The Joan of Arc of Punk
The other day when I paid V. (Valhalla) Vale $11 instead of $20 for Volume 4 of Search and Destroy (c. 1978) because that’s all I had in my bank account, we had a moment.
I had selected Volume 4 instead of 1, 2, or 3 because Volume 4 had Patti Smith’s name on the cover, and therefore theoretically a Patti Smith interview inside (it does). Having already dedicated myself to both of her books numerous times, I jumped at the chance to read more of her words and handed over my debit card with confidence. V. Vale made the following commentary: “She is the Joan of Arc of Punk.”
The connection between a medieval French teenager and a New York Rock n Roll star may initially be unclear. Although these two countercultural ladies countered entirely different cultures, they share a thread of rebellion, revolution, and strength between them.
Being a saint, Joan has a few alleged relics: a jar supposedly containing her remains, a ring that supposedly graced her fingers, etc. I treated my copy of Search and Destroy as one such relic as I unsheathed it from it’s plastic sleeve and spread it’s pages across my dorm room floor. I could feel the spirit of Patti, a still living and breathing human being, rise from this zine. I flipped furiously through pages of other people’s idols until I finally reached her’s, at which point I read the interview, re-read the interview, and then read it a few more times. Everything I could have possibly asked was answered.
“You’re late. I want you to know that I don’t appreciate it. I don’t like to put up with this shit. We don’t do interviews anymore but I really like your mag. You guys got a joint? Oh, right, you’re a new generation. I could really use one during this interview.”
This, I imagined, was the “skinny and mean” woman that my dad shared a rehearsal loft with in New York.
In just her opening line, she draws a very important distinction between herself and the punk scene; she is of a different generation, a different set of musicians and artists and creatives. She is not one of them, but she is related to them and, in a way, responsible for their existence. Similarly, Joan of Arc did not live to see French history play out past the 15th century, but none of that history would have been possible without her confidence.
Patti, like Joan, is somewhat mythical to me. During my junior year of high school, my friend and I went to her concert at the Ace Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. It is at this time that I discovered what it means to be a Rock Star. She commanded with such ease such undivided attention as she performed and as she spoke and as she rambled. She sang to me during this concert, her white hair glowing in the stage lights as she leaned towards my upturned and awestruck face. This, I felt, was an enlightenment of some kind. Her Doc Martens brought with them about 70 years of experiences that hung about and dragged behind her feet and rose up past her knees into her diaphragm and out of her mouth and through the air and into my ears, where they have since settled into my brain and taken a seat.
My photos and videos (my relics) from this concert are, for the most part, unfortunately lost; that phone drowned in Perrier. One photo survives; you’ll have to make the pilgrimage to my Instagram, @gracieschimm, to send your regards. Alternatively, you could travel to my jewelry box in Sherman Oaks to handle with gloved hands the guitar pick she placed in mine.
I purchased Just Kids shortly thereafter and tore through those pages like it was nobody’s business. Her life with Mapplethorpe was nothing short of legendary, although she appears to hold a shockingly casual attitude towards it all. I’d be reading, I’d be reading, I’d be reading, and suddenly I’d realize that these “friends” that she was hanging out with included the likes of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and so forth. I’d be reading, I’d be reading, I’d be reading, and she talks about picking up a guitar for the first time, performing in front of an audience for the first time, and I’d be reading, I’d be reading, I’d be reading, and she hears Horses playing on the radio as she walks through Manhattan. Her life seems to have not been unlike a rocket ship.
Through Patti Smith’s retelling of these years of her life, I got to know the Chelsea Hotel scene and all that came with it. Just Kids somehow manages to relay an entire environment, a lifestyle as a whole, in such a way as to completely envelop, enfold, absorb, contain the reader.
The Chelsea Hotel video linked to the side reveals the New York counterculture in it’s element; these are people that lived outside the realm of all things “acceptable.” (Although a more apt term might be the NY subculture, as not all individuals showcased in this video were actively trying to change the mainstream way of things). Many of these rooms and people feel extremely familiar to me thanks to Just Kids. Shots of individual art projects on the walls match perfectly with Patti’s description of them; it feels as if I’ve already seen them.
“The Chelsea was like a doll’s house in the Twilight Zone, with a hundred rooms, each a small universe” -Just Kids
Patti is 24 in both of those videos, an age comparable with Joan of Arc’s mere 19 years. Patti has, of course, gone on to live an incredible life; this piece refers largely to her youth for the sake of comparison. I would like to convince you that both phenomenal women exist endlessly as Punk Rock Queens; I would like to help you envision Joan of Arc in a leather jacket and blue jeans.
Both Joan and Patti differentiated themselves from their surrounding cultures by embracing some level of masculinity previously off limits. During her time in the army and her time as a prisoner, Joan insisted on wearing men’s armor instead of women’s dresses as a means of protection from assault. This lead to her eventual trial and prosecution for cross-dressing, considered heresy at the time. Patti, unlike Joan, was thankfully not burned at the stake for her rejection of objectification in the male dominated field of Rock n Roll. Her stringy hair, obscene words, and chunky boots were probably also considered grounds for prosecution by America’s suburbia, but her life was never actually on the line. Her immediate community was that of Candy Darling’s; cross-dressing was the norm.
The two also share some version of a third eye; Joan of Arc famously received visions from Archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine of Alexandria that sent her into battle on behalf of French King Charles VII. Patti, in this interview from Search and Destroy, talks at length about her powers of prediction:
“I figure in about two years 16th century Japan is going to be very popular, so we’re working on it now…”
“I’m telling you something, I always know what’s happening two years ahead of time. You read the liner notes on the back of HORSES — like the horses, here they come, they’re coming, these kids…”
Joan and Patti also share sacrifice; Joan in a hopefully obvious way, and Patti in a way that I did not understand until reading this interview.
Patti:…Rock & Roll is high energy, to me Rock & Roll is the balance — it’s super high energy or really low anguish, like going back and forth between speed and heroin…But these kids…what they’re doing IS Rock & Roll. The way they move, the way they dress, all that energy.
I think of RADIO ETHIOPIA as the sacrificial lamb. It got us banned, it put us in a really dark place, you know. We had trouble getting jobs after that, we were known as troublemakers…
Lee: How do you feel — you put a lot of time and energy into making RADIO ETHIOPIA and then it doesn’t get played —
Patti: How do we feel? I cried. I mean I cried, you know. I fought. I fought with the radio stations and they told me they have ten million dollars worth of advertising and either I watch my language and change the titles on the songs and forget about Rock & Roll Nigger or forget airplay. I don’t play that kind of stuff. We came into Rock & Roll as a band in ’74 cause we really felt that Rock & Roll was at a danger level. The radio was sleeping, there were no place to play, there were no clubs, there was nothing. It was like a wasteland. Our goal was to break thru this kind of thing, not only for ourselves but for the kids to come, for generations to come. I feel right now like a happy farmer; right now watching all these bands come up (even though we’re not akin to them, we’re sort of like somewhere else). I feel really happy because that is what we fought for. We fought for places to play, there’s a million rock clubs to play now. These kids are getting attention, they’re getting signed, people are listening. There’s a new thing for kids to identify with, there’s just a new energy. Plus these kids are getting played on the radio. We’re not being played on the radio but the SEX PISTOLS are, the CLASH is, BLONDIE is. We’re not being played — that’s why I say RADIO ETHIOPIA was a sacrificial lamb. But we did make so much noise, we did cause so much trouble — they have to play this stuff. They’re obligated to play it. Just like a few years ago I thought stuff would regurgitate, there would be joyous vomit happening! I feel very optimistic about our future.
Patti’s sacrifice is that of a thought-child, Joan’s is that of her life. I do not wish to equate the two in terms of weight, but in terms of cultural impact. The ripples of the injustice done to Joan still propagate through the way time progresses; we, as a collective culture, have learned from her experience. Her impact perhaps even set up the circumstances in which Patti’s life was possible; Patti’s impact then set up the circumstances in which punk rock was possible, and punk rock will set up the circumstances in which any number of things are possible. Therefore, Joan of Arc has direct ties to the Mabuhay Gardens, safety pins, mosh pits, and Volume 4 of Search and Destroy. Render her with a guitar in her hands, reclining on a leopard print comforter: Joan of Arc, the Modern Woman. Behind her is a poster of Patti Smith, patron saint of Punk Rock.
