Elliott Smith

[ghost of miles]

A long (10 minutes) feature on Elliott last night on NPR's "All Things Considered." Scroll about halfway down this page. Even the strongly protective posters over at Sweet Addy loved this piece.

The new album sounds so good--better and better with each listen.

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Yeah, I usually skip past those. Bit the ones where he does sing.... Damn!

I like that thar avatar of yours, DoubleM.

BASEMENT just gets better and better each time I listen to it.

[doubleM]

I've been digging it a lot, too. I've been hearing some local buzz that there will be more E.S. released in the future. I'm hoping that there are enough tracks floating about that this is true, and for as long as possible!

[ghost of miles]

I've been digging it a lot, too. I've been hearing some local buzz that there will be more E.S. released in the future. I'm hoping that there are enough tracks floating about that this is true, and for as long as possible!

Well, there is a lot of unreleased material from the EITHER/OR sessions on Kill Rock Stars, as you know from the CD-R that I sent you. I'd definitely buy that stuff if it came out in legit form... and Charlie's been posting even more on Sweet Adeline (heard "New Monkey" yet?). Dreamworks, too, could probably cobble together enough B-sides and outtakes (the so-called "Jackpot sessions" from XO) to put out another CD as well.

Have you read ELLIOTT SMITH AND THE BIG NOTHNG yet? It's not too bad, given that no family and few close friends agreed to give interviews... Ben Nugent is clearly a fan, and the book's worthwhile reading if you're a fanatic... The original engineer for BASEMENT gives a lot of insight into ES's state of mind when those first sessions were going down in the summer of 2001.

[ghost of miles]

The December Spin with U2 on the cover is out; it includes a 10-page article on Elliott and the last year or two of his life. Jennifer Chiba was interviewed for it but doesn't elaborate much about what happened on the morning of Oct. 21, 2003. Some clarification, however, about what Elliott was going through with his mother and his stepfather just before his death.

[.:.impossible]

I'm glad to see this thread bumped up again. I'll have to pick up that magazine.

I'll have to post some thoughts on the new album another time.

[ghost of miles]

Madeleine Peyroux has done a jazz cover of "Between the Bars" on her recent CD CARELESS LOVE. You can hear a 30-second sample here.

[doubleM]

Yeah, I heard that at Barnes and Noble the day after Xmas. It sort of freaked me out. I don't know if it was that she sounds so much like Lady Day, or that I happen to think that's one of ES' best songs....and it was weird to hear someone covering it so soon. Or, maybe it was just that I was at Barnes and Noble. I have read through a lot of the book. I intend to buy it and give it a thorough read one of these days.

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Jesus.. here's another one:

Frisell/Haden "Satellite"

Click on the "Discs" link and choose the Petra Haden/Bill Frisell title--there's a full-length sample there of their cover of "Satellite." (Petra, btw, is Charlie's daughter.) Man, listening to it got me upset about his death all over again... it's beautiful.

So Mehldau, Peyroux, and Frisell have now covered ES tunes--I hope that trend continues.

[ghost of miles]

Anyone who's an ES fan should check out this site. Listening right now to "Stickman."

[blake]

Anyone who's an ES fan should check out this site. Listening right now to "Stickman."

Thanks for the link.

Just noticed there's a new tribute out called "To: Elliott Smith From: Portland". Anyone heard it?

[ghost of miles]

This was in today's New York Times:

Elliott Smith's Uneasy Afterlife

By R J SMITH

In a recording studio last month, Rob Schnapf, a bearded, baseball-capped producer, and Joanna Bolme, a black-haired indie rock bassist, were sitting around listening to the latest Elliott Smith song, called "Let's Get Lost." The voice pouring out of the speakers sounded familiar, conversational. It was the voice of a friend. Snapshots taped up around the room showed Smith in a lighthearted mood: making a silly face in one, eyes closed in another.

As Mr. Schnapf, who worked with Smith in the 90's, and Ms. Bolme, who dated him for a while, know, Smith had a goofball sense of humor and a well of curiosity.

To his fans, however, he was better known for his sorrows. His reputation was built through songs about drug addiction, love and his uneasy connections to listeners fumbling with uneasy connections in their own lives. But it was cemented last Oct. 21, when Elliott Smith died of knife wounds to his chest, in his apartment in the Echo Park neighborhood in Los Angeles. He was 34.

In addition to a passionately devoted army of the shy, and a girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba, Smith left behind dozens of songs recorded in the last four years of his life and meant for a double CD titled "From a Basement on the Hill." Over the last few months, Mr. Schnapf and Ms. Bolme have sifted through some 45 hours of that music. Working together with Smith's family, they are mixing and mastering the material for release on Oct. 19.

That's just the latest tribute, commercial or otherwise, that has been undertaken since his death. Memorial concerts have been staged from Athens, Ohio, to Leeds, England. The indie rockers Sparta have recorded "Bombs and Us," a song about Smith. A New York-based journalist named Benjamin Nugent is writing "Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing," a biography slated for fall release. The classical pianist Christopher Riley, fresh from gussying up the music of Radiohead, is recording a CD of Smith's compositions. And some 10,000 fans have signed a petition to the Los Angeles City Council to turn a strip of public land into hallowed ground, à la Strawberry Fields in New York's Central Park. At the other end of the spectrum, some opportunistic vendors responded quickly to the news of Smith's death by spamming fans with ads for commemorative T-shirts.

Some of these posthumous offerings have been loving, others crass. But one way or another, Elliott Smith will sell a lot of merchandise this year.

USUALLY, when new music is tested out on studio speakers, the moment is pregnant with excitement. But listening to "From a Basement on the Hill," it just felt like a wake with great tunes.

"It'd be a lot easier if he'd be around to help us," Ms. Bolme said.

Mr. Schnapf added, "I was kind of hoping he'd show up."

As Smith sang, however, the sadness that flooded his five CD's swamped the room. "I'm burning every bridge I ever crossed," he sang, "to find some beautiful place to get lost." By the last line, two opposing things are true: Smith is dead, and Smith is here.

In the months since his death, a sadly familiar thing has happened, too. Smith has gotten the Baudelaire treatment, achieved a heightened status as a fallen martyr, the kind too sensitive to live. Perhaps that's inevitable, given the unusual role he occupied in the lives of his fans: His gentle, smart songs connected with people who felt shoved to the margins of their lives; now they are left to figure out how songs that made them feel saved did not save the man who sang them.

All of this posthumous scrutiny is something Smith would have loathed, as much as he loathed the starmaking juggernaut. Alive he fled the spotlight; now where's he going to run?

Loath to violate their friend's wishes, and aware of the intensity of this music and the meaning it has for Smith's fans, those working on "From a Basement on the Hill" seem a little spooked by the responsibility they've taken on.

"I have a very paternal, protective feeling," says Mr. Schnapf. "I didn't want anybody mucking it up."

Do they feel like they are protecting a legacy? "No," says Ms. Bolme. "It's not like he wrote a bunch of bad songs that need our help."

Mr. Schnapf thinks a moment, then answers differently. "In a sense, yeah. I'm just thinking I'm helping a buddy Lucrative trickles of outtakes and rejected songs have followed the deaths of artists like Tupac Shakur, who seems more prolific now than when he was alive, and Nick Drake, whose archivists just discovered a "lost" song that should probably have stayed that way. But Mr. Schnapf and Ms. Bolme say that "From a Basement on the Hill" is the end of the road.

"We want this to be the last living body of work," Mr. Schnapf says adamantly. "This is his last record."

It won't ultimately be Mr. Schnapf's decision, however. Smith's family has a lot more unreleased material, and they have made no such guarantees about their intentions.

Smith was underrated as a musician, but "Let's Get Lost," which will be the second track on the new CD, takes wing on his deft guitar picking. His debt to "Blackbird," the singer-songwriter John Hartford ("Gentle on My Mind") and Piedmont blues are all in place, as disarmingly friendly playing gives way to dark thoughts. There is a kind of California pop, the most famous kind, that is rich with ebullient harmonies and billboarded emotions. At the time of his death, Smith was exploring a sound he jokingly called "the California Frown," an inverse of Beach Boy optimism. Gloomy and intimate, the songs are Smith at his best, though there's also a strong hint of the confusion and instability that haunted his final days.

Putting the record together wasn't just emotionally hard; it was often tough to figure out Smith's musical intentions. In a 2003 interview in the fanzine Under the Radar, Smith described his concept: the CD would begin conventionally, with traditionally structured songs, but would start getting weird midway, until it ended in bouts of noise and distortion.

That's a fair description of his four years in Los Angeles. He arrived at the peak of his skills, but he was smoking crack, using heroin and haunting bars where he'd abruptly disappear if somebody recognized him. His last year was punctuated with bouts of paranoia and weirdness; friends found him more remote than ever, and not always capable of making sense. One police report described him wandering the streets draped in a blanket.

Months before he died, Smith checked into the Beverly Hills-based Neurotransmitter Restoration Center, which proffers an unorthodox technique for treating addiction. He claimed it was working, and no traces of narcotics were found in his system after his death. But something went horribly wrong.

What, exactly, occurred on his last night remains a subject of as much debate as the decline that preceded it. His death was reported in the press as a suicide. But a medical examiner's report released in January stated "the mode of death is undetermined at this time." Officially, the police are still investigating.

Poetically, at least, the case sits about perfectly right where it is now: the ambiguity, the lack of resolution among equally sad possibilities, are material right out of one of Smith's songs.

It's a wretched, unsatisfying kind of ending for his fans, which is probably why many reject it. On a Web site about Smith's legacy, devotees have written in suggesting that Smith lives — they know it's so because he's come to them in dreams. Others have suggested that the psychic John Edward should be hired to contact the singer in heaven. Meanwhile, conspiracy theories flourish regarding the role of his girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba: Smith adored the Beatles, and his followers have obligingly cast her in the role of Yoko Ono, destroyer of their hero.

Those who knew him first-hand don't seem much clearer about why things ended as they did. At the studio where "From a Basement on the Hill" is being assembled, it's been the end of a long few weeks, well into the last night of work now, and the talk turns to Smith's last days and the effect Los Angeles had on them.

"Los Angeles didn't do anything to his songwriting," Ms. Bolme says. "He's still Elliott. I just knew a lot of people were wondering what was going on."

Staring into the distance, Mr. Schnapf adds: "I'm not going there. You can find trouble anywhere if you look hard enough." I ask them what working on this record means on a personal level. The idea that it's bringing closure to his life seems obvious — so obvious that it can't be true.

"No, it doesn't resolve anything," says Ms. Bolme. "The resolution is that it's unresolved."

Suddenly she starts crying and bolts from the room.

"Certainly any closure I get is not going to be from working on a record," says Mr. Schnapf. "You hear the music, and he's right here."

I was just rereading this today on the Sweet Adeline site and realized that the author is the same guy who wrote THE GREAT BLACK WAY, which we've been discussing in the "Jazz in Print" forum.

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A few more Elliott songs have turned up on the Internet.

The above article says Kill Rock Stars is planning a spring 2007 release of rarities that ES recorded for the label.

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For Impossible & other interested parties, an update on the new Kill Rock Stars comp. I have or have heard about 3/4 of it, but I'll be buying it... press release from KRS & the family w/tracklisting follows:

On May 8, 2007, Kill Rock Stars will release a double CD of music by Elliott Smith entitled New Moon. The album contains 24 songs recorded 1994-1997, a prolific time in Smith's career, when he recorded his self-titled album and Either/Or (both also released by Kill Rock Stars).

Arguably the most gifted song-writer of his generation, Elliott Smith produced a large body of work that includes five solo albums, as well as From a Basement on the Hill (2004), a collection of songs completed before his death in 2003. Like his other work, New Moon reflects the power of Smith's ability to integrate rich, melodic music with poetic, multi-layered lyrics.

The final mixing for the double cd was done by Larry Crane, who is the archivist for the estate of Elliott Smith A significant portion of proceeds from the album sales will go directly to Outside In, a Portland-based social service organization dedicated to providing diverse services for homeless youth and low-income adults.

Elliott Smith died October 21, 2003, in his home in Los Angeles. To date the coroner has been unable to determine the cause of death, and the investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department remains open.

ELLIOTT SMITH

NEW MOON

(Kill Rock Stars)

Release date: May 8, 2007

Disc 1

Angel In The Snow

Talking To Mary

High Times

New Monkey

Looking Over My Shoulder

Going Nowhere

Riot Coming

All Cleaned Out

First Timer

Go By

Miss Misery (early version)

Thirteen

Disc 2

Georgia Georgia

Whatever (Folk Song in C)

Big Decision

Placeholder

New Disaster

Seen How Things Are Hard

Fear City

Either/Or

Pretty Mary K (other version)

Almost Over

See You Later

Half Right

[.:.impossible]

Elliott Smith died October 21, 2003, in his home in Los Angeles. To date the coroner has been unable to determine the cause of death, and the investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department remains open.

In modern parlance, WTF.

[.:.impossible]

Thanks Ghost. I appreciate you keeping us up on Elliott-related occurrences.

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Out tomorrow:

Already snagged a copy from my local dealer... anybody who likes Elliott's Kill Rock Stars period (Elliott Smith and Either/Or) would dig this compilation. Favorite tracks so far for me:

Angel in the Snow

New Monkey

Going Nowhere

Go By

Placeholder

Seen How Things Are Hard

Pretty Mary K (other version... not an alternate take, but a completely different song)

See You Later (solo version of a song he did with Heatmiser)

[.:.impossible]

nice. I wasn't aware of this. Thanks once again!

[street singer]

Pre-ordered the vinyl from Insound. Can't wait for it to get here... I was introduced to Elliott's music with the s/t album...so, that period of his music if by far my favorite.

[ghost of miles]

Autumn de Wilde, who took a lot of pictures of ES over the years, has a new book coming out that will include photographs and conversations with ES's inner circle of friends and fellow musicians, many of whom have rarely or never gone on record about him. The book will also come with a CD of live acoustic performances.

Some other songs I've been digging off NEW MOON:

New Disaster

Almost Over

All Cleaned Out

[.:.impossible]

Ghost, you are the man. Thank you for keeping us in tune. It is good to see that Elliott was such an important part of so many people's lives.

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Autumn de Wilde's book finally came in today at the Book Corner (my fave B-town bookstore)...fantastic if you're an ES fan, a mix of pictures that she took around the time of FIGURE 8 (she did the cover) and interviews with people like Joanna Bolme, Sam Coomes, Jon Brion, and others who haven't really gone on the record much about ES before. The CD is great, too, five solo-acoustic songs from Largo in L.A. circa '98, including a cover of Hank Williams Jr.'s "All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down." The book's definitely a bit worshipful, but not in a sticky-schmaltzy way... a lot of stories in there that I'd never heard or read before.

I was listening to a live May '03 show for awhile after reading the first half of the book... damn, he was trying so hard to get back to where he'd been, performance-wise, before 2001. The contrast between it and the book CD from '98 was pretty stark.

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I've raved elsewhere on this board about the 33 1/3 book series--there's now one out about Elliott's XO album:

Elliott Smith's XO

Pretty good--I think he ends up pushing back a bit too hard against certain aspects of ES's media image, although the critique itself is a worthy endeavor--and there's a lot of good background on how the songs for the album developed.

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Been revisiting Elliott's music the past couple of days (and even more has surfaced since this thread's most active years) and finding that it resonates with me as powerfully as ever.  This morning I watched an entire hour-long October 2000 set from the Figure 8 tour, about two weeks before I saw him at the Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky.  While the Southgate performance was fine (he hadn't gone off the rails yet.. that happened almost immediately after this tour ended), he seems more on for this show, and there are great electric full-band versions of several of his acoustic-based songs.  Video/audio quality is not necessarily great, but I actually often prefer "lo-fi" fan videos of shows as opposed to pro shots... they give me a more visceral, you-are-there vibe.  At the very end there's a nice clip of him signing a woman's guitar and tuning it for her before he boards his tour bus.  (The venue was Howlin' Wolf in New Orleans... ah, for the days of attending live music events.)