetry acts showed their heads for the first time. Do You Have a Band? by Daniel, Kane pays homage to these unusual times when New York City poets and musicians had each other’s back.
Kane (n.p.) draws on a close study of what it was like being a poet or a musician in New York City way back in the 1960s through to 80s. As the title of his work suggests, this creative group genuinely cared for and supported each other’s career. Punk musicians and poets worked for hand in hand to create enduring pieces. Kane (n.p) singles out the works of Patti Smith among several others and establishes a convincing connection to the poets of the time in what is arguably one of the best attempts at documenting New York City’s postwar literature history. In comparison to Patti Smith’s New York, the latter is candidly concerned about the love lost between the great city of New York and the dreamers and artists it used to embrace before as Kane puts it.
Patti Smith’s Just Kids is an incredible blow-by-blow account of her fascinating relationship with a New York artist named Robert Mapplethorpe. This memoir documents the coming to birth of punk and poetry in New York. It is important to note that Patti Smith’s account of events closely mirrors Kane’s and in fact validates the latter’s claim that New York artistes used to help and facilitate each other career-wise. The passion in Just Kids is almost tangible as Patti Smith lays bare the fine details of how she and Robert worked for hand in hand to grow each other’s careers. Reading the pages of Just Kids, one gets a sense that earlier punk music and poetry glorified debauchery and therefore had little intellectual substance to speak of other than drug-crazed guitarists who played for days on end. Everybody just wanted to put away the torturous memories of the Second World War. Kane energetically collaborates this in Do You Have a Band.
The coming of age of both punk and poetry can easily be seen in the works of various New York artists as acknowledged by both Patti Smith and Kane. While earlier materials did not carry any meaningful messages apart from having as much fun as possible, later artistes began to view punk music and poetry from a very different dimension. Later works of both poetry and punk music started to show elements of consciousness as they were infused with political and other messages that touched on significant social issues. From being a platform for unruly kids, punk music evolved to espouse critical societal values that went beyond partying hard and taking drugs. While a section of New York artistes still insisted on spewing lewd content, even more performers worked tirelessly to make New York a respectable centre of music and poetry that it is today.
Patti Smith pays glowing tribute to MacDougal Street as the place to be for any artist who was serious about their craft. This street was known for nurturing talent and was the Mecca of punk musicians and poets. Similarly, Daniel Kane alludes to the same road as being a necessity to stop for all punk musicians and poets who hoped to make it big in the New York scene. You literally could not become anything worth of mention as a punk musician or poet without passing through MacDougal Street. It is on this street where most prominent acts in the New York punk and poetry scene came of age after refining their art through many performances. Similar things can be repeated about the street where performers come to visit in the hope that good luck that propelled others to unimaginable heights will equally rub on them.
Both Patti Smith and Daniel Kane present extensive works that capture what it took to get punk music and poetry to where it is today. Furthermore, their accounts pay homage to the fact that New York City was an essential part of the story. While Patti Smith has some reservations about what New York has become too creative minds in recent times, Kane has nothing but praise for the magnificent city as far as the text is concerned.