Before Patti Smith releases Gung Ho, her ninth album, on March 21, the punk-poetess is launching her first-ever Web site on Feb. 16. Never viewed as a technical savant, Smith nevertheless felt the time had come for her to stick her toes into the cyberworld, setting herself up at www.gungho2000.com.

"I decided to do it because I never had one," Smith explains. "Various people seem to have Web sites concerning my work or myself, and I thought that it was time for me to comprehend what the Web site world was all about and how I could be of some kind of service within it."

Service is something that is of paramount importance to Smith, as it was to her late husband, MC5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith. Before his untimely death in 1994, the two had talked about donating all the proceeds of their work to the causes of their choice, and vowing to live a scaled-down, simple, purposeful life. "Well, it's just my initials, P.S. for Public Service. I really didn't have a choice," Smith jokes.

She'll be the first to admit that she's is not totally "future-friendly," but says she wanted to have indirect contact with her fans, to impart some of her wisdom to them. "It's just that I care about people, and I've had a lot of life experience and if I can just like offer anything -- just a simple thing like 'Take care of your teeth' -- then I'm going to do it," Smith said, adding: "Because when you get older and you didn't take care of your teeth, you have to pay the price. Just doing simple things like getting them cleaned sometimes or flossing them because it's so painful later on. If I can to tell people little things to keep their life from being a drag -- things that no one ever told me -- then I will. It's just about sharing information. I want it to be a place that will be visually and aesthetically interesting, that it's not there for just a marketing purpose so they'll buy stuff. I want it to be a place where they can come and read maybe some poems that are unpublished or see some drawings or photographs to go along with the Ho Chi Minh songs on the album."

Before finishing Gung Ho -- named for the Chinese phrase that originally meant "working together" but was appropriated by an elite Corp of the Marines, and bastardized into English -- Smith and guitarist Oliver Ray went to Vietnam to soak up the atmosphere and to get in touch with some of the restless sprits that still inhabit the land.

"Oliver Ray and I went to went to Vietnam recently, and we took a lot of photographs there," Smith says. "We went to the sight where Ho Chi Minh hid out in the Forties in a cave. So we're bringing back information and sharing it through the Web. And when we go on the road, we can write little diaries or give them set lists or just some things that are fun. But also things that are hopefully interesting, like talking about the environment or reminding people to register to vote."

If you want to be on hand for the kickoff, the official launch of www.gungho2000.com will be at 9:00 p.m. EST on Feb. 16. If that's not enough Patti Smith for you, she and the band will be on David Letterman on March 21, and will mount their national tour in early April.

JAAN UHELSZKI
(February 15, 2000)