UnPlugged
Relive punk legend Patti Smith's unbelievable Houston night: Voices BreakingBoundaries releases exclusive video
As it prepares to launch a new season of programming, the nonprofit arts group Voices Breaking Boundaries has released an exclusive video of punk icon Patti Smith's memorable night in Houston. Smith appeared at the University of Houston’s Cullen Performance Hall last year and it turned into quite the event — one Voices is giving anyone the chance to relive.
A nonprofit grassroots organization dedicated to social justice through art, Voices Breaking Boundaries has been bringing globally-minded and politically-active artists to Houston since it was established in 2000.
VBB founder Sehba Sarwar’s relationship with Patti Smith began with a chance encounter at New York's LaGuardia Airport in 2003, following Iraq War protests the two both attended the day before. Already scheduled to interview Smith for her Strange Messenger show at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Sarwar introduced herself to the punk icon, sparking a friendship that has lasted nearly a decade.
“My daughter is one of the few 7-year-olds who sings Patti Smith songs in school,” Sarwar says, smiling.
Smith packed the Cullen Performance hall with almost 1,500 people (The video of the show is available on the VBB webiste).
“I left my little rural area in South Jersey with about 20 dollars, no where to stay and no job,” she said to start the show. “My mother gave me a waitress uniform. But as my mother said, ‘I know you’ll never make it as a waitress.’ She was right.”
“After a surprisingly low attendance at a 2003 concert in Houston, Patti was nervous about the crowd,” Sarwar says. “We decided to make the tickets affordable at $5 a piece and the theater nearly sold out of seats.”
In conjunction with the recent release of her award-winning memoir, Just Kids, Smith focused the first half of the performance on her time with legendary photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in New York City during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
“I left my little rural area in South Jersey with about 20 dollars, no where to stay and no job,” Smith said to start the show. “My mother gave me a waitress uniform. But as my mother said, ‘I know you’ll never make it as a waitress.’ She was right.”
Smith read several excerpts from the book, before closing with a solo set featuring “My Blakean Year” as well as an a cappella version “Because the Night,” a song she famously co-penned with Bruce Springsteen in the late 1970s.
This Oct. 22, Voices Breaking Boundaries offers its annual “living room art production” — a one-night art exhibition installed in a local Houston house. Taking place at two homes in the Third Ward, one of which belongs to Project Row Houses founder Rick Lowe, the event will feature more than 10 artists from Houston and Pakistan.
Titled Third Worlds: Third Ward/Karachi, the art show brings together video, music, installations and performances to explore commonalities between the United States and Pakistan.
