Patti Smith certainly has one hell of a lot to answer for. Not only does
she unashamedly use her band as a backcloth for her pretentious "poetic"
ramblings, but she simultaneously comes on as the saviour of raw-power rock and
roll as it struggles to survive the onslaught of esoteric rock. In other
words, she's into the myth-making business. And in this, her second album, the
myth is exposed . . . as cheap thrills. At least Horses had the dubious
privilege of a rabble rousing version of Them's "Gloria." But on Radio
Ethiopia all the cuts are by Patti and Band. Lenny Kaye's obsessive use of
feedback (a mistake, as he consistently bungles it: the secret of feedback
lies in knowing how to play a guitar first) receives full play in tracks like
"Pissing In a River" and "Pumping (My Heart)." In even worse shape is the
Smith voice, with the by now characteristic puppy-dog yelps substituting for
range. In Radio Ethiopia she worries at the notes like a rabid dog, mangles
them and gets lost in the feedback; a singing equivalent of the very worst
kind of sound poetry. If you really want to hear beauty in chaos, try the Red
Buddha Theatre's "Mandala," where against a similarly discordant background
the crowd's voices achieve an empathy Patti Smith would never bring off. All
this plus pathetic tricks like incessant scraping up and down fretboards and
out-of-tune guitars and a backbeat that reaches the robotic mean average and
thereafter never deviates from it. Even a promisingly funky melody in
"Distant Fingers" gets swallowed up in the maelstrom. An inarticulate mess.
Copyright © Marianne Partridge 1976