Posted on 09/01/2005 4:13:47 PM PDT by Kaslin
U.S. singer and musician Patti Smith attacked business and President George W. Bush at a press event in St. Petersburg on Thursday, where she received an excited response from the local journalists and fans.
“The world right now is really f***ed up,” she said addressing the 100-strong crowd that gathered at the “505” record shop on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa.
“The world right now is being run by a**holes like George Bush and pharmaceutical companies, these greedy people who don’t care about the environment, who don’t really understand the poor, who don’t understand other cultures. We are the underground and we have to get strong, because the world is being run by business.”
Smith performs at the Music Hall on Friday.
Boldly, Smith turned the press conference into something less formal; she never took her seat or used a microphone, standing up, speaking loud. She also took an acoustic guitar and gave an emotional performance of “In My Blakean Year” from the 2004 album “Trampin’,” her most recent.
“People Have the Power,” proclaimed Smith, 58, during a brief link-up with Radio ROKS, a local station. She wore a CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) badge and a small pin representing Commandeur of the Order of Arts and Letters, France’s highest cultural decoration, that she received from the French Ministry of Culture in July.
According to Smith, who helped to change rock music as a punk singer and poet in the 1970s, major record companies are doomed to die out.
“They have been greedy and they will crumble, and I think that the independent industry is the only thing that will live,” Smith said.
“Now with today’s technology, young people don’t even need record companies. They can gather some money, make their own CDs, they can share them, they can download them. To me that’s fine,” Smith added.
“Rock and roll is not a business, it’s a voice that we can use politically, artistically, poetically. ... And hopefully new young people will infuse new blood into that idea. That’s what my band was trying to do,” Smith said.
Because the night belongs to Morons...
She's still alive! Must have a strong tolerance for drugs.
LOL LOL LOL LOL!
I thought Patti Smyth was dead......Oh wait that was just her music carrer...
Granted juding by that picture....she may not be far from being on foot in the grave either.
58? She looks 78 ...No talent trash ...
Now I wont be able to sleep tonight. Thanks alot.
sick!
Dog bones
wrong Pat - that was Pat Benetar.
I dunno who this hag might be.
As things like gas disappear that this loverly lady hates so much, we'll see what she looks like after a month of that.
My age must be showing....
WHO is Patti Smith??????
obviously some hippie that never grew up, but I haven't ever heard of her.....
Never heard of her.
The song was written by Springsteen, but popularized by PATTI SMITH, NOT Pat Benatar.
She's about as sexy as Maureen Dowd.
Who cares what a hairy-underarmed old dyke from the 70s thinks...
One of the most unnecessary headlines and articles I ever seen. " Singer Patti Smith Slams George Bush." Duuuhhhhh!
She is that rarest of creatures: THE HALF-A-HIT-WONDER.
Wotta dried-up has-been.
“Rock and roll is not a business, it’s a voice that we can use politically,. . . "
Yeah, that worked so well for your rap buddies' "vote or die" campaign in 2004 which brought out, what, zero new voters? Patti, it's time to shut up and sing, or just plain shut up.
This broad was ugly 30 years ago. Unlike a decent wine, this bottling hasn't mellowed.
Give her a big paper shopping bag and send her on her way.
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