On Discovering Patti Smith As A 'Chance Encounter'

Still pinching herself about scoring the support slot for Patti Smith's last-ever Australian show, Courtney Barnett admits, "I was pretty chuffed to get that phone call." Before Smith's Festival Hall show was announced, Barnett had already purchased tickets for one of Smith's Hamer Hall dates, she tells. "The day it went online, you know, at 9am, I was ready to go and I booked my tickets, and then I went through this big ordeal to change my tickets, 'cause Jen [Cloher] got a gig at Boogie festival and it was this big drama. And then I got offered the Festival Hall one and it was all kind of a bit surreal, because obviously I'm a big fan."

So when did Barnett first discover Smith? "Um, I think it was just after I'd moved to Melbourne. I was probably 21 or something and was house sitting at a friend's house and they had a huge music collection, and a really good stereo, and we were just kind of going through it all, like, we didn't know what any of it was; I'm so musically uncultured and, yeah! I think I discovered it that way. I think maybe I listened to Easter first and then Horses and then did a bit of investigation, 'cause I liked it. And I went and got Just Kids [one of Smith's memoirs] out from the Melbourne Uni library, I just lived down the road from the uni. And I was walking home, just kind of started flicking through it and started reading the kind of opening chapter, and started crying just walking down the street 'cause I was reading this book," she laughs. "So then, you know, it's been a pretty solid affair since then.

"In 30 years that'll be what people are looking back on and I think that's really powerful."

"I love the way that Patti writes, like, it is very, um - it does feel maybe kind of a bit over-romanticised sometimes, but I love that 'cause it sucks you into this other world and, I dunno, her undying passion is - just kind of transports you a bit. I think I tend to have a more, like, boring kind of realism view of the world sometimes and I think, yeah! It's a good kind of lesson to let a bit more imagination and that kind of thing in."

When asked whether it was Smith's empowering presence in the photographs on these album covers that initially piqued her curiosity, Barnett allows, "It must've been. The cover of Horses was so striking. But I remember I don't think I knew much at all about her and it was a bit of a fluke, you know? A real kind of chance encounter."

To mark the 40th anniversary of Horses in 2015, Barnett and Cloher masterminded a tribute concert during which the pair - together with Adalita Srsen and Gareth Liddiard - performed two songs each from Smith's iconic album. "Jen came up with the idea," Barnett shares of this one-off show's inception, "and it was - I dunno, it seemed a bit kind of extravagant at the time, but then the more we talked about it the more it kind of made sense and we, you know, put together a list of artists that we thought could do it... and then Jen got in touch with Melbourne Festival and all of that and she made the whole thing happen, which was a huge feat. But it all came together." Barnett acknowledges the Horses tribute was "a really kind of terrifying thing to do, actually," before adding, "I think it's a pretty bold thing to do - like, someone else's whole album and as a kind of tribute - and especially for someone who is still around. Like, a lot for the time, you know, we do those things for artists who have passed away or whatever." 

She performed Redondo Beach and Break It Up on the night and Barnett recalls, "It was out of my comfort zone, you know, which I think is a really good thing. You don't wanna disrespect someone else's work or anything like that and then there's the other part that's, like... you don't want the diehards to be like, 'Oh, they butchered it,' or they whatever," she laughs.

After discussing all of the influential people Smith rolled with in the '60s and '70s - including Robert Mapplethorpe, Allen Ginsberg, Janis Joplin and members of Andy Warhol's inner circle - we can't help but wonder which of the scenes that are unfolding right now might be regarded with similar awe in the future. "I have thought about this before and I'm always like, 'Oh I wish I was alive, you know, in the '90s,' or whatever period you get obsessed with," Barnett muses, "and, like, you see photos of so-and-so sittin' around strumming the guitar and someone's in the background and, yeah! I think that it's happening all the time and to focus too much on the past, you know, we overlook the moment that we're in right now. Like, you go to The Tote or something and, you know, just something as simple as that with an amazing line-up and all of the people that are around; in 30 years that'll be what people are looking back on and I think that's really powerful, 'cause we - especially Melbourne, there really is, like, a powerful scene, I reckon."