Two Times Intro captures intimate side of Patti Smith

I’m not sure why I didn’t pay attention to Two Times Intro the first time around. At the time I was a huge R.E.M. fan, had been for 15 years by the time this came out in 1998. And I had finally discovered Patti Smith by that point, her comeback in 1995 propelling her onto my radar. Perhaps it was the beginning of a period of ambivalence about Michael Stipe, a sort of “how can we miss you if you won’t go away?” vibe, or the thought that an artist as visceral as Smith couldn’t adequately be captured on the printed page.

Whatever the reason, I missed out. Thanks, then, to Akashic Books, which has brought the book back into print. It’s an opportune time. For Smith, it always seems opportune. Times like these call for a cultural mother who can guide us, and Smith is as good a candidate as any. And for Stipe, newly freed of the band that seemed like a constraining dayjob, the book is a reminder of what he offers in the form of artistry beyond singing pop songs.

In Two Times Intro, Stipe captures life on the road for a short tour during which Smith and her band opened for Bob Dylan. It was 1995, and this was her return after years away from music to be a wife and mother. As such, the feel one gets from the photos is that of someone trying to create a homey atmosphere in the by now common backstage setting. We see blurry photos of musicians sprawling on couches, sitting in airports, killing time. This is a pivotal point in Smith’s career — her groundbreaking first four albums behind her, her elder-states(wo)man catalog of the next 10 years still to come — and these pictures are an intimate portrait of that time.

Interspersed throughout are reminiscences from friends and colleagues, from a short poem by Tom Verlaine to longer, more analytical offerings from Lisa Robinson and Paul Williams, and more. At first, I assumed these would hope the real value of the book, the meat and potatoes surrounded by the gravy that is the photos (surely Smith is a vegetarian, right? Horrified at the metaphor… alas). Not so. The text is fine, if predictably laudatory. Instead, it is the photos to which I’m drawn again and again, Stipe’s odd yet compellingly composed windows into Smith’s world.