Ali's Flair in Love and War

In THE BALLAD OF SPEEDBALL BABY, Ali Smith--punk rock darling turned photographer turned memoirist--sings a paean to the East Village, bad lovers, far-flung travel, and her 90s band, Speedball Baby.

Photo of Ali playing bass ©Lynda Cohen

If you were to meet Ali Smith¹ today, in her cozy home an hour outside London, it might be hard to reconcile the thoughtful artist/mother/wife and now writer she’s become—discussing her son’s new school’s emphasis on knitting, a recent photography assignment for The Guardian, her husband’s midlife career pivot from journalist to therapist—with the wild child, pink-haired, punk rock, smudged-eyeliner, bass guitar-playing, bad boy-dating rebel she describes in her new memoir, The Ballad of Speedball Baby. But make no mistake: those messy years of searching, music, abuse, and wrong turns have not only informed the serene, grateful, middle-aged woman she’s become, they have made her appreciate her good marriage and quiet family life away from the hustle and absurdities of today’s hyper-capitalist America even more.

And now, lucky us, she has unearthed all of her adventures—at the urging of her old friend from those days, actress Miriam Shor—for us to read.

For those of you who can still smell the beer on the floor, the puke in the bathroom, and the smoke-choked air of CBGBs, her romp through the underground world of the East Village 90s will resonate. For those who only know CBGBs as a John Varvatos store, a) I’m so sorry; but also b) this is your chance to get an insider’s glimpse into a time when you could still live in a walk up on Avenue C and remain true to your determination to live and create outside the mainstream.

For reference, here’s a video of Ali playing at CBGBs in the late 90s:

And here’s Ali today, chatting with me last week over Zoom. (Please excuse my excessive blinking and rheumy eyes. I had a terrible cold and was barely holding it together, but I didn’t want to cancel on Ali.)

I first met Ali in the early aughts, when she reached out after having read my first memoir. Even back then, I remember her talking about wanting to write her own story one day. The fact that she has finally done so in her late 40s and early 50s is a testament not only to Ali’s patience and determination, but also to her gift with words. Yes, she’s published two books prior, both gorgeous color photography books with some writing: The Laws of the Bandit Queens and Mama Love, the latter which—full disclosure—I happen to be in as one of her subjects. Nevertheless, I need to stress that the publishing world is brutal right now for memoirists, particularly first-timers. If you don’t have a platform, fame, or a million followers on TikTok, good luck getting your memoir published. And if, on top of not having any of those things, you happen to be a middle-aged woman, you can practically kiss your memoir dreams goodbye.

But Ali learned a thing or two about perseverance, grit, rejection, and overcoming sexism as one of the only women in the 90s punk rock scene, and she brings that energy to the page in a way that had me reading late into the night.

Today, her music, like her soul, is more melodic, serene (see below.) But if you listen carefully, you can still hear the underlying chords of that pink-haired, punk-rock, bass-jamming bandit queen, shouting into the void, “Hello? Hey you! Yeah, you there. Pay attention, little fucker. I exist.”

1. Not to be confused with the other Ali Smith, novelist, whose Booker Prize finalist Hotel World I loved!