"At 66 Patti Smith shows no sign of mellowing"
The Guardian: "By 1978, she was heading towards mainstream stardom: Because The Night reached the top five in the UK and her Easter album the top 20. Then she gave it all up. Why? Three reasons, she says. In 1977, she fell off the stage, fractured her back in four places and broke her skull (she needed 42 stitches in her head). She was never as mobile again. Then she fell in love with Fred "Sonic" Smith and married him. Finally, she says, she found fame too corrosive. "I didn't have time to read, I wasn't studying, wasn't writing. I was basically promoting, going to radio stations, performing, battling bronchitis because there was so much smoke in venues. I thought, I see a lot of potential fame and fortune, but I don't see a lot of human evolution. Nothing will stifle your human evolution more than fame and fortune." How? "It doesn't do a whole lot for making you a better person. I found myself being more demanding, or spoilt." Was she horrible? She balks at the suggestion. "No, just impatient, agitated. The main thing was I didn't think I was producing anything of extraordinary worth."
"Patti Smith in Bronte tribute gig"
BBC News: "The US artist was in Howarth, Yorkshire, to play a fundraising concert for the Bronte society, which runs a museum dedicated to Charlotte and Emily's books."
The Coral Sea performance on May 18th 2013
"To celebrate the exhibition opening of Patti Smith: The Coral Sea, the Contemporary Arts Center is excited to present an intimate, one-night-only performance by the artist. For this special engagement, Smith will be accompanied by her bassist and on piano by her daughter, Jesse Smith, on piano for a rare performance of The Coral Sea, as well as various songs from her extensive and celebrated repertoire." The events take place at The Contemporary Arts Center in Ohio.
Cowboy Mouth produced in the UK in November 2012
Press info: "Patti Smith, legendary punk-poet. Sam Shepard, revered playwright. Their brief relationship in the 1970s was fraught, a passionate yet all-too brief meeting of minds. 'Cowboy Mouth' is the result. Composed on one typewriter in their room at the Hotel Chelsea, the play offers an eccentric glimpse of these artists at the very start of their career, through the eyes of their projected characters, Slim and Cavale, holed up together in a room. They fight, tell each other stories, and are surrounded by rock'n'roll, French poetry and the potential of separation at every verbal turn. They wait daily for the Lobster Man, who brings them food, and perhaps for something more, for 'un cavale': an escape."
Cavale, played by Jessica O'Driscoll
Breen Slim, played by Tom Russell
Directed by Jack Parlett
Produced by Stephanie Aspin
Touring Banga
Patti shares her thoughs about the album and tour in a website diary: "The worse part, besides saying goodbye to my daughter Jesse, is picking out what books to take. I decide this will be essentially a Haruki Murakami tour. So I will take several of his books including the three volume IQ84 to reread." The diary will also include the Banga lyrics.
New album "Banga" out in june 2012 Consequence of Sound: "Entitled Banga, the 12-track effort was recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York City and produced by Smith and her band of Tony Shanahan, Jay Dee Daugherty, and long-time collaborator Lenny Kaye. In addition, Television frontman Tom Verlaine, Jack Petruzzelli, Smith’s son Jackson and daughter Jesse Paris appear as featured guests. According to a press release, Banga was “inspired by Smith’s unique dreams and observations” and its “poetic lyrics are a reflection of our complex world – a world that is rife with chaos and beauty.” Appropriately, the album’s lead single, “April Fool”, is now available through digital retailers. Other tracks include a ballad in memory of Amy Winehouse (“This Is The Girl”), a rock song for the people of Japan in the wake of last year’s earthquake (“Fuji-san”), and a birthday song written for her friend Johnny Depp (“Nine”)."
Tracklist:
01. Amerigo
02. Fuji-san
03. April Fool
04. This is the Girl
05. Banga
06. Maria
07. Tarkovsky (The Second Stop is Jupiter)
08. Mosaic
09. Nine
10. Seneca
11. Constantine’s Dream
12. After the Gold Rush
Occupy This Album
From press release: "Legendary and emerging artists inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement have come together to lend their voices on Occupy This Album: a compilation of music by, for and inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement and the 99% (CD/Digital). Released by Music For Occupy through Razor & Tie distribution, the four-disc physical and 99-track digital compilation is due out May 15th. Proceeds received will go directly to the Occupy Wall Street movement, which began in the financial district of New York on Sept. 17, 2011. The movement can now be found in 951 cities in 83 countries on five continents. On May 8th The City Winery in New York will host a special night of performances by participating artists and surprise guests.
Album features never before released tracks From Ani DiFranco, UNKLE, David Amram, Joan Baez, Tom Chapin, Willie Nelson, Rain Phoenix, Patti Smith, Anti Flag, Girls Against Boys, Garland Jeffreys, New Party Systems Featuring Kyp Malone, Yoko Ono, Amanda Palmer, Dar Williams, The Mammals Featuring Pete Seeger, David Crosby & Graham Nash, George Martinez & The Global Block Collective, Jackson Browne, and Yo La Tengo."
Patti Smith: Camera Solo
An exhibition of photographs by Patti Smith at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, CT, from October 21st 2011 - February 19th 2012.
A new publication of Woolgathering Publisher information: "In this small, luminous memoir, the National Book Award–winner Patti Smith revisits the most sacred experiences of her early years, with truths so vivid they border on the surreal. The author entwines her childhood self—and its "clear, unspeakable joy"—with memories both real and envisioned from her twenties on New York's MacDougal Street, the street of cafés. Woolgathering was completed, in Michigan, on Patti Smith's 45th birthday and originally published in a slim volume from Raymond Foye's Hanuman Books. Twenty years later, New Directions is proud to present it in an augmented edition, featuring writing that was omitted from the book's first printing, along with new photographs and illustrations."
Outside Society - a compilation album out now
Release information: "Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee, Patti Smith's first career-spanning single CD collection, OUTSIDE SOCIETY, contains 18 signature songs, remastered from all ten of Smith's studio albums. The chronologically arranged tracks move from her 1975 debut album, Horses ("Gloria", "Free Money"), through her last release in 2007, Twelve ("Smells Like Teen Spirit"). The liner notes features brief recollections of each song written by Patti, who personally supervised the song choices."
Patti Smith and Kronos Quartet win Polar Music Prize
BBC News (May 3rd 2011): "King Carl XVI Gustaf will present each act with their one million kronor (£100,000) prize at a gala ceremony in Stockholm on 30 August. Previous winners include Sir Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder and composer Ennio Morricone.The Royal Swedish Academy of Music praised musician and poet Smith, 64, for "devoting her life to art in all its forms". "Patti Smith has demonstrated how much rock'n'roll there is in poetry and how much poetry there is in rock'n'roll. "She has transformed the way an entire generation looks, thinks and dreams," the academy added.
Rundgren Radio with Lenny Kaye on April 26th 2011
"Lenny Kaye is an American guitarist, composer and writer who is best known as a member of the Patti Smith Group. He will be a camp counselor at Todd Rundgren's upcoming "TR's Musical Survival Camp" this June."
Patti Smith at Archives of American Art on May 17th 2011
"In a special evening benefiting the Archives of American Art, artist, poet, and musician Patti Smith will give a performance featuring artists’ love letters from the Archives’ collections."
To Japan with Love. Benefit for Japan March 29th 2011
Michael Stipe & Patti Smith’s “walk-in performance” at MoMA
Consequence of Sound: "While you were watching the Giants’ 4th quarter collapse to the Eagles, Patti Smith and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe made a trip to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, where they honored the 100th birthday of French writer/political activist Jean Genet with a “walk-in” performance in the middle of the museum. Stipe opened with a cover of David Bowie’s song about Genet, “The Jean Genie”, before Smith dropped a 20-minute improvisation of Genet’s biography. "
Patti Smith's Just Kids is the 2010 National Book Award Winner for nonfiction
National Book Foundation has awarded Patti Smith's Just Kids with the 2010 National Book Award. "In Just Kids, Patti Smith’s first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies. An honest and moving story of youth and friendship, Smith brings the same unique, lyrical quality to Just Kids as she has to the rest of her formidable body of work—from her influential 1975 album Horses to her visual art and poetry. "
The New York Times about the award: "Accepting the award to applause and cheers, Ms. Smith — clearly the favorite of the night — choked up as she recalled her days as a clerk in the Scribner’s bookstore in Manhattan. “I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf,” she said. “Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don’t abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.”
New album due out in 2011
Spinner: "Between promotional duties for her memoir 'Just Kids,' rock icon Patti Smith found time to record her 11th studio album, which is due out in 2011. Sessions took place in Italy and France, with a bulk of the recordings done at New York's famed Electric Lady Studio. (--) The new batch of material does have a title, but Smith's mum on that. "It's a secret," she says. "I'm old fashioned. Everyone says people don't do that anymore, but for me, that's still part of the excitement: to keep some things secret and wait for when it's time."
Just Kids, a 2010 National Book Award Finalist
"In Just Kids, Patti Smith’s first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies. An honest and moving story of youth and friendship, Smith brings the same unique, lyrical quality to Just Kids as she has to the rest of her formidable body of work—from her influential 1975 album Horses to her visual art and poetry."
John Lennon 70th tribute concert to be held in NYC
Reuters (September 14th 2010): "Among the musicians slated to pay tribute to the former Beatle at the November 12 concert at New York's Beacon Theater are Jackson Browne, Patti Smith, Cyndi Lauper, Aimee Mann and Shelby Lynne. The concert is one of several events and parties being held in New York and around the world to honor what would have been Lennon's 70th birthday on October 9."
Art exhibition: Patti Smith & Christoph Schlingensief
"Like Christoph Schlingensief in his expressionistic and experimental photographs, Patti Smith consciously employs the out-of-focus effect and suggestive details. The lyrical photographs of Patti Smith and Christoph Schlingensief complement each other, their work is about the archaeology of seeing." Until September 18th 2010 at Galerie Sonja Junkers in Munich, Germany.
Miami Book Fair
Patti Smith will be appearing at the Miami Book Fair on November 19th 2010.
Steven Sebring's documentary Patti Smith: Dream of Life up for primetime Emmy
Tonic: "Smith is an important fixture in American culture. She is a singer, poet, activist and mother. Yet Sebring felt documenting her life, as the woman who encompasses all of these aspects, was important enough to spend years creating. "Life is an adventure of our own design intersected by fate in a series of lucky and unlucky accidents," Smith says in the film. "I had in mind to become an artist, poet, and through that pursuit I found the root of my voice."
Patti Smith confesses love of Lorca's poetry
ThinkSpain: “I have always enjoyed reading him and I've learnt a lot about improvisation and on-scene presence, thanks to him.” Patti Smith, who currently works as 'advisor' to Johnny Depp in his production of a film about Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, has been performing tracks from her most recent studio album, Twelve, released in 2007."
Letter From Paris: Patti Smith and Just Kids
Huffington Post: "It's important for them to read this record of your and Robert's life as artists growing up together and of this transforming crack of time in New York when young women and men came to our greatest American city and soared like eagles in the sky before flying too close to the sun, burning their wings, and falling to the earth dying or dead. A generation of genius lost...not forgotten."
Documentary: "Patti Smith: Long for the City"
"Patti Smith and her poetry wind their way through the streets of New York City, as she voices her thoughts on her neighbourhood and her life." Duration nine minutes. Included in the programme of Melbourne International Film Festival in July 22nd - August 8th 2010.
Patti Smith by Joseph O'Connor: "My hero"
The Guardian: "She has been a poet, an acclaimed photographer, a memoirist, a mother, perhaps the last truly uncompromised artist in rock music"
"How Peter Pan inspired Patti Smith to write a children's classic"
Evening Standard: "Her thoughts have turned to writing her own story for posterity after the success of her memoir, Just Kids. "It has inspired me to keep writing," she said. She has a sequel planned and a book of travels but her ambition is to write a children’s classic. "I want to write a book like Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland or Pinocchio, a classic like the books I loved. That’s my life goal.""
Anniversary of accident marked at rock festival
New York Times: "The annual Roskilde music festival began in Denmark on Thursday with a memorial to mark the 10th anniversary of an accident in which nine people were killed during a concert performance, The Associated Press reported. Patti Smith threw nine roses to the crowd as Lenny Kaye, her longtime bandmate, read the names of the concertgoers who were killed."
"Patti Smith’s Punk Screams Shatter Peace in Hyde Park"
Bloomberg: "It was meant to be a lazy evening of thoughtful folk music in a London park. That was until Patti Smith and her band delivered 90 electric minutes of taut punk rock, incisive anger and guitar- driven beat poetry."
"Patti Smith knows how to walk into a room"
Mike Hoolboom / Ryeberg Curated Video about Patti Smith on “Kids are People Too” (circa 1979): "Patti makes her way to the piano massacre without missing a beat. The keyboard player is in one time signature, while Patti is in another. I want to say that she’s singing from her heart, but she’s not. She’s singing from her whole body. The whole body at once is the teacher. Still that little girl from New Jersey playing in the patch. She forgets the words, she skips a verse. She holds the lines too long, she can’t hit the notes, and in her mistakes, in her necessary fragility and failures, she makes the song human again. She makes me human again."
Oscilloscope to lunch with “Burroughs” this fall
IndieWire: "Oscilloscope has picked up North American rights to Yony Leyser’s doc “William S. Burroughs: A Man Within.” The 2010 Slamdance Film Festival debut is a portrait of the Beat figure featuring never-before-seen archival footage of the author of Naked Lunch. Oscilloscope will release the film theatrically in the Autumn of 2010 followed by a DVD and digital release."
"Featuring interviews with colleagues and confidants including John Waters, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Gus Van Sant, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Sonic Youth, Laurie Anderson, Amiri Baraka, Jello Biafra, and David Cronenberg, the feature is described as a “probing, yet loving look at the man whose works at once savaged conservative ideals, spawned countercultural movements, and reconfigured 20th century culture.” Peter Weller narrates the film, with a soundtrack by Patti Smith & Sonic Youth."
