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Patti Smith

Patti Smith

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Patti Smith: At Last, The Lower Manhattan Show

Report and Interview by Miles, New Musical Express, 22 May 1976

Patti Smith at the Roundhouse, facing fans, friends, fungoids and straightforward weirdos – Britain's first live chance of checking out the 'legend'. MILES went as ...

Patti Smith: Patti noises off

Interview by Gavin Martin, Vox, January 1998

PATTI SMITH, the cultural dynamo who claims to have "several decades left in me yet" is never one to court convention. With no plans to ...

Audio interviews

Patti Smith (1976)

Interview by Mick Gold, Rock's Backpages audio, 10 May 1976

Ms Smith talks at length about her poetry, her influences, live improvisation, and Bob Dylan.

File format: mp3; file size: 102.8mb, interview length: 1h 51' 56" sound quality: ***

Patti Smith (1978)

Interview by Howie Klein, Rock's Backpages audio, 14 May 1978

Ms Smith regales the listeners to KSAN, San Francisco, with stories about Tina Turner, Sandy Pearlman and the Clash; sings the praises of Fred 'Sonic Smith and Tom Verlaine; gives respect to Bill Graham. She also makes Public Service announcements, and comments on the commercials!

File format: mp3; file size: 81.9mb, interview length: 1h 29' 27" sound quality: ***

Patti Smith (1978)

Interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages audio, Spring 1978

The poet/rocker on her fascination with the stars who died young, from Rimbaud to Hendrix; trying to communicate with God; her stage fall; feeling the presence of Jim Morrison in Paris; her love of UK punk and the Clash; how she and Lenny Kaye set out to change things; starting her new album, Easter; keeping rock'n'roll alive, with her guitar as her main weapon; on the death of Elvis, and her optimism for 1978 and the future.

File format: mp3; file size: 44.9mb, interview length: 46' 48" sound quality: ****

The Patti Smith Group's Lenny Kaye (1986)

Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages audio, January 1986

Musician and journalist Kaye on the CBGBs scene, the differences between US and UK Punk, Patti Smith and his seminal Nuggets compilation.

File format: mp3; file size: 59meg, interview length: 1h 01' 26" sound quality: ***

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Runt the Magic Rabbit: Todd Rundgren's Search for the Ultimate Riff

Special Feature by Ed McCormack, Rolling Stone, 13 April 1972

WORD HAS filtered down to Allen Klein's New York office that George Harrison wants to get in touch with Todd Rundgren, the all-around rock and ...

Patti Smith

Interview by Victor Bockris, Carryout, 15 August 1972

VICTOR BOCKRIS: Would you consider yourself to be the greatest poet in New York City? ...

Patti Smith: 'Hey Joe' b/w 'Piss Factory' (Mer601)

Review by Nick Tosches, Creem, November 1974

REMEMBER WHEN rock 'n' roll as poetry was a hot issue? All those wheezing old-before-their-timers trying to legitimize that fine honky noise by jamming its ...

Patti Smith: Very special sound

Profile by Dave Marsh, Newsday, April 1975

THE BEST new rock music in the area is taking place this weekend (Thursday to Sunday) and next (April 17-20) at a scruffy Bowery bar ...

Patti Smith: A Rocker Determined To Do It All

Interview by Dave Marsh, Newsday, 20 April 1975

PATTI SMITH, the reformed poet, playwright and songwriter, learned to sing sometime last year. Now, her connections of Motown soul sounds and Paris in the ...

Patti Smith: Part Woman, Part Black, Part Genius, Part Idiot...

Profile and Interview by Mick Brown, Sounds, 26 April 1975

PATTI SMITH might have been a star last year, but the top side of her first single seemed to have the word 'piss' in every ...

Down In The Scuzz With The Heavy Cult Figures

Report by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 7 June 1975

C.B.G.B. is a toilet. An impossibly scuzzy little club buried somewhere in the sections of the Village that the cab-drivers don't like to drive through. ...

La belle dame sans merci: Patti Smith: Horses (Arista Import) *****

Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, 20 November 1975

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I give you the record of the year. Or the record of 1976, since it won't be released here until January.  ...

Patti Smith: Horses

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 22 November 1975

FIRST ALBUMS THIS good are pretty damn few and far between. ...

Horses: Patti Smith Exposes Herself

Review by Greil Marcus, The Village Voice, 24 November 1975

THE FIRST QUESTION about Horses, Patti Smith's debut album, might be called the Janis question – it comes up whenever a particularly exciting performer has ...

Patti Smith: Poetry in Motion

Profile and Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 29 November 1975

LAST MONTH they caught Patti Hearst — and so ended the biggest man (or woman) hunt in the history of the US. ...

Patti Smith: Horses (Arista AL 4060)

Review by Gary Kenton, Phonograph Record, December 1975

WALKING THE NEW JERSEY-MERSEY BEAT WITH PATTI SMITH & THE KAYE STREET BAND ...

Patti Smith: Art for Art's Sake

Profile by Gary Kenton, Phonograph Record, December 1975

I WAS ON the telephone to one of New York's successful management firms last week and, like all successful New York firms, they put me ...

Patti Smith: Somewhere, Over the Rimbaud

Profile and Interview by Susin Shapiro, Crawdaddy!, December 1975

NEW YORK – IT'S 8:30 a.m. on a fog-soup Friday, an indecent hour to be conducting an interview, much less making a record. ...

Patti Smith: Poetry In Motion

Interview by Robin Katz, Sounds, 13 December 1975

PATTI SMITH cannot compromise. She functions on her very own level of stratosphere, creating poetry, writing songs, lapping up the more elusive statics of life. ...

Patti Smith: At The Roxy Theatre

Live Review by Don Snowden, Pasadena Guardian, Fall 1975

FIRST SHOW, first set on her first night in L.A., playing to a cold record company crowd, checking her out as a possible new phenomenon-- ...

Patti Smith: Her Horses Got Wings, They Can Fly

Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 1 January 1976

Factory Girl, Coal Stove Visionary, Scion of Rimbaud and the Ronettes, Patti Smith Now Challenges the Assembly Line of Rock & Roll ...

Patti Smith: Bottom Line, New York NY

Live Review by Toby Goldstein, Sounds, 10 January 1976

This poet won't blow it ...

Is Patti a Patsy?

Comment by Ira Robbins, Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press, February 1976

HOLD ON to your seat belts, guys and gals, this one's been simmering for a long time. Things have become too ridiculous to stay shut ...

Patti Smith: Critics' Choice? Recycling With Patti

Comment by Joe Sasfy, Unicorn Times, March 1976

PATTI SMITH and band are nothing more than some refried psychedelic/mysteriosio guitar fronted by some Shangri-La/Ronettes vocals emitting Doors/Rimbaud poetry — and they're great! ...

With her star now rising on high, Patti Smith opens at Silver Dollar

Profile by Dave DiMartino, Michigan State News, 9 March 1976

PATTI SMITH, poet/vocalist of the Patti Smith Band, will be making her East Lansing debut at the Silver Dollar Saloon Wednesday night. ...

New York: Plug in to the Nerve-ends of the Naked City

Report by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 27 March 1976

In downtown Manhattan the rock 'n' roll war rages on as potential crown princes of Punkdom battle for recognition.. NICK KENT interprets the action ...

Patti Smith: A Baby Wolf With Neon Bones

Interview by Nick Tosches, Penthouse, April 1976

PATRICIA LEE SMITH hit the linen on December 30, 1946, in Chicago, and was raised, the eldest of four children, in Deptford Township, New Jersey. ...

Patti Smith: Avery Fisher Hall, NYC

Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, May 1976

FOR SOME OF US, Patti Smith is the girl of our rock and roll dreams. As a performer she doesn't merely flirt with danger, she ...

Patti Smith Group: The Roundhouse, London

Live Review by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 22 May 1976

Energy is back in fashion ...

Patti Smith: The Roundhouse, London

Live Review by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 22 May 1976

Patti Smith: poet cornered ...

Patti Smith Is Innocent, OK?

Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, 29 May 1976

Jonh Ingham, on the other hand, is guilty. Six days it took him to get us this piece. SIX DAYS! The Patti-Smith-crazy Sounds staffers were ...

Patti Smith: Patti in Excelsis Deo

Profile and Interview by Mick Gold, Street Life, 29 May 1976

WE LIVE in dangerous times. We live in a society that can co-opt its own downfall, sprinkle some glitter on it, and gift wrap it ...

Patti Smith Fascinates Europe

Report by Paul Gambaccini, Rolling Stone, 15 July 1976

LONDON — Patti Smith prompts some strong opinions here. New Musical Express drooled that Horses, her debut Arista album, was "better than... the first Beatles ...

Patti Smith: Misplaced Joan Of Arc

Interview by Michael Gross, Blast, August 1976

THERE'S A SCRAWNY scarecrow of a girl standing on the stage. Her hair is ragged. Her tits swing slowly to a 4/4 beat under a ...

Patti Smith's Crowd Appeal Shows She's Going Places

Profile and Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 19 September 1976

A FEW weeks ago, the Patti Smith Band, which visits Hofstra University for two shows Thursday, played an unannounced and unadvertised midnight show at the ...

Patti Smith: Radio Ethiopia

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 23 October 1976

NOW HERE'S what you do for openers. You get someone to blindfold you, put boxing gloves on your hands, tie a maddened rhino to your ...

Patti Smith: Welcome To The Monkey House

Report by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 23 October 1976

"IT'S LIKE...I'm not ever gonna be a hundred per cent cool, y'know...I mean, for you to like even try to be a hundred per cent ...

Patti Smith: Once Is Not Enough (ungh! choke! etc)

Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, 30 October 1976

Patti Smith/The Stranglers: Hammersmith Odeon, London ...

Patti throw fit, buns etc

Report by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 30 October 1976

PATTI AND her band are seated at the long table at the end of the room Last Supper style. The audience consists of some thirty-odd ...

Patti Smith: The Field Marshall on Portobello Road

Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 6 November 1976

"THIS ALBUM is I think much more feminine than the first album...the rhythm, it's more like ocean. The cuts that I love the best are ...

Patti Smith: Radio Ethiopia (Arista)

Review by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, December 1976

CHATTY PATTY: PISSIN' IN WAX ...

Victor Bockris goes to the Airport with Robert Mapplethorpe

Interview by Victor Bockris, New York Rocker, December 1976

SATURDAY OCTOBER 16th 2P.M. Robert Mapplethorpe is going to California on a T.W.A. flight. I am arriving at his fifth floor Bond Street studio loft ...

Patti Smith: Punk Queen of Sheba

Interview by Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, 15 January 1977

On stage, Patti Smith changes personality. One night she's Alexander the Great's daughter, the next the Queen of Sheba. But to Caroline Coon (reporting from ...

Patti Smith: Patti Cracks Noggin, Raps On Regardless

Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 5 February 1977

Patti sounds plaintive, fragile, over the transatlantic wire. If you can imagine a voice sounding wan, you're near the mark. Reason being — "A swan ...

Black Sabbath, Ted Nugent: Madison Square Garden, New York NY

Live Review by Robert Duncan, Circus, 28 February 1977

Sabbath & Nugent: The Heavy Metalists Battle It Out Before 20,000 Spectators ...

Lenny Kaye: New York Nuggets

Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, May 1977

IN ISSUE 68 [of ZigZag], Patti Smith talked about a number of things during an account of the first half of her visit to this ...

Rock Stars Talk Back

Comment by Susan Whitall, Creem, May 1977

Dozens listen. ...

Patti Smith: Roll Over, Rimbaud (tell Marc Bolan the news)

Live Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 6 August 1977

Patti Smith: The Village Gate, NYC ...

The Possibilities of Punk

Comment by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 10 October 1977

UP UNTIL about six months ago, CBGB's was the only rock bar I ever felt comfortable in. All you needed was a long scarf and ...

Patti Smith: Easter

Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 1978

PATTI SMITH'S first album, Horses, was a bolt out of the blue, a lightning stab at the very top of the tree, one of the ...

Patti Smith: "And I Feel Like Some Misplaced Joan Of Arc"

Comment by Jane Suck, Sounds, 21 January 1978

MAYBE PATTI Smith is a modern day martyr, though God forbid we get heady and intellectual about good old rock'n'roll, hah? Pass the tequila, I ...

Patti Smith: A Portrait of the Young Woman as an Artist

Interview by Stephen Demorest, Sounds, 21 January 1978

  BACK IN THE '60s, when much of America was getting high on mind-altering drugs, Patti Smith never touched a pill, and never puffed a joint ...

Patti Smith: Easter (Arista)*****

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 4 March 1978

At last – the rock 'n' roll resurrection is upon us ...

Patti Smith: Easter

Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 4 March 1978

I'M AN AMERICAN ARTIST , I HAVE NO GUILT, I TRUST MY GUITAR ...

Patti Smith: Behind The Wall Of Sleep

Report and Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 25 March 1978

"Their quarters were filled with counterfeit sleep" – Stephen King, The Shining ...

Horse Latitudes: The Possession of Patti Smith

Interview by John Tobler, ZigZag, April 1978

This interview with Patti Smith took place last October when she stopped off in London for a day en route for Europe. We were saving ...

Patti Smith: A Woman's Place…

Report and Interview by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 1 April 1978

ARTHUR RIMBAUD, the late 19th Century French poet who dreamt of 'recreating life through his words' and whose work helped inspire poetic Symbolism, Dadaism and ...

Tapper Zukie: Music Machine, London

Live Review by Jane Suck, Sounds, 15 April 1978

OH WELL, head for new horizons, I suppose. ...

Patti Smith: Easter

Review by Lester Bangs, Phonograph Record, May 1978

Dear Patti, Start the Revolution Without Me ...

High on Rebellion: Patti Smith Speaks, Part 2

Interview by John Tobler, ZigZag, June 1978

We join Patti Smith and John Tobler mid-conversation one day last October, when Patti was on her way to Europe to do her annual poetry ...

Patti Smith Group: Easter

Review by Nick Tosches, Creem, June 1978

CHARLES OLSON was invited to give a reading at Berkeley in 1965. It was a time – a springtime – when rose incense bore a ...

Patti Smith: Babel (Putnam/Longman)

Review by Jeffrey Morgan, Roxy, June 1978

TEMPTING AS IT MAY BE, it would be far too easy to dismiss Patti Smith merely as a literary quack and let it go at ...

Patti Smith Riding Crest of New Wave

Interview by Fred Schruers, Circus, 22 June 1978

Easter, Her Third LP Is Commercial and Artistic Success ...

The Patti Smith Group: The Palladium, New York NY

Live Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 13 July 1978

Patti comes home a hero ...

Patti Smith Group: Central Park, New York NY

Live Review by Andy Schwartz, New York Rocker, September 1978

SHE MAY be a fool, but she's our fool. ("You mean your fool," said one friend.) ...

Patti Smith: Straight, No Chaser

Interview by Nick Tosches, Creem, September 1978

WE ARE SITTING in the Tropical, the darkest bar in New York. Outside on Eighth Avenue it's late afternoon. In here it's midnight on the ...

Patti Smith: Breaking The Shackles Of Original Sin

Interview by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 16 September 1978

The White Niggah, Biblical Obsession, and The Mutant Army witnessed at Cardiff – where discussions encompass the sexiness of Prince Charles and the pressures of ...

15 Minutes with Patti Smith

Interview by John Tobler, ZigZag, October 1978

DOUBTLESS, many of you will have noted a small item in NME's scandal section recently, which referred to the fact that Patti Smith had broken ...

Cowboy Mouth, Rock & Roll Theater Company: Club 57, New York NY

Live Review by Richard Grabel, New York Rocker, November 1978

WHEN CAVALE, the Patti Smith-styled character in this play, tries to explain to her boyfriend Slim what rock 'n' roll is and what it means ...

Patti Smith: Babel

Book Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 11 November 1978

WHAT HAS rock and roll got to do with poetry? What is a poetess doing with rock and roll? What am I doing reading and ...

Patti Smith (1978) [transcript]

Audio transcript of interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages transcripts, Spring 1978

This is a transcript of John's interview with Patti. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...

The Pen Is Mightier As A Chord

Report by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 17 March 1979

...sometimes. The rock critic as musician. By Sandy Robertson ...

Patti Smith: Wave (Arista)

Review by Simon Frith, Melody Maker, 5 May 1979

WAVE IS a much better record than I expected, but to explain why I'll have to go back a bit. ...

Patti Smith: Further Adventures of Wonder Woman

Report and Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 5 May 1979

SANDY ROBERTSON PLAYS BULLETS AND BRACELETS WITH PATTI SMITH ...

The Patti Smith Group

Interview by Andy Schwartz, New York Rocker, June 1979

A WAS LOST. He pulled the Toyota over to the curb, parked, and flicked on the overhead light to check his road map. Should he ...

Patti Smith: The Palladium, New York NY

Live Review by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 2 June 1979

SITTING ALONE on the side of the stage, Patti Smith intones a rap that mixes passages of 'Wave', her latest failed-mystic monologue, with protestations of ...

Patti Smith: The Boarding House, San Francisco

Live Review by Michael Goldberg, New Musical Express, 18 August 1979

THERE WAS more 'poetry' scrawled across the bathroom walls of the Boarding House than Patti Smith delivered during a two hour show there. Still, the ...

Patti Smith: Wembley Arena, London

Live Review by David Hancock, Evening News, London, 6 September 1979

Miss Smith misses out ...

Patti Smith: Wembley Arena, London

Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 15 September 1979

WEDNESDAY WAS an unusual day. ...

Walking Down The Kings Road With Lenny Kaye...

Report and Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 22 September 1979

...can be a disagreeable experience. Sandy Robertson gives the Patti Smith Group the elbow. ...

20 Minutes With Lenny Kaye…

Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, December 1979

THE PATTI SMITH Group had a day off in London. The night before they'd played to a generally enthusiastic reaction but universal slagging at Wembley ...

Ivan Kral

Profile and Interview by Cynthia Rose, Viz, 1980

GENERALLY there exists a dichotomy between pioneering artists and their audiences – the potetial appreciator is apt to be surprised, disturbed, or simply unaccustomed to ...

Patti Smith

Interview by Andy Schwartz, New York Rocker, October 1980

CAN A NEW York City-bred rock poetess find happiness in her new life as a Detroit housewife? If the poetess in question is Patti Smith, ...

Punk in New York: Blitzkreig Bop

Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 15 February 1986

"And one fine morning she turns on a New York-station / And doesn't believe what she hears at all / She started dancing to that ...

Patti Smith Resurfaces

Profile and Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 27 August 1988

DETROIT – "I'm still shaky from this," says Patti Smith, who's been driven by her husband, Fred Smith, through a hellish rainstorm and rush-hour traffic ...

Patti Smith: Early Work 1970-1979 (Plexus)

Book Review by Susan Compo, MOJO, March 1995

ROCK'S MOST evocative lines from the 1970s involved religion: "I am an anti-Christ/I am an anarchist". . . "Jesus died for somebody's sins/But not mine." ...

Patti Smith: The Power And The Glory, The Resurrection And The Life

Interview by Gerrie Lim, BigO, July 1995

In art and dream may you proceed with abandon.In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.– Patti Smith, "To The Reader," introduction to Early ...

Patti Smith: She is Risen

Interview by Holly George-Warren, Option, May 1996

"I was feeling sensations in no dictionary He was less than a breath of shimmer and smoke The life in his fingers unwound ...

The Rebel: Patti Smith

Interview by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, August 1996

To R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, she is "one of the premier artists of my lifetime – I’ve blindly stolen from her for years." To Bob Dylan, ...

John Cale and Patti Smith: How We Met

Interview by Lucy O'Brien, Independent on Sunday, 25 August 1996

JOHN CALE, 55, rock musician and composer, was born in South Wales, moved to New York in the early 1960s and became a founder member ...

Patti Smith: Return of the Thin White Duchess

Profile and Interview by Jeff Apter, nyrock.com, November 1997

PATTI SMITH needs some new socks. I'm standing next to her in an elevator in midtown Manhattan, when she glances down at her feet, which ...

Access all areas: The Rock Muse

Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Harper's Bazaar, April 1998

Scratch an epic rock god and you'll usually find a cool, inspiring woman who supplied him with lyrics, contacts and style. Now that girl power ...

Patti Smith: Gung Ho

Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 28 March 2000

ONE OF THE beautiful things about art is that it restores one's faith in humanity – in the gifts of vision, creativity, and awareness that ...

Patti Smith: Gung Ho (Arista)

Review by Gavin Martin, Uncut, May 2000

The eighth album from garage rock's warrior queen tackles Vietnam, slavery, the American Civil War, corporate control and dreams of future freedom ...

Patti Smith: Making Waves

Profile and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 15 June 2003

THERE ARE TEARS in Patti Smith's eyes. She is midway through a performance that has been, by turns, sombre and joyous, intense and ecstatic, when ...

Patti Smith: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London

Live Review by Nick Hasted, Uncut, October 2003

IT ALL STARTS so politely, you could never guess the raw shock that's coming. When Patti Smith saunters on like a collision between the 17th ...

Patti Smith: ULU, London

Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 19 March 2004

THE SECOND ACT OF Patti Smith's great career has been catalysed by death. The loss of her mother inspired the forthcoming Trampin', her fourth album ...

Patti Smith: Trampin' (Columbia)

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Observer Music Monthly, 21 March 2004

NINE ALBUMS IN just under thirty years: no-one can accuse Patti Smith of chronic overproduction or artistic profligacy. ...

Patti Smith: ULU, London

Live Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, June 2004

THE GREATEST living rock performer? It's hard to think of any of her peers who've managed to keep their live shows both physically thrilling and ...

The MOJO Interview: Patti Smith

Interview by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, July 2004

Working in a piss factory, breaking her neck on stage,
the "horror" of her armpit
hair. All this plus punk poetry,
tragedy and "gentleman"
Bill Burroughs in the amazing ...

Patti Smith

Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Harp, September 2004

BY FRONTING her own rock band – issuing lyrical missives from the depths of her fertile unconscious that rivalled anything that Bob Dylan ever scribbled ...

Patti Smith: 'Even As A Child, I Felt Like An Alien'

Profile and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Observer Music Monthly, 22 May 2005

PATTI SMITH today looks as striking as the 28-year-old instant icon who defiantly out-stared the viewer from the cover of Horses. With her strong nose ...

Patti Smith's Horses at Meltdown: Royal Festival Hall, London

Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 27 June 2005

PATTI SMITH IS standing alone on the stage reciting the poem that describes her teenage dream to escape a blue-collar production line ("Inspecting pipe, 40 ...

Heaven or Las Vegas: CBGBs closes down

Report by Laura Barton, The Guardian, 8 July 2005

Laura Barton on what the closure of the world's most famous punk-rock club, CBGB's, says about the state of New York's live music scene. ...

Patti Smith: Dome, Brighton

Live Review by Everett True, Plan B, October 2005

HOW COOL IS this intoxication? She struts onstage dressed like a goddamn old-fashioned rock'n'roll star in her man's jacket and dirty boots. She pirouettes a ...

Patti Smith: Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York

Live Review by Jason Gross, Harp, 30 October 2005

After a summer tryout at London's Meltdown Festival, punk icon Patti Smith returned to her NYC roots to perform again in sequence her 30-year-old debut ...

Apocalypse Then: Patti Smith's Horses

Retrospective and Interview by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 15 November 2005

ON OCTOBER 30, 1975, the Daily News printed its "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD" cover. But long before that other unelected president refused to bail out our ...

Latitude: Henham Park, Suffolk

Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 17 July 2006

FESTIVALS HAVE a way of sorting out the truly great from the merely watchable, and so it proved at the weekend's Latitude event. ...

Patti Smith: The Lady's For Returning

Interview by Mark Paytress, The Guardian, 9 September 2006

PATTI SMITH knows a thing or two about rock'n'roll heroes. Emerging in a blaze of controversy with her epochal 1975 debut album, Horses, she wrapped ...

Patti Smith: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

Live Review by Mark Paytress, MOJO, December 2006

A night of remembrance — and a night to remember, gasps Mark Paytress. ...

Patti Smith Group: Radio Ethiopia

Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, January 2007

SURE, HORSES was one tough act to follow. Smith's 1975 debut — one of the great, breathtaking, burn-it-down debuts — tore such a hole in ...

Patti Smith

Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 8 April 2007

Nearly 30 years ago, Patti Smith turned her back on rock'n'roll. The woman they called the female Bob Dylan quit, choosing obscurity and her family ...

Patti Smith: Roundhouse, London

Live Review by Nick Coleman, The Independent, May 2007

"JESUS DIED for somebody's sins, but not mine." It was a good way to start an album in 1975 and it remains a good way ...

What does Arthur Rimbaud, the enfant terrible of French symbolism, have in common with Patti Smith?

Report and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 18 October 2007

MOST PEOPLE'S MINDS, as they enter their sixties, probably turn to thoughts of retirement and a sedate glide along the gentle lower slopes of life's ...

The Mapplethorpe Effect: Patti, Polaroids and Punk

Retrospective by Simon Warner, Rock's Backpages, 15 January 2010

IT WOULD NOT BE outrageous to propose that the two greatest albums of the punk tsunami featured cover images by arguably the most important post-war ...

Promises Fulfilled: Patti Smith: Just Kids

Review and Interview by Bill Holdship, Metro Times, 17 February 2010

LOVE RELATIONSHIPS between great artists have inspired some fine literature throughout history, be it works the artists created for each other during their own lifetimes ...

On Mapplethorpe and more: Patti Smith

Profile and Interview by Edward Helmore, Vogue, March 2010

WITH THE POSSIBLE EXCEPTION of her hero Bob Dylan, no one has perfected the look of the downtown bohemian poet as comprehensively as Patti Smith. ...

Patti Smith: Just Kids

Book Review by Mark Mordue, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 10 April 2010

ART can set us free. Art is holy. Art is love. ...

Patti Smith: Outside Society – Greatest Hits

Review by David Hepworth, The Word, September 2011

Patti Smith wouldn't thank you for calling her a pop star. In fact, there's no higher praise — as this compilation attests. ...

Patti Smith: Banga

Review by Evelyn McDonnell, Los Angeles Times, 4 June 2012

AFTER HER National Book Award-winning memoir Just Kids greatly expanded her audience, Patti Smith could have done the usual aging-rock-legend safety move: record an album ...

Field Day: Victoria Park, London — an embarrassment of riches

Report by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 8 June 2015

The festival market grows ever more crowded, but east London's clued-up shindig keeps getting it right, with FKA twigs, Patti Smith, Ride and many more ...

Patti Smith's Journey to Horses: A Timeline

Retrospective by Caryn Rose, Vulture, 13 November 2015

PATTI SMITH'S Horses, which turned 40 this week, is such a perfectly formed rock-and-roll artifact that it's difficult to imagine that Patti didn't just wake up ...

Patti Smith: M Train

Book Review by Larry Jaffee, Women Across Frontiers, 17 November 2015

MY FIRST REVELATORY encounter with Patti Smith was listening on the radio in the fall of 1975 around the time of the release of her ...

Provincial Gains: Sex Pistols in the Early Summer of '76

Book Excerpt by Clinton Heylin, 'Anarchy in the Year Zero' (Route Books), May 2016

"The sound is a mean cacophony, not unreminiscent of Bowie's early Spiders, the material a mixture of Anglo-American teen punk classics – the Stooges' 'No ...

Patti Smith: M Train

Book Review by Ian Penman, London Review of Books, 5 May 2016

THE WOMAN WHO cuts my hair – forty-something, old enough to remember punk but a neo-hippie these days – recently mentioned she'd been to see ...

How 'Gloria' Became the Ultimate Rock Anthem

Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2017

'GLORIA', WRITTEN more than fifty years ago by Van Morrison for his band Them, is the simplest song. Just three chords – my musician friends ...

All Points East: Victoria Park, London

Live Review by Tim Cooper, Louder Than War, 4 June 2018

Saturday 2nd June: The National, The War On Drugs, Future Islands, Warpaint, Cat Power Sunday 3rd June: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Patti Smith, St ...

Gaz Coombes: The World's Strongest Fan

Interview by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, July 2018

Ever been curious about what's pumping on Gaz Coombes' stereo? RC's Jamie Atkins was, so he headed to Oxfordshire to find out. ...

Lenny Kaye: "Boom! I saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and everything changed"

Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 14 November 2021

As guitarist in the Patti Smith Group and compiler of psychedelic touchstone Nuggets, his place in music history is secured. His new book charts the ...

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