Patti Smith Honors MC5's "Sonic" Smith at Intimate Fashion Week Gig

To close out Spring 2009 New York Fashion Week on Friday, Costume National hosted a celebration for the release of the new Steven Sebring documentary, Patti Smith: Dream of Life. Smith surprised the crowd with a 30-minute set backed by longtime bandmate Lenny Kaye. Highlights included "Because the Night" — which Smith prefaced by asking the crowd to drink a glass of champagne at midnight to honor what would have been her late husband's 60th birthday — and "People Have the Power," which she punctuated with a non-partisan political message, simply asking partygoers to register to vote.

After the intimate set, Rock Daily caught up with Smith to chat about the new documentary that spans 11 years of her life. Her close friendship with Sebring helped to make production on the film feel more like making home movies. "Steven is like my brother," she explained. "He had one camera, he palled around with us, was not invasive at all. If I didn't want to be filmed I just said 'not today.' It was inspiring to have Steven in this."

Related Stories:
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• Photo Gallery: Patti Smith, U2 at Sundance 2008
• Patti Smith on Late CBGB Founder Hilly Kristal

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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