She's AMAZING. I was SOOO LUCKY to meet her and she autographed my book when she was at THE FILM FORUM previewing her film. I'm so SAD that I Missed her in NYC last night and CALIFORNIA in OCT. I have GASP NEVER seen her Play and that is so WEIRD. She has some of Robert Mapplethorphe's ashes. I cried when I met her and autographed my book....It was like SACRED.

fuck yeah.

mhm

i love love love LOVE patti smith

seeing her perform at lollapalooza in the summer of 07 literally brought me to tears. she's incredible.



and here she is doing "free money" at lolla 07!

Anxiety said:

lovely..

I don't know much of her work, but recently I've seen her perform (on tv not live) and was very moved by her energy and passion.

She's very raw for my taste...especially when I was a teenager, but now that I'm not a teenager, I appreciate her and plan to give her work a listen.

Nothinbutjoy said:

"horses" and "easter" are fabulous early albums, though i really like her later work too. "gone again" is a lovely album, and "trampin" and "gung ho" are also really nice.

actually, her only work that i'd caution you from would be "radio ethiopia" (an old album which has some good stuff, but also a lot of out-there, messy, indulgent noise) and "twelve" (which has a great cover of "gimme shelter", but overall sounds way too watered down and jazz-lite for the likes of patti smith, even at her age).

Actually Radio Ethiopia is my favorite one. It does have some weird noisy bits but also some of her best traditional rock songs - Pumpin My Heart, Ask The Angels, Pissing In A River. And I like the weird parts too especially Poppies... it's stoney/trippy without sounding anything like the 60s.

For most people though I'd suggest starting with Easter. It's got her most accessible stuff but still really unique and strong.

Big fan since 1978, and I definitely recommend seeing her play live. The last show we saw was on the tour for the covers album Twelve and we didn't care too much for some of those versions. But they did incredible readings of her original songs, and they did really good, tripped-out versions of Within You Without You and Are You Experienced.

Thanks for the information!! It's really helpful!

THIS is why patti smith is phenomenal:

Love this song: