Billy Hough tackles Patti Smith’s Horses in 3 minutes
Legs McNeil gave Billy Hough three minutes to unpack as much information about some of his favorite things as he could. “Things You Should Know” is shot live in Provincetown, and gives Billy one last chance to squeeze as much information out as possible before the clock stops.
In his last video, about their debut album, The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967), Billy takes a track-by-track approach to the songs, elaborating on the many different innovations this amazing record contains. Billy explains his life-long mission of gaining more visibility for the record’s “real” producer, Tom Wilson, and name-checks several of the surprising characters (Marianne Faithfull) who are tangentially connected to his favorite band.
In this video, Billy takes off from his recent piece on PKM about Patti Smith’s Horses, in which he dissected the album track by track. With his keyboard on hand, Billy tries to go further here, illustrating how some of the songs were built.
He also name-checks many of the references and influences on this brilliant first album from the legendary performer. Well, as many as he can cram into three minutes.
As a life-long rock nerd, deep reader and cinema geek, Billy has compiled a lifetime’s worth of gossip, trivia and back story on pop culture with an emphasis on the fringes of the scene. Billy has written exhaustive, deep dives about Patti Smith, John Cale and others for PKM, but there is always more to the story.
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THE PUZZLING CASE OF PATTI SMITH: GROUNDBREAKER, ‘GODMOTHER OF PUNK’ AND YOUR MOM’S FAVORITE AUTHOR