Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Robert Christgau's quip ("Patti Smith is a better poet. And Lou Reed was a better junkie.") will forever sum up Jim Carroll for me, but it isn't really a fair assessment. "People Who Died" is a terrific song (and actually, now that I think of it, "Catholic Boy" had several other solid numbers on it; "The Basketball Diaries" is an excellent memoir (and a good movie). I'm even somewhat fond of his spoken word recordings, to the extent I am familiar with them through John Giorno's Poetry Systems recordings. Even though I doubt that I will ever play my copy of "Dry Dream" again, I have to say that to the extent I have thought about Carroll over the course of the last twenty years it has been with affection. A minor artist, who squandered his talent-- where have we heard that story before?
// posted by Bill @ 8:10 AM 
Post a Comment