Archive for Patti Smith

The Bad Penny’s Top 10 Music Books of 2025

Posted in Features, Lists, What You Readin' For? with tags , , , , , , , , , on 11/19/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Most music fans can’t read music. But they can read about music – the larger-than-life personalities, the history of various genres, the often-times truth-is-stranger-than-fiction dynamics that keep one of the entertainment industry’s least profitable yet universally beloved pillars standing.

For the first time ever, The Bad Penny shares what we consider to be the most essential nonfiction books about music that came out in a year during which citizens across the country tolerated book bans and censorship in Authoritarian America. Mark these words: What happened this year and is still happening in libraries and schools in the U.S. will go down as one of the most shameful “chapters” in this country’s history.

Read whatever books you want to read, and enjoy doing so, because in this unpredictable hellscape, who knows what rights we might lose next.

1. Patti SmithBread of Angels: A Memoir (McNally Jackson)

Buy here.

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Bad Penny Post #1,000: Your Top 10 Favorite Reads Thus Far

Posted in Lists, News, Polls with tags , , , , , , , , , on 11/13/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Tom Hardy Thumbs Up GIF

The proverbial “they” said it couldn’t be done, but with these words, The Bad Penny has reached its thousandth post since launching way back in 1862 (the same year rock ‘n’ roll was invented!). In celebration of what is still a smaller number than the grand total of songs released by Guided by Voices (no, we didn’t do the math, but are you gonna challenge that assumption?), here are the top 10 most popular posts in the modest history of this website:

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Patti Smith On Jamming With Jeff Buckley And Tom Verlaine: ‘It Was Beautiful’

Posted in Interviews with tags , , , , on 02/10/2010 by Kurt Orzeck

Here’s another out-of-print magazine interview materializing online for the first time. This one’s with Patti Smith, who spoke with me primarily about her first-ever anthology, Land 1975-2002. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer also joked about “Because the Night”; shed light on Horses demos; went into detail about her cover of Prince’s “When Doves Cry”; and revealed some back story about another one of her classics, “Redondo Beach.”

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