Lenny started strumming the classic rock chords, E to D to A, and the marriage of the chords with this poem excited me. Three chords merged with the power of the word. “Are those chords to a real song?”
“Only the most glorious,” he answered, going into “Gloria,” and Richard followed.
Over the weeks we spent at CBGB, it had become apparent to us all that we were evolving under own terms into a rock and roll band. On May Day, Clive Davis offered me a recording contract with Arista Records, and on the seventh I signed. We hadn’t really put it in words, but during the course of the WBAI broadcast, we could feel a momentum gathering. By the improvised end of “Gloria,” we had unfurled ourselves.
Lenny and I combined rhythm and language, Richard provided the bed, and Ivan had strengthened our sound. It was time for the next step. We needed to find another of our own kind, who would not alter but propel, who would be one of us. We ended our high-spirited set with a collective plea: “We need a drummer and we know you’re out there.”
He was more out there than we could imagine. Jay Dee Daugherty had done our sound at CBGB, using components from his home stereo system. He had originally come to New York from Santa Barbara with Lance Loud’s Mumps. Hardworking, somewhat shy, he revered Keith Moon, and within two weeks of our WBAI broadcast he became part of our generation.
When I now entered our practice room, I could not help but feel, looking at our mounting equipment, our Fender amps, Richard’s RMI keyboard, and now Jay Dee’s silver Ludwig kit, the pride of being the leader of a rock and roll band.
Our first job with a drummer was at the Other End, around the corner from where I lived on MacDougal Street. I merely had to lace up my boots, throw on my jacket, and walk to work. The focus of this job was our melding with Jay Dee, but for others it was the moment to see how we would navigate the expectations surrounding us. Clive Davis’s presence lent an air of excitement on the opening night of our four-day stint. When we threaded our way through the crowd to take the stage, the atmosphere intensified, charged as if before a storm.
The night, as the saying goes, was a jewel in our crown. We played as one, and the pulse and pitch of the band spiraled us into another dimension. Yet with all that swirling around me, I could feel another presence as surely as the rabbit senses the hound. He was there. I suddenly understood the nature of the electric air. Bob Dylan had entered the club. This knowledge had a strange effect on me. Instead of humbled, I felt a power, perhaps his; but I also felt my own worth and the worth of my band. It seemed for me a night of initiation, where I had to become fully myself in the presence of the one I had modeled myself after.
On September 2, 1975, I opened the doors of Electric Lady studio. As I descended the stairs, I could not help but recall the time Jimi Hendrix stopped for a moment to talk to a shy young girl. I walked into Studio A. John Cale, our producer, was at the helm, and Lenny, Richard, Ivan, and Jay Dee were inside the recording room, setting up their equipment.
For the next five weeks we recorded and mixed my first album, Horses. Jimi Hendrix never came back to create his new musical language, but he left behind a studio that resonated all his hopes for the future of our cultural voice. These things were in my mind from the first moment I entered the vocal booth. The gratitude I had for rock and roll as it pulled me through a difficult adolescence. The joy I experienced when I danced. The moral power I gleaned in taking responsibility for one’s actions.
These things were encoded in Horses as well as a salute to those who paved the way before us. In “Birdland,” we embarked with young Peter Reich as he waited for his father, Wilhelm Reich, to descend from the sky and deliver him. In “Break It Up,” Tom Verlaine and I wrote of a dream in which Jim Morrison, bound like Prometheus, suddenly broke free. In “Land,” wild-boy imagery fused with the stages of Hendrix’s death. In “Elegie,” remembering them all, past, present, and future, those we had lost, were losing, and would ultimately lose.
There was never any question that Robert would take the portrait for the cover of Horses, my aural sword sheathed with Robert’s image. I had no sense of how it would look, just that it should be true. The only thing I promised Robert was that I would wear a clean shirt with no stains on it.
I went to the Salvation Army on the Bowery and bought a stack of white shirts. Some were too big for me, but the one I really liked was neatly pressed with a monogram below the breast pocket. It reminded me of a Brassaï shot of Jean Genet wearing a white monogrammed shirt with rolled-up sleeves. There was an RV stitched on my shirt. I imagined it belonging to Roger Vadim, who had directed Barbarella. I cut the cuffs off the sleeves to wear under my black jacket adorned with the horse pin that Allen Lanier had given me.
Robert wanted to shoot it at Sam Wagstaff ’s, since his One Fifth Avenue penthouse was bathed in natural light. The corner window cast a shadow creating a triangle of light, and Robert wanted to use it in the photograph.
I rolled out of bed and noticed it was late. I raced through my morning ritual, going around the corner to the Moroccan bakery, grabbing a crusty roll, a sprig of fresh mint, and some anchovies. I came back and boiled water, stuffing the pot with mint. I poured olive oil in the open roll, rinsed the anchovies, and laid them inside, sprinkling in some cayenne pepper. I poured a glass of tea and thought better of wearing my shirt, knowing that I’d get olive oil on the front of it.
Robert came to fetch me. He was worried because it was very overcast. I finished getting dressed: black pegged pants, white lisle socks, black Capezios. I added my favorite ribbon, and Robert brushed the crumbs off my black jacket.
We hit the street. He was hungry but he refused to eat my anchovy sandwiches, so we ended up having grits and eggs at the Pink Tea Cup. Somehow the day slipped away. It was cloudy and dark and Robert kept watching for the sun. Finally, in late afternoon, it started to clear. We crossed Washington Square just as the sky threatened to darken again. Robert became worried that we were going to miss the light, and we ran the rest of the way to One Fifth Avenue.
The light was already fading. He had no assistant. We never talked about what we would do, or what it would look like. He would shoot it. I would be shot.
I had my look in mind. He had his light in mind. That is all.
Sam’s apartment was spartan, all white and nearly empty, with a tall avocado tree by the window overlooking Fifth Avenue. There was a massive prism that refracted the light, breaking it into rainbows cascading on the wall across from a white radiator. Robert placed me by the triangle. His hands trembled slightly as he readied to shoot. I stood.
The clouds kept moving back and forth. Something happened with his light meter and he became slightly agitated. He took a few shots. He abandoned the light meter. A cloud went by and the triangle disappeared. He said, “You know, I really like the whiteness of the shirt. Can you take the jacket off?”
I flung my jacket over my shoulder, Frank Sinatra style. I was full of references. He was full of light and shadow.
“It’s back,” he said.
He took a few more shots.
“I got it.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
He took twelve pictures that day.
Within a few days he showed me the contact sheet. “This one has the magic,” he said.
When I look at it now, I never see me. I see us.
Robert Miller championed the likes of Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, and Alice Neel, and after seeing my drawings on the second floor of Gotham Bookmart, he invited me to show my work in his gallery. Andy Brown had been supportive of my work for years and was delighted for me to have this opportunity.
When I visited the expansive and sophisticated gallery on Fifty-seventh and Fifth Avenue, I wasn’t certain I merited such a space. I also felt I couldn’t have a show at a gallery of this scope without Robert. I asked if we could show together.
In 1978 Robert was immersed in photography. His elaborate framing mirrored his relationsh
ip with geometric forms. He had produced classical portraits, uniquely sexual flowers, and had pushed pornography into the realm of art. His present task was mastering light and achieving the densest blacks.
Robert was connected with Holly Solomon’s gallery at the time, and asked permission to show with me. I knew nothing of the politics of the art world; I only knew that we should show together. We chose to present a body of work that emphasized our relationship: artist and muse, a role that for both of us was interchangeable.
Robert wanted us to create something unique for the Robert Miller Gallery. He began by choosing his best portraits of me, printing them larger than life, and blew up the picture of us at Coney Island on a six-foot length of canvas. I drew a suite of portraits of him, and decided to do a series of drawings based on his erotic photographs. We chose a young man urinating in another’s mouth, bloodied testicles, and a subject crouching in a black rubber suit. The photographs were printed relatively small and I surrounded some images with poetry and complemented others with pencil drawings.
We thought about doing a short film, but our resources were limited. We pooled our money, and Robert recruited a film student, Lisa Rinzler, to shoot.
We didn’t have a storyboard. We just took for granted that each of us would do our part. When Robert asked me to come over to shoot the film on Bond Street, he said he had a surprise for me. I laid a cloth on the floor, placing the fragile white dress Robert had given me, my white ballet shoes, Indian ankle bells, silk ribbons, and the family Bible, and tied it all in a bundle. I felt ready for our task and walked to his loft.
I was elated to see what Robert had prepared for me. It was like coming home to Brooklyn when he would transform a room into a living installation. He had created a mythic environment, draping the walls with white netting with nothing before it but a statue of Mephistopheles.
I set my bundle down and Robert suggested that we take MDA. I was not really sure what MDA was but wholly trusted Robert so I agreed. As we entered the film, I wasn’t really conscious of whether it had an effect or not. I was too focused on my role in the project. I put on the white dress and the ankle bells, leaving the bundle open on the floor. These things were on my mind: the Revelations. Communication. Angels. William Blake. Lucifer. Birth. As I talked, Lisa rolled film and Robert took stills. He wordlessly guided me. I was an oar in the water and his the steady hand.
At one point, I decided to pull down the netting, in effect destroying what he created. I reached up and gripped the edge of the net and froze, physically paralyzed, unable to move, unable to speak. Robert rushed toward me and put his hand on my wrist, holding it there until he felt me relax. He knew me so well that without saying a word he communicated that everything was all right.
The moment passed. I wrapped the net around me, and looked at him, and he shot that moment in motion. I took off the fragile dress and the bells from my ankles. I put on my dungarees, field marshal boots, my old black sweatshirt—my work clothes—and gathered everything else in the cloth, and threw the bundle over my shoulder.
In the narration of the film, I had explored ideas that Robert and I often discussed. The artist seeks contact with his intuitive sense of the gods, but in order to create his work, he cannot stay in this seductive and incorporeal realm. He must return to the material world in order to do his work. It’s the artist’s responsibility to balance mystical communication and the labor of creation.
I left Mephistopheles, the angels, and the remnants of our handmade world, saying, “I choose Earth.”
I went on the road with my band. Robert called me daily. “Are you working on the show? Are you doing any drawings?” He called me from hotel to hotel. “Patti, what are you doing? Are you drawing?” He worried so much that when I had three days off in Chicago, I went to an art supply store and bought several sheets of Arches sateen, my paper of choice, and covered the walls of my hotel room. I tacked the photograph of a young man urinating in the mouth of another, and did several drawings based on it. I’ve always worked in spurts. When I brought them back to New York, Robert, at first irritated at my procrastination, was very pleased with them. “Patti,” he said, “what took you so long?”
Robert showed me the work he had been concentrating on for the show while I was gone. He had printed a series of stills from the film. I had been so engrossed in my part that I had not realized he had taken so many pictures. They were among the best photographs we had done together. He decided to call the film Still Moving, as he incorporated the stills in the final edit of the film, and we built a sound track with my commentary mixed with me playing electric guitar and excerpts from “Gloria.” In doing so, he represented the many facets of our work—photography, poetry, improvisation, and performance.
Still Moving reflected his view of the future of visual expression and music, a type of music video that could stand on its own as art. Robert Miller was supportive of the film, giving us a small room to loop it continuously. He suggested we do a poster and we each chose an image of the other to reinforce our belief in ourselves as artist and muse.
We dressed for the opening at Sam Wagstaff’s. Robert wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a leather vest, jeans, and pointed-toe shoes. I wore a silk windbreaker and pegged pants. Miraculously, Robert liked my outfit. People from all the worlds that we had been part of since the Chelsea Hotel were there. Rene Ricard, the poet and art critic, reviewed the show and wrote a beautiful piece calling our work “The Diary of a Friendship.” I owed no small debt to Rene, who had often chided and urged me on when I would decide to quit drawing. When I stood with Robert and Rene looking at the work hung in gilded frames, I was grateful that both of them had not let me give up.
It was our first and last show together. My work with my band and crew in the seventies would take me far from Robert and our universe. And as I toured the world I had time to reflect that Robert and I had never traveled together. We never saw beyond New York save in books and never sat in an airplane holding each other’s hand to ascend into a new sky and descend onto a new earth.
Yet Robert and I had explored the frontier of our work and created space for each other. When I walked on the stages of the world without him I would close my eyes and picture him taking off his leather jacket, entering with me the infinite land of a thousand dances.
One late afternoon, we were walking down Eighth Street when we heard “Because the Night” blasting from one storefront after another. It was my collaboration with Bruce Springsteen, the single from the album Easter. Robert was our first listener after we had recorded the song. I had a reason for that. It was what he always wanted for me. In the summer of 1978, it rose to number 13 on the Top 40 chart, fulfilling Robert’s dream that I would one day have a hit record.
Robert was smiling and walking in rhythm with the song. He took out a cigarette and lit it. We had been through a lot since he first rescued me from the science-fiction writer and shared an egg cream on a stoop near Tompkins Square.
Robert was unabashedly proud of my success. What he wanted for himself, he wanted for us both. He exhaled a perfect stream of smoke, and spoke in a tone he only used with me—a bemused scolding—admiration without envy, our brother-sister language.
“Patti,” he drawled, “you got famous before me.”
Holding Hands with God
In the spring of 1979, I left New York City to begin a new life with Fred Sonic Smith. For a time we lived in a small room in the Book Cadillac, a historic albeit empty hotel in downtown Detroit. We had no possessions save his guitars and my most precious books and clarinet. Thus I was living as I did with my first love, with the man I had chosen for my last. Of the man who was to become my husband, I wish only to say that he was a king among men and men knew him.
Leave-taking was difficult, but it was time for me to embark on my own. “What about us?” Robert said suddenly. “My mother still thinks we’re married.”
I really hadn’t thought about it. “I guess you will have
to tell her we got a divorce.”
“I can’t say that,” he said, eyeing me steadily. “Catholics don’t divorce.”
In Detroit, I sat on the floor to write a poem for Robert’s Y portfolio. He had given me a handful of flowers, a bouquet of photographs that I tacked to the wall. I wrote him of the process of creation, the divining rod and the forgotten vowel. I resumed the life of a citizen. It took me far from the world I had known, yet Robert was ever in my consciousness; the blue star in the constellation of my personal cosmology.
ROBERT WAS DIAGNOSED WITH AIDS AT THE SAME time I found I was carrying my second child. It was 1986, late September, and the trees were heavy with pears. I felt ill with flulike symptoms, but my intuitive Armenian doctor told me that I wasn’t sick but in the early stages of pregnancy. “What you have dreamed for has come true,” he told me. Later, I sat amazed in my kitchen and thought that it was an auspicious time to call Robert.
Fred and I had begun work on the album that would become Dream of Life, and he suggested that I ask Robert to photograph me for the cover. I hadn’t seen or spoken with him for some time. I sat to ready myself, contemplating the call I was about to make, when the phone rang. I was so focused on Robert that for an instant I felt it could be him. But it was my friend and legal counselor Ina Meibach. She told me she had some bad news and I sensed immediately that it was about Robert. He had been hospitalized with AIDS-related pneumonia. I was stunned. I drew my hand instinctively to my belly and began to cry.
Every fear I had once harbored seemed to materialize with the suddenness of a bright sail bursting into flames. My youthful premonition of Robert crumbling into dust returned with pitiless clarity. I saw his impatience to achieve recognition in another light, as if he had the predisposed lifeline of a young pharaoh.