{"id":5906,"date":"2022-01-29T00:13:26","date_gmt":"2022-01-29T08:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/?page_id=5906"},"modified":"2025-06-19T16:16:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T23:16:14","slug":"jim-carroll-lenny-kaye-cornell-1997-cassie","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/performance-reviews\/jim-carroll-lenny-kaye-cornell-1997-cassie\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Carroll and Lenny Kaye"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cornell University, 3 March 1997
Review by Cassie Carter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My review of this performance covers more than the performance itself . . .<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I drove ten hours (from East Lansing, MI, to Ithaca, NY) to see Jim Carroll perform with Lenny Kaye at Cornell University; I did it partly because it happened during my spring break and I could<\/em><\/i>, but mainly because I found it impossible to pass up a chance to see Jim Carroll doing a music<\/i> show with Lenny Kaye<\/a>. I discovered Jim Carroll in 1987, about three years after the demise of the Jim Carroll Band, so this was an incredible opportunity. In the ten-plus years I have been following Carroll, this was my first chance to see him in something resembling “rock star” mode, and in addition to that, I have come to admire Lenny Kaye’s work after seeing him perform with Patti Smith. Kaye also played with the Jim Carroll Band, of course, so that was an added enticement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I arrived in Ithaca around 4:30 PM, and while I was toting my luggage into my motel room, Mike Villers, Jen Hess, and her girlfriend Maria pulled into the parking lot. Mike is the guy responsible for conceiving and producing Put Your Tongue to the Rail<\/a>, the Jim Carroll “tribute” album out of Philadelphia, and Jen Hess performs “I Want the Angel” on the album, one of my favorite tracks. I greeted them, then returned to my room to get situated and take a shower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I got out of the shower and was drying my hair, a minivan pulled up in front of my motel window; from the van emerged Jim Carroll, Lenny Kaye, and Bob Fitzgerald. Bob, JC’s booking agent, had told me he was staying at this joint, so I had taken that as a reference–but I had thought, innocently, that Cornell (being the bigshot university it is) would put Jim and Lenny up in some fancy hotel. I was wrong (which doesn’t surprise me). So . . . by the time I wrapped myself and my hair up in towels, Bob and Lenny had already gone inside, and Jim was headed towards the stairwell. I cranked open my window and yelled, “Jim!” He was wearing a furry black hat that made him look like a Russian or something. He turned and looked around until he found me, waving in my window through the screen. I yelled that I didn’t know he was staying at that motel and he returned, “Yeah, sure!” About thirty minutes later, while I was trying to get myself ready (beauty-wise) to go out to dinner with Mike Villers and company, Jim called me from his room and we talked for about ten minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that, Mike called me to see how my beauty regimine was progressing, and eventually I emerged from my room. Mike, Jen, Maria, and I went out for soup and salads, then headed for the performance venue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three of us arrived about half an hour before the show. What amazed me was that there weren’t many people there waiting in line. I shouldn’t have been amazed: the ONLY publicity I saw consisted of a few posters around the vicinity of the venue. By the time the show began, I realized that I was attending the least-well attended Jim Carroll performance of my life (and yes, I’ve attended many). I’m guestimating that the audience numbered somewhere around 250-300, and there were many empty seats. The funny (ironic) thing is that the people responsible for the show had no idea<\/i> what they had! That’s fairly obvious if you check out the review by Jade Chang<\/a> in the Cornell student newspaper; Chang thought Carroll would be giving a lecture<\/i>. I can’t believe how poorly organized and promoted the event was. This was the first<\/b> music show Jim Carroll had done in about ten years, as well as the first time Jim Carroll and Lenny Kaye had performed together for a college audience. The organizers of the show were oblivious!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any case, because the music part of the show was such a unique experience, I want to focus on that–but first I’ll mention what happened during the first part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first part of the performance, which lasted about an hour, was Carroll’s spoken-word performance, in which he read primarily new, unpublished work. In his usual amazing way, he read:<\/p>\n\n\n\n