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Archive for December, 2011

Patti Smith performs in Paris, France, November 2011. Photo: David Wolfff Patrick/WireImage

The following conversation between Patti Smith and MTV Networks’ Bill Flanagan took place in front of an audience at MTV Days in Turin, Italy on June 26th, 2010. Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids –- the story of her early days in New York City with then-unknown photographer Robert Mapplethorpe — was being published in Italy. Patti told the audience, “Today is a very special day for me because my book has come out in Italian. I am very proud of that. It’s really the story of struggle, of calling, of what Robert Mapplethorpe was like as a young man, about love and friendship and remembering that what we aspire to as artists is not fame and fortune. Those things may come and they are very nice. What we aspire to is to do good work.”

Flanagan introduced Patti Smith to a great ovation. When the talk was over she left the stage and got a guitar. She returned and performed “Beneath the Southern Cross,” “My Blakean Year” and “Because the Night.”

Smith’s annual Bowery Ballroom residency ends with her New Year’s Eve show tomorrow night, 9 p.m.

Patti Smith:
Hello everybody. Glad to see you.

Bill Flanagan:
Patti, you are big in Italy.

Smith: The Italians are my people.

Flanagan:
I just learned that you did two big shows in 1979 that were sort of the Woodstock of Italy. Just before you retired from music you came here and said goodbye.

Smith:
Yes, it was not only the Woodstock of Italy – it was the Woodstock of myself. I never went to Woodstock but I did come to Florence and Bologna in 1979. And the people made their own festival. It was a beautiful thing.

Flanagan:
I read in the newspaper yesterday that the Library of Congress in the United States has added Horses to the register of great American recordings. That’s an honor.

Smith:
Yes, that’s a big honor. Considering all of the trouble that I’ve gotten in America for all of my political beliefs. It’s very exciting to be preserved. It shows that using your voice actually turns out to be a very American thing.

Flanagan:
You just have to stick around long enough. I have a real fan question about the imagery in “Land” on Horses. That record came out in 1975 and Equus, the Peter Shaffer play about a troubled boy who has images of horses, was a big hit in New York at the time. When your record came out I thought of Equus and Picasso’s Guernica. Were those things in your windshield at all?

Smith:
Well Guernica was very much in my windshield. I visited Guernica almost constantly whenever I had the money, at the Museum of Modern Art. It was a very important influence on me as a young aspiring artist because it showed how an artist could make an impact, politically and humanistically, through art. And I remember Equus was out but it was just a zeitgeist. It was the “Horse” zeitgeist.

Flanagan:
Well it worked. Let me hold up your book. Just Kids by Patti Smith. The portrait of the artist as a young woman. It really moved me. One of the things that struck me in the book was that sense that you knew you were an artist, but the medium was kind of liquid. You painted, you wrote poetry, you loved music but it wasn’t initially obvious that you were going to be in music. You tried acting. You wrote a play with Sam Shepard, which is pretty hip. Do you think the artistic sensibility can flow from form to form? If Picasso had not been a painter would he have been a good musician?

Smith:
Well, I don’t know about that. I think that people have a calling. I think it’s unique with certain people. William Blake moved from form to form. Obviously Leonardo, Michelangelo moved from form to form. One difficult aspect about moving from form to form is – you leave a lot of unfinished work behind because one keeps leaping like a rabbit from form to form. When I was a child I read Peter Pan and Pinocchio and Alice in Wonderland and I thought there was nothing more wonderful than the book. I wanted to be a writer. I thought of it all of the time. All I wanted to do was write.

Flanagan:
Did you have a great teacher? Was there an 8th grade English teacher or art teacher or someone who might have inspired you along the way?

Smith:
The first great teacher I had was my mother when I was maybe three. I wasn’t in kindergarten yet. My mother read all the time and I wanted to read those books. I begged her to show me how to read. My mother did ironing, she was a waitress, and she had two other children. We didn’t have much money and she didn’t have a whole lot of time. But finally because I begged her so much, she taught me how to read. That was one of the most beautiful gifts I ever have gotten – to teach me to read books. So I would say she was my first great teacher. I had a few teachers that encouraged me because I was, in the late 50s and early 60s, a little bohemian for my southern New Jersey school. I didn’t really fit in but I had a couple of teachers who did not really fit in themselves. So they understood and encouraged me, especially to write.

Flanagan:
One of the things that I have always loved in your work is this great sense of play with language. In “Redondo Beach” when you talk about making a pay phone call, “another dime mentioned.” And, “I’m no dervish but I’ll give it a whirl.”

Smith:
Oh, I have a good one. “I gave you a wristwatch; you wouldn’t even give me the time of day.”

Flanagan:
That’s like an R&B lyric. There’s just tons of them. “The Polaroid melting in my hands, I can’t get the picture.” The first time I saw you, you did a riff on radio and “the ray of God, the ray ‘Dio.’ ”Did you see words that way from the time you were little?

Smith:
I think that’s partially because I saw words visually. I loved handwriting, I liked to write, and I liked calligraphy and then started drawing with words. I would write the word “radio” and realize R-A-Y, the ray, ‘Dio’, which has to do with God. When you look at a word big or you look at a word flat on a piece of paper, you can see how it can expand. Also I come from a family who love to make jokes and puns. My father was always making plays on words. I loved Alice in Wonderland which is full of that type of wordplay.

Flanagan:
Where John Lennon got so much of his stuff.

Smith:
Yes and I love John Lennon. He was a great word player.

Flanagan:
In the book you talk about being around the Chelsea Hotel in 1969 and 1970 and getting to know Janis Joplin and Kris Kristofferson. Was there something you recognized in them? Did you feel like, ”I could be part of this,” or “I understand in some way how they do what they do”?

Smith:
I didn’t feel that except when I saw them perform. I didn’t look at rock and roll stars in a restaurant and think that I could be like them. Because I wasn’t a musician I had no aspirations to do that. I should mention that in the Chelsea Hotel in the late 60s and early 70s all of the rock and roll stars of a certain type stayed there. Robert Mapplethorpe and I lived there and so they were coming into our home. We all sort of mingled because being a rock and roll star was different then than it is now. You weren’t a big celebrity, you weren’t a multi-millionaire – you had a little more money. Me and Janis Joplin lived in the same hotel. Her room was just three times bigger. We all sort of dressed the same. Jimi Hendrix and all of these people were only a couple of years older than me. Sometimes people read the book and think, “Oh, you have dropped all of these names,” but it wasn’t like that then. The cult of celebrity had not filtered into rock and roll. Rock and roll was subversive. They didn’t want to be celebrities.

MTV Hive

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Some cool dance images:

Yesterday, the latest in a series of unofficial, superhero-inspired underground hip-hop videos hit the internet via Dallas Penn. Despite the minimal production value and considerably kitschy theme, we almost thought the video was the real thing, instigating some curiosity about why exactly Dallas goes through so much effort to make these splendidly simple creations. The man is certainly pressed for time: his other endeavors include working a full-time job, blogging and writing, teaming up with Rafi Kam for his critically acclaimed Internets Celebrities web shorts, and copping as many sneakers as possible.

Hive reached out to Penn and got a few insights behind his line of action figure videos, the politics of the Hulk and his role as a hip-hop trickster.

Whose dolls are those in your music videos?

These are my action figures.

What inspires these action figure videos?

Just some music I like listening to at the moment. I always found, just from my life, rappers are superheroes. They are my superheroes as much as any superhero is. How guys will twist words and create words, make imagery from words — that’s kind of magical. I’ve always been a big comic book fan. I intertwine the music that I like with the other types of art that I consume. It started for me with Ghostface Killah’s relationship with Tony Stark. He’s referencing Tony Stark, Iron Man. So you know, at the time I had a bunch of Marvel Legend’s Iron Man figures because I used to read the books. And then the Ghostface connection to that made me tune into his music more. So I started doing that for joints of his I enjoyed, then started doing it for other artists too. It made me go to Doom. Then came the association with artists who don’t even reference comics really, but just, you know, have big personalities.

In this latest video for Action Bronson, you have Hulk wearing a Che Guevara shirt.

Yea, the Hulk has a Che shirt on. There is one scene where he has a Russian solider’s winter hat and he’s even got some battle dress cargoes, you know. Why can’t the Hulk have shit that fits?

That fits?

Yeah, that fits. When the Hulk becomes the Hulk, the pants get all ripped at the bottom but the Hulk is never really naked.

But is it meant to be political at all?

For the community. That’s what communism should be, right? Community!

Do you consider yourself an activist?

Yeah. Certainly.

It seems like you play a lot of roles these days.

Let me give you my definition of who I aspire to be. I aspire to be the trickster griot, okay? The griot is, in African culture, the story teller who came to a village at night and would get around the campfire and would give you a parable about the world you live in. The griot was the guy who told the stories about the tortoise and the hare. You can find the moral or meaning of the story wherever you find it, but he’s here to tell you a story about the world you live in. I say trickster because, this is the most important part, the stories I’m telling are for people to survive. I have to sometimes put tricks on those stories because most people can’t handle the truth about the world they live in. Most people would get upset if they learned how complicit they were in their demise and destruction and exploitation. So the trickster has to play a little trick with words, with the parable, so he doesn’t offend the listener and frankly drive the listener crazy. If all of us knew how complicit we were in our own deaths, we’d probably go crazy.

MTV Hive

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Corey Taylor performs with Slipknot in Amneville, France, July 2011. Photo: David Wolff-Patrick/WireImage

“I always told myself I would write a book.” This is how Corey Taylor’s debut volume, a non-fiction narrative called Seven Deadly Sins: Settling the Argument Between Born Bad and Damaged Good, opens. The musician, who fronts heavy rock bands Slipknot and Stone Sour, released the tome this past July. A collection of anecdotal essays based on his own life written while Stone Sour was recording 2010’s Audio Secrecy, it’s not the singer’s first attempt at prose — Taylor has been penning a monthly column for U.K. magazine Rock Sound for nearly a decade. In Seven Deadly Sins, though, he has created a cohesive whole from his non-musical writing. Taylor, as it turns out, is a born comedian (not that you’d know it from listening to his bands), and has spent much of the past month on a solo tour, pairing readings from his book with acoustic tunes. We spoke to Taylor about this marriage of music and literature, how he became a voracious reader and why you shouldn’t challenge other metal vocalists to reading contests.

When you were growing up did you have an entry point into reading?

Well, the first book that I ever read — the first real novel that I can remember reading — was Jaws by Peter Benchley. The irony being that I’m completely terrified of sharks and have been since I was a kid. My mom took me to see [the movie] Jaws when I was four and it scarred me for life. I remember reading the book and I hadn’t seen the movie in a while and that was the first time I really saw the difference between a book and a movie adaptation. To this day I can’t watch that movie without seeing the giant holes in the story.

What sorts of books followed that one?

I was raised on a lot of Stephen King. I was a huge fan of Piers Anthony and the Xanth novels. I loved those when I was growing up. Later in life I got really seriously into the gothic novels like Anne Rice. I got really into Christopher Golden for short time. Then I discovered the Harry Potter books. It was a race between me and [Anthrax singer] Scott Ian to see who could read the books the fastest as they came out. The last [Harry Potter] book I literally finished in ten hours. I stayed up all night reading it.

Do you find that these things you read make their way into your songs?

Yeah, every once in a while. I love little phrases that I can turn and use as a metaphor here and there. If you’re quick, you can pick up on it. For the most part I’m one of those guys where I really try to keep everything pure. I like to believe that I have very original ideas—which I probably don’t. It’s a good challenge. I get turned on by writing really good lyrics.

Can you think an example of a lyric you’ve borrowed from a book?

Not specifically. I’m sure as soon as I hang the phone up I’ll think “Oh yeah, there was that and that!” I pepper a lot of lyrics with nods towards stuff in popular culture. In [Slipknot’s] “Wait and Bleed” there’s a [1959 Richard Condon novel] The Manchurian Candidate reference. Which a lot of people had to look up. I thought it was common knowledge. It’s little stuff like that. I don’t take whole passages, but I definitely try to throw in little references here and there to paint a better picture.

Have the Harry Potter books ever been used as an influence in your songwriting?

No. That’s a little too Dungeon and Dragons for me. I can’t do it. I’m sure I could write a song like that but it would have to be for a very specific type of band…

What’s it been like playing music and reading from your book together on tour?

In a lot of ways I’m getting out my inner stand-up comedian. It’s two things I love to do — talk smack and play acoustic songs. It’s gotten me in trouble though. I should change my name to “Google alert.”

How do each of those aspects of your performance influence the other?

I think it’s definitely helped me develop what I’ve been building towards as a frontman. I love writing and I love creating, but there’s a huge part of my personality that loves to entertain. I like to make people laugh and get them to sing along. People have seen glimpses of that over the years, especially with Stone Sour.

Did people know you were funny before you released this book?

I think so. I think they had an inkling. Maybe people knew because of interviews and obviously because of my column, but I think this is showing them the whole package. Just who I am. There’s that section of me that’s very dark and very bent on trying to work out some serious issues, and there’s the other side that just enjoys laughing and having a good time and entertaining.

What’s next for you?

Stone Sour is working on a very big, very grand album that I think is going to blow people away. If I have my way it’s going to be the biggest thing that we’ve done with our career. The music is fantastic. It’s some of the best we’ve ever written. It’s very dark. It’s got little elements of things we’ve done on the first three albums. It will be a two-disc concept album. We’re looking to go into the studio to record that next March.

Do you see yourself writing more books?

Oh yeah! I’ve already basically put the plan together for book number two. I’m going to start working on that next year too. I’ve definitely got the idea in my head. It will be the same format as Seven Deadly Sins, just not the same topic. A little bit opinion, a little bit story. I really want to start branching out and trying different things with it.

Any novels in your future?

Maybe. I’m sure I’ve got a weird, twisted little tale in my head somewhere. But I’m a firm believer in not forcing it. If you let it come to you, you’ll achieve anything you’ve ever wanted in your life.

MTV Hive

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Interested in getting paid to play? Look no further! This video explains what Necessary Gaming is all about and how you could start your career in gaming today!

Photo: Getty Images

Uh oh. You just found out your sister’s boyfriend is crashing at your house for Christmas  and she just excitedly revealed that he bought you a “totally awesome present.” Safe to say you haven’t even considered getting him a damn thing. Thank all that is good this time of year for MTV Hive, because we’ve gone through the painstaking research and cost-benefit analysis to put together a list of last minute gift ideas for the music fan in your life (and really, who isn’t one?). All of these gifts can be bought, delivered and consumed digitally, so if you decide (or are coerced) to add someone to your gift list at the 11^th hour, you’re still in the clear.

For the Streamer: Rdio Subscription

We know, Spotify is the hottest music service to ever exist since man created internet, but unfortunately the tech-savvy Swedes haven’t enabled e-gifting in the US yet. But Rdio, and uncannily similar and complete service, has. You can gift however much you see fit; just keep in mind an unlimited web subscription costs .99 and unlimited mobile is .99 per month. [Rdio gifts]

For the Archivist: Handpicked iTunes MP3’s

We know, the iTunes gift card at the checkout counter of your local grocery store is an extremely tempting last minute gift for your musically minded acquaintance. Just don’t do it. We urge you, instead, to set aside a few minutes to hand pick a selection of songs. iTunes provides the option to gift playlists of MP3’s, a much more thoughtful option that lame gift card. [iTunes Gifts]

For the Reader: eBooks

Sure, a real book might seems more “homey” and personal, but you’re running out of time, the Barnes and Noble down the street went out of business, and you would be too lazy to get up and go anyway. Amazon exists for a reason, right? The online mega-retailer makes is super easy to gift eBooks to friends, for them to enjoy digitally whether they have a kindle or not. [Give Kindle Books]

We suggest:

Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yam

Root for the Villian: Rap, Bull$hit, and a Celebration of Failure by J-Zone

I Want My MTV: An Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution by Craig Marks & Rob Tannenbaum

For the Budding Musician: iPad Apps

Yes, most apps are free or only cost a dollar or two, but some pack enough quality (with a price tag to match) that they definitely make the cut for “appropriate gifts.” Music production software that was once reserved for the studio use is gradually being ported to the iPad, creating a great way for a beginner to begin dabbling in the fine art of music production.

We suggest:

Korg iMS-20

Fruity Loops Mobile Studio HD

Animoog

MTV Hive

At this point, you’re probably nearly sick of all those Holiday standards that drown out every store and shopping mall entrance. But in the spirit of providing a holiday mix that captures the essence of this next week without drowning you in the usual slop of Christmas carols, Donny Hathaway, and Wham (though “Last Christmas” is truly a jam), we present this year’s edition of the Bird Peterson Holiday Spectacular. The mix has plenty of sampled references to childhood favorites — Frosty the Snowman, Charlie Brown, and Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol included — while cruising through a mix of funk, hip-hop, breakbeat, down-tempo dance, and more. Lyrics are not a primary concern here and the lines that do come into play often serve as a jokey downer. A cut from the Jackson 5′s “Christmas Won’t Be the Same This Year” makes an appearance, as do curmudgeonly drops from Diplo (“Ho, ho, ho motherfuckers”) and Dave Nada (“I hate Christmas”). But it’s all in good fun. With this thirty-minute set, Peterson is eerily successful at capturing the run of emotions that comes along with this sparkled-over time of year: The joy, the laid-back traditions and at times, the affiliated seasonal gloom.

The Bird Peterson Holiday Spectacular by Bird Peterson

MTV Hive