Spinner

Roger Waters Apologizes for 'Defacing' Elliott Smith Memorial

Roger Waters has apologized to fans of Elliott Smith after offending them by accidentally covering over an unofficial memorial to the late singer with promotional posters.

The former Pink Floyd bassist commissioned graffiti artists to poster cities across the US to advertise his tour of the band's legendary 1979 album, 'The Wall,' which is due to start in September. NME.com reports that one site postered was the wall of audio repair shop Solutions on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, as featured on the cover of Smith's 2000 album 'Figure 8.' After Smith's death in 2003, it became an unofficial memorial, with fans leaving tributes and writing messages and lyrics from Smith's songs on the plasterwork.

"It was absolutely an accident," Waters told the Los Angeles Times. "I didn't want to disrespect Elliott Smith's fans, and I've instructed [the team] to remove the [posters]. It was a random pasting in the normal course of this, and I want to make it public that we had no intent to offend or cover up something precious."

However, Waters went on to say that although he was unaware of Smith's music until the incident, having now acquainted himself with his work, he thought the much-missed singer-songwriter would have empathized with the poster's message.

It featured a quote from former American president Dwight D Eisenhower that read: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed."

"I think Elliott would have approved," Waters mused.

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

16 Comments

Filter by:
RENEE VIVOLO

u should report these stupid scams. he is on almost 1/2 the sites with the same bs

May 08 2010 at 2:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
RENEE VIVOLO

its a scam

May 08 2010 at 2:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Shay

My God! Richard Gere looks horrible!

May 08 2010 at 1:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
frankerin

Man, these scam artists are being paid by someone to hack the comment sections,of the diifferent news pages, with various levels of success, using a variety of names, often, interestingly, oriental sounding names. They should be stopped, but I assume the various news pages are not in the full control of aol, and are franchised or lisenced or something by others to be shown on aol. And maybe one of these or more are doing the paying of these people. So the responsibility for filtering and purging of this constant annoyance may not be directly aol's. Why aol isn't banging some heads together I don't know, but contracts may be involved.It would require a lot of people all day to keep up. So I think, and I am just as po'ed as you are.

May 08 2010 at 12:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mark

Accident my a$$!!

May 08 2010 at 12:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
DONSTON1888

mr. &mr tony kaelin
at 5-08-2010AND AN ANTI-SEMITE!

Typical Zionist bullshit...
Waters is right on the money about Zionist aggression.

May 08 2010 at 12:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Brink

Yeah um, I'm sorry I don't know what to say, something must have happened.

May 08 2010 at 11:58 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Fred

Who is Elliott Smith and who is Roger Waters? Why is this news? Who cares?

May 08 2010 at 11:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Randawg8

Maybe it was an accident... I know it's hard to perceive in todays world, but perhaps every polictally incorrect act is not a conspiracy...

May 08 2010 at 11:30 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mdbcg

Most people of the "younger generation" you refer to probably don't even know who Pink Floyd is, let alone Roger Waters. So don't get your knickers in a wad. Sorry, but who is Elliott Smith? They were just posters that can be taken down off of a graffiti wall. Good heavens!!

May 08 2010 at 10:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply