Because the Light

Check out this retro goodness. In 1979, Patti Smith performed Debby Boone's 1977 chart-topping hit "You Light of My Life" on the ABC Sunday morning show, Kids Are People Too. After her performance, the sincere and sweet Smith took questions from the teenage audience and the kids' questions are pretty entertaining.



Thank you Kathleen Hanna for pointing this out.

Also, tomorrow, Patti Smith will be honored by ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) at its 27th annual Pop Music Awards at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles, CA, where she will be given the ASCAP Founders Award. She deserves it!

Kevin Shields Speaks to Magnet

My dearest mackenzieland peeps, please check out the latest issue of Magnet! Not only does the gorgeous Chan Marshall grace its "2006 Year in Music" cover, my interview with Kevin Shields is also included! The My Bloody Valentine recluse squashes those nasty rumors of running Creation Records into the ground, and what really went on during the recording of Loveless.

Since the release of that album, Shields has recorded and performed with Primal Scream, played with Patti Smith at 2005's Meltdown Festival, contributed tracks to Lost in Translation, and remixed the Go! Team. Is Shields still the misunderstood genius he was once rumored to be? Here's a bit that didn't make the article.

"I do rub business people the wrong way. I’m not compromising on a lot of issues even though I think I’m easy going … it’s not so much me and that I’m so extreme, it’s that I don’t really have a manager between me and these people. A lot of people have my attitude in bands and stuff, but they’re smart enough to get someone to translate them in a manner that record companies can tolerate.

I just say it the way it comes out and they don’t like that, but that’s what most people think. I think I’m quite common in fact. I don’t think I’m unusual."

Rock & Roll Never Forgets

R.E.M., Van Halen, the Stooges and Patti Smith are just some of the few artists on the ballot for the 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Scheduled for March 12, 2007 at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the ballot also includes the Dave Clark Five, Chic, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Joe Tex and the Ronettes. Five of the nine artists will be chosen for the official list of inductees and announced in January. To be eligible for induction, the 2007 class had to release their first single no later than 1981.


For R.E.M. fans, it might be too good to be true should Patti Smith and the Athens, GA foursome be inducted the very same year. After all, Patti Smith and Michael Stipe are like, BFFs, and stuff.