Congratulations REM and Patti Smith

I spent my evening the night before last watching the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony live on VH1 Classic. This is the first time they've actually broadcast the ceremony live and I was glad they did, as I don't like the way they've edited the performances in previous years. It was quite appropriate to see REM and Patti Smith inducted on the same evening as Michael Stipe has often cited Patti as one of his favorite artists and biggest inspirations. He would have been an obvious choice to induct her but since he was being inducted himself they went with Zack De La Rocha of Rage Against The Machine fame. Zack appeared a bit nervous, his hands shaking as he read his speech from what appeared to be handwritten notes, but a fine speech it was, praising Patti's radical activism as much as the music itself. A choked up Patti accepted her statuette with an emotional speech that mentioned her deceased mother, brother and husband Fred "Sonic" Smith. After that she got up there with her current backing band featuring longtime collaborator Lenny Kaye and her son Jackson on guitars and delivered rousing renditions of "Gimme Shelter", "Because The Night" and "Rock N' Roll Nigger".

REM was inducted by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder. He delivered a rambling but heartfelt speech before Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and ex-drummer Bill Berry took the stage. In his acceptance speech Michael Stipe talked of what REM meant to his deceased grandmother, "remember every moment". He went on to say that this was a moment he would forever remember. I was curious to see what REM (with Bill Berry back behind the drum throne) would play given their vast back catalogue and they did not dissapoint launching into two early classics, "Begin The Begin" and "Gardening At Night", before delivering an impassioned performance of one of their latter day smash hits, "Man On The Moon" with Eddie Vedder in tow. From there they were joined by Patti Smith for a truly electric cover of Iggy and The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" before the night ended with the usual all star jam session, featuring all this year's inductees and presenters rockin' the night away on Patti Smith's "People Have The Power". Never in a million years did I think I would live to see Michael Stipe and Patti Smith sharing a stage with Sammy Hagar! Not to mention Ronnie Spector, Stephen Stills, Keith Richards, Eddie Vedder and members of The Furious Five!

Watching Patti Smith and REM recieve the respect they both so deserve that night I couldn't help but think of the connection between the two of them. It's no secret that Michael Stipe cites Patti as his single biggest influence and the unfettered, creative spirit of her work can certainly be gleaned in the best of Stipe's work with REM. In more recent years the two have become close friends and have collaborated on occasion. The first time they worked together was on the haunting dirge "E-Bow The Letter", which appeared on REM's grossly underrated 1996 album "New Adventures In Hi-Fi". Long one of my favorite REM songs I hoped they might perform it Monday night, but it wasn't to be. Then in 1998 Stipe published the book "Two Times Intro: On The Road with Patti Smith". It was comprised of black and white photographs from Patti's 1995 tour with Bob Dylan, most of which were taken by Stipe himself. Filled with atmospheric, often abstract snapshots which are coupled with prose from Stipe, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Tom Verlaine, Lenny Kaye and William S. Burroughs among others, "Two Times Intro" stands as a beautiful document of what was Patti's first tour in over fifteen years.

My mom's a big Patti Smith fan and we met her back in '98 at the Harold Washington Library here in Chicago. She was doing a book signing for "Patti Smith Complete: Lyrics, Reflections and Notes For The Future". In addition to doing some readings from the book she also performed a couple acoustic songs with her boyfriend Oliver Reed on guitar. Not long after that we saw her in concert at the Riviera and she sure did put on one helluva show! As William Burroughs noted in "Two Times Intro", Patti is very much a shaman. Like rock icons Jim Morrison and Iggy Pop before her. The difference of course is Patti is a woman and prior to Patti there had never really been a woman who conducted herself onstage like that. In addition to being an electrifying performer she is a poet, first and foremost. She used the rock medium simply as a means of getting her poetry across and ended up helping to completely revolutionize rock music as we know it today in the process. Not only is she often cited as "the godmother of punk" (and rightfully so), her first three albums "Horses", "Radio Ethiopia" and "Easter" influenced virtually every alternative minded rock artist there is, from REM and Sonic Youth to everybody in between. She's one of a kind to be sure and I've always had the utmost respect for radical thinking women like Yoko Ono and Patti Smith. They never bought into this being "a man's world". Patti Smith has fought tooth and nail to make this world her own.

As a longtime REM fan I was pleased to see them get their due Monday night. Most REM fans I've known prefer their earlier work from the eighties. There's no denying the impact of "Murmur", "Reckoning", "Fables Of The Reconstruction", "Life's Rich Pageant" and "Document". Equal parts post-punk and Byrdsian jingle jangle coupled with Stipe's often surreal lyrics and ever so disctinctive vocal style, REM created a sound all their own on those early records and it was that sound that launched a thousand other indie bands. I've always held their latter day work in the highest regard as well though. Their sound changed quite a bit over the years and although they lost some of their early fans along the way they never let that affect their evolution and as a result of that they eventually achieved massive mainstream success in the early nineties with albums like "Out Of Time" and "Automatic For The People". On the other hand it wasn't as if they courted that mainstream success in a really overt way. They simply have always made the records that they felt like making at a particular moment. That's been their modus operandi since day one.

I'll be the first to admit their last couple of albums were rather bland but I don't doubt they have another great record or two left in them. That was a pretty hard rockin' performance they gave Monday night and from what I read yesterday their next album is going to be more in that vain. As you may recall, they made two harder rock records back in the mid-nineties, "Monster" and "New Adventures In Hi-Fi". "Monster" was very much their answer to the "grunge" movement, and "New Adventures In Hi-Fi" was created out of the ashes of that era. "Monster" was quite a departure for them at that time and that's precisely what I always liked about it. "New Adventures In Hi-Fi" coupled some of the loud guitar rock of "Monster" with a more classic REM sound on other songs. That album didn't do very well at all, but it's always been one of my personal favorites. The bottom line is REM has never been afraid to spread their wings and try new things. And at the end of the day isn't that what it's all about?

In addition to inducting REM and Patti Smith, Monday night's ceremony also saw the induction of The Ronettes, Van Halen and Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five. Keith Richards inducted The Ronettes in his usual inimitable manner and they proceeded to deliver an epic reading of "Be My Baby" backed by Paul Schaffer and the house band. Ronnie Spector was obviously lovin' every minute of her moment in the sun. She sounded great and she looked better than she has in years! After the performance Paul Schaffer read a note of congratulations from Ronnie's notorious ex, Phil Spector, to slighly muted if not downright awkward applause.

Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony accepted the statuette on Van Halen's behalf. David Lee Roth was reportedly invited but did not show. Eddie Van Halen is currently in rehab. Not sure where Alex Van Halen was. I've never been much of a Van Halen fan, but there's no denying Eddie's massive influence on the shred generation of guitarists. For it was he who basically invented that style of guitar and beyond that, there's no denying Van Halen's popularity. Definitely a worthy inductee in my book as was hip-hop pioneers Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five.

They're the first hip-hop act to be inducted into the rock hall opening the doors for the induction of more hip-hop acts in the years to come. This move was slightly controversial with the old guard and while there is still plenty of great rock bands who've yet to be inducted hip-hop most definitely is an offshoot of rock and roll and as far as I'm concerned, it's pioneers deserve a place in the rock hall alongside everybody else.

VH1 Classic will be re-airing the ceremony on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. Check your local listings for times.