“A street ethic”: The 1974 concert that made Patti Smith want to be a rock star
Patti Smith has spoken about the pivotal night in 1974 that inspired her to pursue music, describing how seeing the band Television perform at New York's CBGB club convinced her to become a rock star. The moment came shortly after her first film premiere, and it fed directly into the creative ferment that produced her landmark 1975 album Horses, which she has recently been performing live to mark its 50th anniversary.
Smith recalled arriving at CBGB in her premiere outfit around midnight to find only about 14 people in the audience, yet being struck by Television's approach, which combined a "street ethic" with intellectual seriousness, noting that both Tom Verlaine and then-member Richard Hell were poets. She credited CBGB itself, despite its rough conditions, with breaking equipment, spilled drinks and rats, as the one venue that truly felt like home for her and fellow New York artists experimenting with new sounds in that scene.
- Smith says seeing Television at CBGB in 1974 changed her path.
- The gig came just after her first ever film premiere.
- She credits CBGB's raw scene with shaping Horses' sound.
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Patti Smith is best known as a singer, poet and songwriter who became a central figure in New York's mid-1970s punk and rock scene. Her 1975 debut album, Horses, is widely regarded as a landmark record that helped define that era, and she has recently been performing it live to mark its 50th anniversary.
CBGB was a small, famously scruffy music club in New York's Bowery neighbourhood that, from the early 1970s, became a breeding ground for new and experimental bands, including Smith herself. Television, one of the acts that played there, featured musicians Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell, both of whom also had backgrounds as poets, blending raw performance with a more literary sensibility.
The 1974 night in question saw Smith attend a Television show at CBGB shortly after her first film premiere, an experience she has described as pivotal in pushing her towards a career in music. Understanding this backstory helps explain why she now looks back on that period, and that venue, as formative to both her own career and the broader scene that shaped Horses.