so flawed and drunk and perfect still

[serendipity]

so flawed and drunk and perfect still
i don't know about a statue
but what about
a tower of words
words of love
of anger or worry
disappointed words
admiring words
of people who knew you
as a conflicted human being
and not as a statue

solveig


"Elliott may take turns here and there, and run into dead ends. But he has a way of maintaining himself and his integrity. He's quiet, but potent."

Gary Smith


"He was the best brother I could have hoped for, the best person I ever met."

Ashley Welch


"You don't have this quality of writing without a certain amount of wherewithal and strength."

Jon Brion


"Sometimes he was medicated, sometimes illegally. Sometimes he was drunk. Sometimes he was a great friend."

Larry Crane


"Listen to Elliott's records long enough and you can almost see him; the same is true of Rufus. The devotion fans have for Smith - I haven't seen that in years."

Lenny Waronker


"I’ve known Elliott for a long time. And when I first met him I thought he was a talented musician - but I know a lot of talented musicians; I never thought he was the MOST talented or anything. But he’s just pushed himself and grown as a musician pretty intensely over the years and I’ve been able to watch it from close range and that’s extremely instructive - musically - but it’s also gratifying to see a friend and associate pick himself up like that and get a wider recognition."

Sam Coomes


"He was very sensitive. He was one of those bright, animated, thoughtful kids that you liked having in a class."

David Bailey


"As roommates, we were a great match if you like to be depressed all the time. It seemed like he was addicted to being sad. I think he worried that if he wan't sad, he wouldn't be able to write songs anymore."

Sean Croghan


"His depression was a fundamental part of who he was, which is not to say that he moped around. On the contrary, at times his suffering enabled him to understand the suffering of other people. At times he was able to draw upon his experience as a means of relating to others, and part of his depression enabled him to provide others with a vocabulary for talking about things they themselves didn't understand completely. When he was depressed he felt, as he would often say, more like himself than when he was not depressed."

Garrick Duckler


" I don't want to talk about the last three years. That's not how I'm going to remember him."

Rob Schnapf


"He was very soft and very childlike at his birthday party in July. I mean, he had been through so much stuff since he had moved to L.A. and he had changed so much. His personality had really changed and he had really hurt himself over the period of time that he lived here."

Lou Barlow


Why all this belief in suffering for art?
What is with this fixation?
Or the supposition that there must be suffering for the art to occur —
Does that come after the suffering begins?
The supposition, or knowledge, or whatever the hell you want to call it?
That's what I want to know.
Which comes first
or maybe it's just a coincidence

I doubt I could find that question in a statue
It'd have to be one helluva statue

elisabeth



"He almost shunned the stardom. I was with him many times when people recognized him, and he never got used to it, or really liked it. He never settled into fame, which ultimately fed his sadness."

Christopher Cooper


"My memory of Elliott isn't of a stupid junkie shadow of his former self. I remember the guy who was always cracking jokes."

Pete Krebs


elliott's art is born of more than suffering.

Hummingbird


People have written and claimed that Elliott’s cult status of celebrity brought on so much of the darkness that shrouded his perception and made his life one existential dilemma after the next, but the truth of the matter is that he was more disturbed by a lack of limelight than too much of it.

Nelson Gary



"He was really bad at staying in touch."

Larry Crane



"He always talked about suicide. He made me promise that I wouldn't be mad at him. He just talked about it as if it were going to happen."

Dorien Garry



"He told me many times that he would never commit suicide. But then , he told me he wouldn't do crack. And then he did."

Mark Flanagan



"We had a lot of fun together. And it was extremely rewarding. Sometimes, working with him would be intense - it could be extremely intense - but there was always a payoff."

Rob Schnapf



"To Elliott, life was a very beautiful and brutal place, and his songs were that ground in between."

Luke Wood



His last three years were his hardest struggle to stay alive; it kept getting worse and worse and worse"

Steve Hanft



"Elliott left behind the torch for others to pick up that will inspire the next generation. I think when Kurt Cobain died, Elliott picked up the torch. Not everyone was meant to stick around that long. He left us with a legacy, and he'll become a legend. We're lucky to have had him."

Mary Lou Lord



"I was always poking my head in going, 'Can you play "Alameda" tonight?'" "He'd go, 'Well, um, we really don't know that as a band yet so I don't think so.' And then he'd be sitting outside my room. He'd play the whole thing by himself so I could hear it."

Ben Folds



"He was really admirable as a person and as a star. There's so much bullshit around, so many unhumble people who are all about the glitz and the glam and the bullshit. What we lost is a very, very, very, very truthful, honest star - I think both as a person and as a musician, as an artist. It's really sad because he was just brutally, brutally honest. And very smart. And if you put the two together, it's undeniably appealing."

Russell Simins



"Elliott was hard to find. He kept telling us the wrong places to meet him."

Steve Hanft



"I think every once in a while people get real tired of being steered toward some next big thing, and they realize that they need great songs and they'll always need them. And great songs come without an expiration date. I never thought of Elliott as a folk musician. It always seemed to me to be genuinely a punk rock thing, and that's partly in the DIY sense and partly because it was just confirmation of the notion that punk rock is about a kind of directness and a rawness and a sensibility, and not the size of the amplifiers and the way someone's dressed."

Jem Cohen



"It would be fair to say that his desire to hurt, injure or destroy himself was indomitable. To say that his death was somehow inevitable would be a way that people who watched him die over many years attempt to comfort themselves."

Garrick Duckler



"I don’t recall him smiling very much. But I never got the sense that he was either humorless or determined not to smile. He just seemed to be thinking hard about something."

Mark Pittman (childhood acquaintance)



"He would play these loud rock'n'roll songs and then go backstage and pull out his acoustic guitar and just be doing these intricate finger picking things. And I thought 'Whoa, he's got a lot more up his sleeve that he's not showin'."

Sam Coomes



"Somehow, miraculously, Elliott would often appear when it was time for me to take out the garbage and ask me ever so quietly if he could help. He told me he would bring me some of his music and though he never did, I know he would have. He made you want to hug him, to know him and to be close to him, even for a minute, made you feel something. He was something special and I knew it. And for such a smaller person, his spirit was big, you could feel it through the walls, even though the music was never too loud, you could feel the intesity of it."

Caroline



Ten days before Elliott died (with Val, who was a major force in helping him in his healing process, no longer by his side), many of my friends, including Jerry, saw Elliott. By all accounts, he was doing well. He had come out of the darkness to twilight, then his life tragically ended.

Nelson Gary


"I have a little bit of an older-brother feeling about him because I got to know him years and years ago when he still lived in Portland. I always felt kind of protective - I think everybody did about him."

John Doe


"...Shaquille O'Neal landed on Elliott! Just right on top of him! Elliott was like this little kid, saying things like, "I wouldn't have cared if he had hurt me! What a great story to tell people!""

Mark Flanagan


Eventually, Elliott did understand that forgiveness was not a weakness, but a means to transcend a situation. It was true that no one could abuse him the way he had been abused as a child, but what he perceived to be the truth was that he had continued a ritual form of abuse with addiction and other behaviors by allowing his abuser free rent in his head: he had continued the abuse his perpetrator had long since stopped.
He also had to work on forgiving himself for years of allowing this pattern to continue on the basis of his own free will. He learned that forgiveness means taking one’s power back by stopping the pattern that the violator initiated.

sombre winds


"His lyrics were always sort of cryptic to me. I knew there were songs about drug addiction, and I knew because of his attitude that he had suffered from depression.
"He was happy that 'Good Will Hunting' was a popular movie and thought it was odd for him and me to be associated with it. It was one of the times that his mom could say, 'This is what my son does,' because his music wasn't the sort of thing she would listen to. So he was really happy to be part of something mainstream because of his mom."

Gus Van Sant



"Elliott wouldn't have been caught dead with his shirt off."

Fritz Michaud



"He showed me a bad scar on his chest."

Larry Crane



"The talent show was in a big church filled with people and there were all these different acts, and one of them was a tap dancer, tap-dancing to 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' all dressed in red, white and blue. And Elliott played 'Blackbird' and I was stunned, and I thought maybe it was just me, but after he finished playing there was a hush, and then this warm applause filled the hall. It was the first time I knew, whoa, this is where he's going. The end of the story is, they chose somebody to go on a national talent show, and the person they chose was the tap dancer, tap-dancing to 'Yankee Doddle Dandy'."

Gary Smith



“Although he didn’t win, Elliott played guitar and sang the song at the awards ceremony. That has special meaning for me and Alice and our family.”

Bill Berryman



It's so funny that here is this guy we all love who had, you know, one of the most beautiful minds for seeing the world in analogy, and therefore it made conversing with him a deep human pleasure, but yet at the same time he had that intense combination of heaps of self-doubt and self-assurance.

Jon Brion



Elliott was sort of actively involved in his own sort of mythmaking, and I think he was interested in that, and it was something that I kind of frowned on. I always felt like I didn't want to facilitate that too much. Um... for various reasons, but I have to question if there isn't some sort of petty reasons for it.

Sam Coomes


He became dependent on having people say "you're okay" and it was weird because it came to a point where I told him "I'm not gonna tell you you're okay anymore because you're not telling me you are okay: all you're saying is "Am I okay, Sean?"[...]
I guess it's not a happy part of Elliott, but it's a real part of Elliott. There were such great parts of his personality that were overshadowed by his sad thing, but there were also really negative parts of his personality that were overshadowed by his sadness. He had a selfishness that developed due to his attitude of "I'm so dependent now on outside support. I can't support myself because...well I don't know why." I don't know why he couldn't, either. It made him unable to support himself.

Sean Croghan


We talked all the time about how as kids we wanted to be giant rock stars, you know, and he would say, "I wanted to be a giant rock star, I still want to be a giant rock star, I want people to know who I am."

Sean Croghan


I don't believe he killed himself.

Mark Flanagan


Three years before he died is the point where I knew... I remember the conversation. I remember his inability to speak coherently. I remember realizing he had gone too far. He had consumed too much. It felt like the person I loved wasn't home anymore. And the filter that normally exists between the soul and the rest of the world was so mangled... I knew it, and it hit me hard.

Jon Brion


"His girlfriend Jennifer called me last week and asked if I'd like to come to L.A. and help mix and finish [Smith's album]. I said yes, or course, and chatted with Elliott for the first time in ages... It seems surreal that he would call me to finish an album and then a week later kill himself. I talked to Jennifer this morning, who was obviously shattered and in tears, and she said, 'I don't understand, he was so healthy."

Larry Crane


"In the Smith case, there were certain things -- both anatomic findings and circumstances -- that were suggestive of suicidal death and pointed down that road, while there were other things that were less consistently associated with suicide and suggested the possibility of homicide. There was nothing that tipped the scales one way or other. The mode of Suicide has great psychological impact for those left behind, and carries with it a negative social stigma reflecting on the decedent, so it is not a mode I assign lightly. If there are elements that cast some doubt on this mode (outside of someone saying "he just wouldn't have done that"), then I prefer to give the decedent the benefit of that doubt. I also would not want to assign the mode of Homicide without reasonable cause to do so.

In this case, there was truly no clear cut way to assign the mode of death. For the above reasons, after due consultation with Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, the Chief Medical Examiner, we felt it was most prudent to be cautious and leave the mode Undetermined. This mode can be changed should convincing evidence for either Homicide or Suicide turn up at a later time. Unfortunately no significant additional information has come to light to date, which is why the mode remains Undetermined."

Dr. Scheinin


"And he also had another thing which, you know... everyone will attest to this, I think, any of us who knew him when he was on... long before he sunk and long before he left the planet... a lot of people who were close to him had a kind of love for him that you reserve for very few people in your life. He generated that kind of feeling in numerous people that I can think of. And it didn't take some bad events to make some people reflect and think, "This is somebody I really care about." It was usually instantaneous and heavy."

Jon Brion


"But I thought to myself, "Well if you're going to really care about this person, you have to be prepared for the fact that he might not make it.""

Autumn de Wilde


"And he also had another thing which, you know... everyone will attest to this, I think, any of us who knew him when he was on... long before he sunk and long before he left the planet... a lot of people who were close to him had a kind of love for him that you reserve for very few people in your life. He generated that kind of feeling in numerous people that I can think of. And it didn't take some bad events to make some people reflect and think, "This is somebody I really care about." It was usually instantaneous and heavy."

Jon Brion



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

Joanna Bolme


"He also explained to me that the circuit rider, who the song is about, is in love with two women. The circuit rider feels extraordinary guilty and depressed with his heart severed in two, but he is also elated with the amount of love he shares with these women. We had this conversation without Val in our company. He confessed to me that the song’s central complexity of emotions was autobiographical. Rather excitedly, he informed me that what was to become From a Basement on the Hill was going to be a concept album about this subject."

Nelson Gary


"He knew there were a lot of Portland people who wanted him to be here, and wanted to help him. The last time we hung out, there were four or five os us sitting there, begging him to move back. He had doctors in L. A. prescribing him handfuls of pills. He had a thousand little yes men down there - any young, aspiring rock star in L.A. would only be too happy to go out and acquire anything Elliott wanted to ingest and give it to him. He had people who wanted to help him, but he made a stupid decision, and a selfish decision. He wasn't a sad, fragile little boy. He was a man."

Sean Croghan


"Elliott personified Portland. He was quiet he was dark, and he had kind of a rainy personality."

Christopher Cooper

[serendipity]

"People think they know all these things about other people, and if you ask them why they think they know that, it'd be hard for them to be convincing."

Elliott Smith


Under some dirty words on a dirty wall
Eating takeout by myself
I played the shows
Got back in the van and put the Walkman on
And you were playing
In some other dive a thousand miles away
I played a thousand times before
And like pathetic stars, the truck stops and the rock club walls
I always knew
You saw them too
But you never will again
It's too late
Don't you know
It's been too late
For a long time
Elliott, man, you played a fine guitar
And some dirty basketball
The songs you wrote
Got me through a lot
Just wanna tell you that
But it's too late
It's too late
No, don't you know
it's been too late
for a long time
Oh no
Things were looking up
Least that's what I heard
Oh no
Someone came and washed away your hard-earned
Peace of mind
When desperate static beats the silence up
A quiet truth to calm you down
The songs you wrote
Got me through a lot
Just wanna tell you that
But it's too late
It's too late
No, don't you know
It's been too late
For a long time
It's too late
It's too late
No, don't you know
It's been too late
For a long time

Ben Folds


The thing is, I’m not really sadder than anyone else. I’m happy at times. I’m not always sad and I’m not always happy. After all, most people aren’t incredibly happy all the time. People have their own stuff that they constantly try and make better, and so I’m just trying to be a better person... The purpose of unhappiness is to point your life in a better direction, where you make things better. Otherwise there would be no point to being unhappy, it would just be a place that is brutal.

Elliott Smith

"I think with Elliott, it's word of mouth; because the media is too slow to catch on to people with that sort of talent. You know? 'Cause it's not a hyped-up, corporate record and word of mouth is crucial. And playing live."

Ray Davies


"The injuries sustained by Smith could have been inflicted by the decedent himself or by another person. The coroner was unable to determine which occurred … due to incomplete knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the death."

David Campbell


"But that was his plan all along. He wanted me to get knocked down. He wanted me to get up. He wanted me to do it myself. I learned a lot that day. I miss him very much. And he will be missed by many others. It’s like my friend Scott said, "He belonged to so many people." I think that is a great thing. This was just one story. There’s a million more out there."

Aaron Espinoza


Elliott’s passing is a terrible loss for myself and many of my friends, who knew, worked and hung out with him. Needless to say, he was one of the best songwriters of our day and a formidable musician. He was also soft-spoken, intelligent and extremely humble. He had an acute sense of justice. At one of my shows last year he tried to intervene with security who were harassing a kid, and was in turn beaten and handcuffed by them. We knew he’d had his struggles over the years, but I was heartened by word that he was on an upswing and preparing a new album. We had recently talked a few times about getting together and making some music. Nobody could have known what was going to happen, but I am grateful for the times we got to tour and hang out together. He will be missed, and the ramifications of his absence will long be felt.

Beck


"Once he trusted me, he trusted me consistenly in regards to his image and the video and the photos. He was a wonderful, exciting person to work with. We didn't have any creative disagreements. We only moved upward and onward with our ideas. It just was really sad that there were so many ideas left over that I didn't get to use, that were ... are reserved just for him"

Autumn deWilde


"He was my best friend and he became iconic, and people couldn't get enough of him, and you didn't know - is he still my friend? But he would show up and of course he was, he's Elliott, he didn't treat me differently. Not totally differently. He made sure I knew that our relationship was intact. There was a lot of respect, and humor; but it was very frustrating to be around other people who were jockeying to get in. He would open himself up to them because he was such a compassionate person. He didn't want to judge, so sometimes he opened himself up to really disgusting people. But he also wanted the attention.
[...]
He made his own choices. He chose those weird, dark-sided people. When he bought the myth of being a rock star it was just unbelievably disappointing."

Neil Gust


"When he was a little boy he hated to get dressed up, to wear button-up shirts. I asked him once why he didn't like to dress up. He said it was because the buttons smelled bad."

Bunny Welch


"I sang and told him stories even before he was born. He talked a blue streak when he was very little. He loved stories and songs and would make them up and entertain us constantly. As a child, he was always for the underdog."

Bunny Welch


"You wouldn't think that he cared about his appearance from the clothes that he wore, but he would sometimes try on outfits for half an hour to get to the right combination of faded cords, T-shirt and baseball cap."

Andrea Manning


"Elliott and I always spent time together when we could, and worked together when we could. There's a lot of stuff that I recorded and betted with. He was in fairly rough shape those last few years. He was just marching around with tapes, erasing things and adding things and God knows what. With that, it was a different thing. By the time we were supposedly making a bit of a record, I was essentially watching a friend fade from the world. So really, that's my memory there. Other than that, I hold onto all the lovely memories of how fantastic he was when he was present; as fascinating and lovely a human being as you could ever imagine."

Jon Brion


“It’s literally the most important thing in the film. Elliott is like a character you can’t see. I can only compare the way his music works in the movie to Simon & Garfunkel’s songs in The Graduate.”

Minnie Driver


""Elliott, on top of being one of the people who made me want to make a contribution musically, was also a very amazing and generous guy...He was a big inspiration for us."

Blake Sennet



Almost ten years ago, my old band, Chisel, was on our first full US tour. Nothing west of Chicago was particularly well attended, but that never really gets me down -- I try to keep hopes up but expectations low. Anyway, what was getting me down, was a certain lack of respect I was often feeling from people in a lot of places, which reached a real boiling point in Portland, Or., at a place called the "O," where we were being treated less than kindly by the promoter. It was summer, and very very hot inside the club. We attracted about 20 people that night, and played a pretty ripping set, if I remember correctly, during which I asked the promoter if I could have one of the 7-Ups he was selling for a quarter each from a cooler at the back of the room. He said, "For a quarter!" I thought he was joking, but he wasn't. I sputtered through the sweat dripping down my face and across my mouth, "Well... Can't I pay you after we're done playing? Can't you take it out of our pay?" He just stared at me, then made some quip about, "What pay?" Which, since we'd only drawn 20 people, was a legitimate question, granted, but I was kind of dumbfounded -- I couldn't believe that he was going to not only NOT offer me a soda for busting my ass on stage, but was going to embarrass me in this way in front of an audience that was actually there to see us as well. I had a serious existential crisis at that moment. What the fuck am I doing here? Why am I giving it up in this way every night? Why are people so petty in their power struggles? Is this all there is? Just then, a person stepped out from the 20 person crowd, put a quarter in the promoter's hand, and walked the soda up to me on stage.

It's largely due to that small gesture that I'm still playing music today, and in years to come, I got to know that person better, and count him as a friend. That person was Eliot Smith. And though I know he's now free from the very real demons that were gnawing at him... Man, I think I'm going to miss him very very much. My love to his other friends and family, and my love to you all. Spare a thought for Eliot today."

Ted Leo


“Smith wasn’t the easiest persona to work with because of his problems. The worst thing ever to happen to Happy Ending was Elliott getting involved. The production of the single became the focus of all of Smith and Chiba’s relationship problems: people began to speak of their relationship as furiously difficult, similar to the infamous and ultimately disastrous liaison between Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen."

Sean Organ


"Yeah I remember one conversation we were having and Elliott would just say, "ya know... I could just all these pills right now and that would be it.." He was just....[shakes her head] There was this one time when Elliott was staying with us in LA and he ran up to the roof of my apartment and was going to jump off. And I mean, the place wasn't that big--it was like 4 stories so I mean, he wouldn't kill himself if he ever did jump... I just remember his girlfriend running after him. It was really a terrible situation. But what was interesting was that when he would talk about music, he became a completely different person. It sent him into another world, calmed him down. It was amazing really. He loved it. I mean, who has more talent than elliott smith right?"

Hollis Queens


"True Love is a lyric driven song. This is the oldest one that we’ve heard so far. This is from that record I was going to throw away. I still might. Those weren’t very happy days. It was a long time ago at this point."

Elliott Smith


"He was very uncomfortable in his skin, but he was very confident about what he liked and what he believed in, and his music. He knew he was good."

Autumn de Wilde


"Before I knew who Elliott Smith was, I knew him as this very quiet guy that had discovered the bar (at Luna) and would stay there till closing or near closing most nights, writing constantly in a journal with some kind of dark whiskey drink on the rocks or straight-up in front of him; he always had some kind of bourbon or something like that in front of him. Week after week after week."

Rob Sacher


"He put the cool back in folk. He adored punk music and he was attracted to that darker element. The fans were so adoring - the sad kids."

Mary Lou Lord


“He was incredibly optimistic and healthy at the end, and I know he was clean”

Luke Wood


“He had tried to kill himself before. He showed me a bad scar on his chest. But people told me he’d been doing better. His father said he’d been calling regularly. So I was really excited to spend time with him and Jennifer.”

Larry Crane


"It's become pretty apparent that no matter what I really do or say, there are certain ways that people are going to perceive me. And it's just gotten to the point where I can't do anything about it, so I don't worry about it that much. I just make up songs that to me feel human. And they're bound to be seen by some people as confessional or depressing, some sort of real one-way assessment that is not how they are to me. I don't worry as much as I did before. There's no point in me trying to control stuff like that."

Elliott Smith

[serendipity]

“He had a lot of animosity toward his stepdad. I think he felt pretty hurt by him. The way he described it, he wasn’t a very good dad.”

David McConnell


"...the people that were really friends with Elliott always questioned whether or not they were. They saw how Elliott went from best friend to best friend every night. He would just go somewhere and spill his guts, and that person would think that he or she and Elliott Smith had had a poignant evening.

That was what my first experience with Elliott was. I just happened to know better, that I wasn't special in his life."

Autumn de Wilde



“The inconsistencies in the pleadings, specifically with respect to the issues relating to severability, create a record on which the conclusion that the primary purpose of the parties in entering the agreement was the personal relationship, and that the illegal terms were secondary and could be abandoned while all of the other terms of the agreement remained enforceable, is not mandated.”

Laurie D. Zelon


"There was a spirit of pushing things & challenging our own & other peoples' expectations, & that really came from Elliott, though Janet & I took a lot of flack for our role in all this, as we were cranking up pretty loud & playing pretty fast. How could we be so insensitive to his delicate, intimate songs? It was Elliott's idea."

Sam Coomes


"Even now, it sort of feels like I'm the disappointment because I can't play any one thing very well. I'm not a very good guitar player. I try to do a lot of things but that's not the same thing as being technically good. But I don't mind; the price to pay for being flawless is inhumanity. I like being the way I am, but I can't play like they can. I don't have a lot of contact with these people in my family."

Elliott Smith


"Three or four days before his death, it seemed to me that killing himself was probably the farthest thing from his mind. I mean, he was a kind of dramatic sort, so I can imagine that maybe he got swept up in some kind of drama in his mind and it got the better of him. He talked about suicide a lot. But he had told me 'I still have some more work to do, I'm gonna hang around.' I always felt like it was probably part of his neuroses and part of what fueled his inspiration was toying with the idea of leaving the planet."

Aaron Sperske


"I don't try to shut things out, because I don't think that works very well. I prefer to let things come on in and do whatever its going to do and then leave. If a big wave is coming at you, you're gonna get wet. You can either withdraw into a little shell and pretend that you're not getting wet, or you can just get wet and dry off. That's a corny metaphor, I guess, but that's how I deal with things I don't like. I outlive them."

Elliott Smith


He was so excited about finishing the Cd on going on tour again. I got to work with him in the studio a few times,
and we would talk whenever we saw each other and he ALWAYS brought up your letters.
You all made a big difference in his life.
Don't believe that he killed himself. Don't believe he wasn't clean. Don't believe he wasn't happy
Peace and love,,

Cody


"He was recording Figure8. He wasn't doing drugs at all, I think I would have been able to tell. He was drinking, but not even that much. I was going out every night to visit friends and he wasn't; he was at home working on stuff."

Mark Swanson


"For the people who knew him, the people who were around him, it was horrible. It's not this glamorous, jetsetting, beautiful lifestyle that everybody dreams of rock'n'roll heaven being. It wasn't like that at all. It was ugly. It was sad."

Wayne Coyne

"His eyes got wide, and he looked at me as if he'd seen a ghost, and said, 'My stepfather used to take me up to the attic. That's all I remember. I don't remember what he did.'"

Andrew Morgan


"Elliott was kind of all or nothing. When he decided to drink, he drank really heavily. When he decided to do heroin, he did a lot of heroin. When he decided to do crack, same thing. And when he decided to stop taking everything - same thing again. He wanted to be normal the day he stopped. He decided one day that being heavily medicated was just as bad as an addiction to heroin or crack and said, 'I'm going to stop.' He didn't go from taking 15 pills a day to 14 the next day to 13 the next day. He woke up one morning and took two pills. Half of America is on antidepressants, and everyone knows you don't quit - you wean yourself off them. Elliott just woke up and quit taking them."

Robin Peringer


Many people have deemed From a Basement on the Hill as little more than a musical suicide note. In tandem with this article, I believe that by having the poem, which he asked me to write, published on the internet that a well-needed spin will be placed on the popular interpretation that is not only facile, but also, to a large degree, damning of his bravely honest work: one portraying the painful, heartfelt and rewarding struggle to heal after years of abuse as opposed to report it as he had on previous albums.

Nelson Gary


"I haven't done anything yet that I'm ashamed of, I'm bound to f-- up sooner or later. Everybody does."

Elliott Smith


"I'm really glad they like (the songs), I get super-attached to other people's songs, too.
But there's only so much you can know about someone based on the songs they sing, or a painting they made. You can know a little bit about someone if they tell you about the dream they had last night. You still don't know what they're like during the day."

Elliott Smith


I was with Elliott less than 2 weeks before his death. He was not "well". He was in severe physical and emotional pain. He had his collarbone broken recently and he complained to me that it hurt to swallow, speak and breath. As far as sober. I do not consider being on anti-depressants sober. I am not saying that they do not work for some people (others not so much).

Ross Harris


He was a lot of things. Asshole was not one of them.

Ross Harris


I was in Reykjavik when I called home and Kath told me what had happened...one of his songs had played in the club not 15 minutes before...I responded with tears "Why'd he have to go do that?"...but I know why, he'd been suffering for a long time.

Lou Barlow


"Speaking with him reminded me that once I had gone head-to-head with Elliott Smith, musically speaking. It was the Byrd Junior High Art Contest, open to all grades. I was a pretty good pianist, so I thought I might have a chance of winning. I wrote a piano piece that sounded like a runaway train in an avant-garde film. I still think it’s pretty good. I wrote it out on staff paper, and there were a lot of notes. I was sure to win.
But when the results were published, who wins but good ol’ Steve Smith. And he wins first place with…a love song. The music and lyrics are published in the school paper. I look at the sappy thing, unbelieving. How could Paul McCartney and Wings beat Arnold Schoenberg? I immediately question the intelligence and taste of the administration, and resign myself to a life of poverty and the highest artistic standards."

Mark Pittman


you only hurt the one you love
that may be true
but better said you only hurt
the one who loves you
we went through hell
just to get to hell
die of thirst or drink up
from the poisoned well
if i kept things inside
at least i never lied
i'm not trying to document
my suicide
you won't live long
but you may write
the perfect song
please excuse
those who choose
to not play along

Sam Coomes


"I was around Elliott days before his death and he obviously was in great need of help. He had knife marks on his arms that were really deep and fresh. He wore a short-sleeved shirt almost a cry for help. Or at least that's what it seemed like to me. His girlfriend basically spoke for him. He wasn't receiving his messages from recovering addicts that telephoned him, Jennifer would always say he'll call you back. He expressed to these people he never knew they called. What's the truth and what isn't I don't know."

Nadine


"His collarbone was broken during a confrontation with security guards at a Beck concert. Not during the altercation immediately before his death. The injury at the Beck concert preceded his death by a year.

[...] That is interesting that it didn't show up on the report. He was complaining about it and visibly wincing when I last saw him. Another mystery to add to the pile. I wish the only mystery was when his next record would be out. "

Ross Harris


"In my mind, I could totally see it being like, 'Hey I'm outta here, I'm gonna do a shot and OD - game over, see ya'. But it's another thing to actually pierce yourself in the heart with a fucking knife. And that's what we've all been talking about. It's really weird that he would do it that way - or could do it that way."

Steve Drozd


"He had three really tremendous knife wounds on his left arm. They were deep, like he had to go across a couple of times or have the sharpest, biggest knife to do it."

Robin Peringer


"I came home from seeing Lost in Translation and he was lying in the bed with his arm bleeding. He had seven old cigarette burns on his arm. It was evidence of his pain from that period that was just a little too real, so he'd taken a knife to it."

Jennifer Chiba


"He used that term [prescription] in some of his poetry, and I've used it in some of my poetry. It has a lot of symbolism, both negative and positive."

David McConnell


"He was one of the more complex people I had ever met, harsh, funny, fucked-up, jock-hating, fast-picking, paranoid, abused and abusive, worldly, intelligent and insanely generous."

Imaad Wasif

[Angilbeth]

Aug 29, 2009 20:16:14 GMT -5 serendipity said:

When he was a little boy he hated to get dressed up, to wear button-up shirts. I asked him once why he didn't like to dress up. He said it was because the buttons smelled bad.
Bunny Welch

I never saw this one before.... I'm laughing and I'm crying all at the same time right now. Where is the damn Addy love smiley when you need it? :cry:

[ethan(ethanethanethan)]

thank you for bringing this here. xo

[serendipity]

“I get really upset when people say dumb, ignorant shit about him being murdered. It’s just ignorant!”

Robin Peringer (telling the harrowing story of cleaning up the blood throughout Elliott’s house after the suicide)



"I seriously hope he's okay and that he gets his sh*t together. But it would not surprise me at all if Elliott Smith ends up dead within a year."

Glorious Noise



"It was huge, totally, it completely affected everybody. We pretty much stopped touring for the most part because of that. We just went back home because it didn't seem like there was any point at the time."

Aaron Espinoza



"He really put himself through the psychological wringer in order to produce a certain kind of art. It was such an interesting attempt to use emotional turmoil to your advantage as an artist."

Benjamin Nugent



"The new record is probably the most sad because it doesn't sound like a man at the end of his rope. It's just a very, very bright light. It's an amazing record! In terms of development over the course of several records, it's sort of his Abbey Road."

Chris O'Riley



"Chiba still lives in the apartment she shared with her late boyfriend, and why not? She lived there for years before he moved in. Still, you shiver under the watchful gaze of the neighbors – or something. Did Smith want to be here? And now does he have any choice?"

Kimberly Chun


"He had three really tremendous knife wounds on his left arm. They were deep, like he had to go across a couple of times or have the sharpest, biggest knife to do it."

Robin Peringer


"I came home from seeing Lost in Translation and he was lying in the bed with his arm bleeding. He had seven old cigarette burns on his arm. It was evidence of his pain from that period that was just a little too real, so he'd taken a knife to it."

Jennifer Chiba



"A small slight laceration is noted to the palm of the left and right hand and another slight laceration is noted under the upper right arm as well. No additional external trauma is noted during the preliminary visual examination."

Lisa Scheinin


"Smith was a "cutter", it could explain the "possible defensive wounds".

Robin Peringer



"Elliott was very happy, always laughing, very upbeat, cracking jokes all the time. There was no sign whatsoever of anything like this happening."

Robin Peringer


"Fame is equated with some sort of superhumanness, and it's bad. It's not that you have to be different from everybody else to be good at something. If you really feel different from everybody else, well, there's a lot of people in the mental hospital who really feel different, you know?"

Elliott Smith



"Yeah, he was a wonderful, nice, caring, funny guy. He had some rough patches, which are well-documented, but I thought he was a total sweetheart that just felt things a bit too much, y'know?"

Kliph Scurlock



"No one can deadpan lyrics about 'giving head' quite like Lou Reed."

Elliott Smith



"When we were on tour together in 2000 and a couple of other times, he just broke down on me - I mean, everybody cries, but he was losing it really bad. It'd be six o'clock in the morning, we'd be drunk on the tour bus, and he'd just start crying his eyes out about the weirdest things. And I'll be honest, every time I saw him after that tour, it got progressively worse. I think staying in L.A., he was doomed."

Steve Drozd



"Smith, who earned an Academy Award nomination for best original song in 1997 for his song “Miss Misery” which appeared the film Good Will Hunting, began a romantic relationship with Chiba during the summer of 1999..."

Steven M. Ellis


"Jennifer stated she has known the decedent for four years and has been dating him for over one year."

Detective King



“I was the scapegoat, the easy target. Nobody wants to blame a beautiful, intelligent, talented guy like Elliott for his own problems, so let’s blame this girl that he likes.”

Jennifer Chiba



"I was going to move to New York, but now I'm not. This is where I'm from, and I'm going to stick with it."

Elliott Smith, 1997



"Don't be afraid of freaking some people out... "

Elliott Smith



"But to most of those who maintained a relationship with Smith through his recovery and were close to him when he died, Chiba “wouldn’t hurt a fly,” was “sweet and watchful and affirming” with Smith and “helped in his rehabilitation.”

Liam Gowing


"There was a dark force in Elliott's life and it wasn't him, drugs or depression, as far as I could tell. But this is only my perspective so I could be wrong. It even had a name, but I won't say it and I won't even give it a sex because that's not the point. The point is the dark force did exist for whatever reason and it did have a huge part or hold on Elliotts life.[...]
The force was around a lot more often after that and I would smile, but I always had that uncomfortable, little girl fear inside. The force had black hair and dark squinting eyes and the whitest of skin, beautiful in a haunting scary, kind of way. The force seemed arrogant and entitled and that made me uncomfortable."

Caroline


"L.A. is pretentious and lonely."

Elliott Smith




"Departing on the ill-fated tour to support Figure 8, he confided in Chiba, then just a friend. 'He said that he'd wanted to kill himself many times but didn't want his mother to get a phone call one day saying that he'd done it, so he was going to commit 'socially acceptable suicide', the slow one - alcohol and drugs - because he knew that would eventually destroy him."

Spin


"The question Smith's songs posed was, 'How could you do this to yourself?' - or 'How could I do this to myself?' Taking his songs as cautionary tales sells them short. They have less to do with avoiding the wrong path than figuring out what to do when you end up there. Telling someone 'nodoby broke your heart, you broke your own 'cos you can't finish what you start' carries the implicit demand to cast aside victimhood and take responsibility for the consequence of your actions.
These sentiments come bathed in a teeth-grit disappointment, again tinged with a kind of defiance. The people his songs picked apart have ultimately committed the crime of squandering potential. Smith doesn't say you crawling on your belly; he calls you a 'future butterfly'. Without saying it plainly, each song is a little call to arms, asking the lost souls of the world to pick themselves up and make themselves better. We all feel like lost souls sometimes, and to hold out, even in the most desolate moments, some hope for redemption is on the one hand hard to bear, but on the other hand the deepest kindness.
Songs about death are also songs about life. The bleakest depiction of the human ability to sink into degradation also carries its inverse image, the chance to take broken pieces and make a functioning whole. After the mourning, Smith's music remains - with its opportunity for us to do as he said, not as he did."

Wayne Lewis



"It's a lot easier to tell the truth usually."

Elliott Smith



"There's always that argument to make -- that you're in better company historically if people don't understand what you're doing."

Elliott Smith



"You know, some people do drugs, some people exercise. People find all kinds of ways to get out of the humdrum repetitive nature of having to be the same person all the time. But it might not be very interesting to write a song that describes the experience of jogging!"

Elliott Smith



"Anyway, his idea was that he should go jogging, so after that we went to the mall and bought him shoes and we went jogging instead. He knew he had to deal with some stuff, but at that time he thought getting exercise was going to help. I don't really know why."

MarkSwanson

[freudsassistant]

sticky

[serendipity]

"We were at Sunset Sound, and on a break we were playing basketball, and he had all these wigs and costumes. He brought out this pirate hat that somehow had an eye patch built into it. Anyway, we devised a game where we all had to take turns doing a lay-up wearing the pirate hat and patch, and we each had to do our best pirate impersonation while trying to make the shot. It was ridiculous and somehow so sweet! At least he had a light side in there at some point. I'm going to hold on to that image of him hobbling towards the the basketball hoop in pirate garb, shouting, 'Ahrrrrr!', and laughing."

Joey Waronker


"He is my cousin or was...so it was really sad when we heard he died and since it was not clear how"

Katherine Hammer


"If a song means a lot to me, I want it to mean a lot to the person who wrote it. I don't really want the person to take a step back and say, 'Oh, it has nothing to do with me, it was just an exercise. I read something in a book and thought, How intriguing.' As an audience member, I feel a little let down when people back away from their own music. If I ever read an interview with Elliott Smith and he said, 'Oh, it's all totally fiction, I'm completely well-adjusted,' I'd feel let down. I want to feel that he's courageous enough to share things that are difficult and painful."

Aimee Mann


"We talk all the time about what we do, making records, messing with gear and all that crap. Sometimes, we forget that we make friends along the way, and that those friendships are more important than anything."

Larry Crane


"I've managed to piece myself together and am presenting this entry as a response to all of my adoring fans.

I believe that Elliot Smith was murdered.

The autopsy report cited the absence of "hesitation wounds," the presence of "possible defensive wounds," and "stabbing through clothing" as atypical of suicide. In addition, the actions of Smith's live-in girlfriend, musician Jennifer Chiba, were of concern to investigators. Chiba initially told cops that she had argued with Smith, 34, in their home and, at one point, locked herself in the bathroom. Chiba emerged when she heard Smith scream, and saw him standing with "a knife sticking out of his chest." The medical examiner noted that Chiba's "reported removal of the knife and subsequent refusal to speak with detectives are all of concern."

The autopsy and actions of Chiba showed that there are significant unanswered questions. Both opinions on the matter have some supporting data. The link below, points out some things that present more questions than answers.

www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/esmithaut4.html

I was not there when the events transpired. I may be incorrect. She may be innocent. If I got to know her, maybe I'd believe her story. I can only arrive at a conclusion based upon what I know, not what I do not. By the same token, those who feel he killed himself could be wrong. I am not going to write a play-by-play of the facts and the events. Research it yourself and come up with your own conclusion.

In addition to the love letters, I received an e-mail from someone about his fan site's "no murder discussion" policy. The author claimed that Chiba took it upon herself to personally approach the webmaster, asking that they PROHIBIT any murder conspiracy discussion. I find this to be questionable, particularly given the details provided within the link above. Again, it may not be true, but it is certainly worth noting.

The ambiguity of the situation calls for tolerance of disagreement rather than angry blanket statements (or analysis of one another's logo and/or body parts). Stating that I am an emotionally stunted woman hater has nothing to do with the case despite the fact that it may be true. Remember: crazy fucking bitches kill too. My primary point is that the case should have been examined more closely. To write him off as a "depressed rocker" is foolish and irresponsible.

My feelings on the matter have very little to do with Elliot Smith. The public shrugs off deaths of famous musicians as suicide too readily, even when some facts indicate there may be more to the story. All of those who are fans of his melodic faggotry, or just plain truth, should dig deeper. While I am hardly someone of his renown, I would want someone to do the same for me if I died under questionable circumstances."

Lev Six


"He is on DreamWorks, but believe me, he's not modifying himself at all."

Aimee Mann


"I'd started to listen to Elliott Smith's XO again, and I know a lot of that seeped in. I don't know if you can hear it. Certainly for me, I think it seeped into the songwriting in a big way.'

Aimee Mann



"In person, Smith was much that his songs suggested he would not be: direct, relaxed, easy to talk to. In fact, he talked for hours and even let me interview his father, Gary, backstage in Portland. There was only one thing he would not do, and it was instructive. According to Smith, for the Spin photo shoot, he was asked to wear a tight, white T-shirt artily spattered with fake blood. "

RJ Smith


"I can’t listen to “Sgt. Pepper’s” anymore. As a musician, I’m burnt out on it — its influence has been so vast and profound. As a lyricist, I find that my ear has become more attuned to the likes of Fiona Apple and Elliott Smith,[...]"

Aimee Mann


"The more work we got done, the better he seemed to feel. He was getting shit out. Lyrically, this is the most profound record I've ever heard in my life, from any artist. I'd hear the words, and I'd just start crying. He was really speaking to his oppressors on this record - speaking directly to certain people - saying a lot of things that he just had to get off his chest, revisiting themes from his past."

David McConnell


"Yesterday I met Elliott Smith. He was standing in line in front of me at Safeway where I was waiting to pay for my apples and the good couscous you can't get at Cala Foods. Despite having spent the last three years idly stalking him and despite owning all his albums and despite that my walls are covered with his concert posters and I have his static-cling colorform thing on my car, I almost didn't talk to him. That's how shy I am.
But anyway I did talk to him as it turns out. I said "You're Elliott Smith."
He turned around and he said "Yeah," in a terrified kind of way.
I said, "You stole my friend's film." This is true. When Maggie saw him at Amoeba in SF which was right after Either/Or came out, she had her picture taken with him (he was still unfamous enough to where you could do that) and then handed him her camera for whatever Maggie reason. Then he sort of wandered off with it. A few minutes later he came back and returned the camera, but when she went home her film was gone. So I told him this story. "I understand why you'd do it," I said, "because if there were 24 strangers in the world with a picture of me, I would want 24 pictures of a stranger. To get even."
He was kind of entertained by this, in the way that indie rock boys (even sellout Dreamworks-label indie rock boys) are only ever "kind of" anything, but he denied stealing her film. (It is very possible that Maggie actually forgot to put film in the camera in the first place.)
That was pretty much it. He walked me home and we talked and all. To be honest, he's not that interesting. Or maybe we were both just too shy to say much. But at least now I am in a position to say that the new album will almost definitely for sure be out sometime soon.
Best exchange of the evening:
HIM: Not too many stars around here.
ME: Yeah, I miss that.
HIM: I used to just stare at the stars all night, just sit outside and like write songs all night and then when I wrote one I'd play it like eight times, or just a part of it over and over. Just to sort of get to know it? I guess?
ME: Sounds nice.
HIM: Yeah, but I lived in this total shithole and I had, like, a hundred neighbors and by, like, two in the morning they'd just all be screaming out the windows at me, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" You know and stuff like that.
ME: Uh oh.
HIM: Yeah, plus I was taking a lot of, like, amphetamines and different shit. So I would yell back at them but for some reason I only would yell in rhymes.
ME: Like what?
HIM: Like, um, they'd say "shut the fuck up!" and I'd say "sew the duck up."
ME: . . .
HIM: I wasn't totally coherent or anything. I usually had to rewrite the lyrics to most of the songs the next day with a hangover.
ME: That explains why they're so depressing.
HIM: Yeah, I guess..."

Kristen Larson


"I performed in the same circles as him for many years, [...]

I am playing the devil's advocate. I think that people are too ready to discount one story or another. It is important to keep the dead man's side alive, even if it is unlikely. The vast majority of you have not done your homework, but I'd expect nothing less from internet warriors. Write me directly, please, and approach it with a scientific and logical intention. Otherwise, keep on throwing slander toward blog commentary pages. You're well suited for it! For the simpleton that felt the need to throw Cobain into the mix...HA HA HA! I know more than you ever will about his case. I have no desire to prove myself so why would I post it to "xxtotalxxhardcorexx"?? It's a private ordeal. My informed OPINION is that I think Elliot was stabbed by someone other than himself. That is my opinion. I am sorry that it evokes such homicidal anger within you."

Lev Six



"I really love his music, it immediately connects to your heart if you have had a hard life, like I have had. He used to live in NYC when EF first started, we saw him around, usually when Jon Spencer was at our shows. He used to walk around the city by himself listening to tapes. His music was very deep and for real and he rocked! The last time I saw him play live was in the month before he died. I had tons of weird visions, they were more than dreams the day he died and for weeks after. It was like he was talking to me about everything. As far as I am concerned, he didn't do it."

Sal Canzonieri



"Playing things too safe is the most popular way to fail"

Elliott Smith


"I'm a huge fan of his music. I play his songs on the piano each morning. Some of the songs on the first record were written while on tour together. One song that he particularly liked (Summertime), he just went into the studio and recorded those amazing backing vocals on it. He just did it. That was the sweetest thing to hear. He was a really big influence and a super, super guy."

Shon Sullivan



"dying is another way, or like... killing your emotions is another popular way, with, you know, drugs or alcohol or whatever. "

Elliott Smith


"It's a horrific loss. It seems naive to say I'm shocked, but I am. Elliott was very focused in the past year and had exorcised the demons that had haunted him for years. He'd come to understand that if he wanted to make great records, he had to take care of himself."


"Like most great artists, he saw the world as both a beautiful and a brutal place. He found a way to explore the space in between those. Obviously, it's all the more tragic in that his songs were a dialogue between love and loss. And in the end, he didn't get the upper end of the conversation."

Luke Wood



"FANS LOVED ELLIOTT SMITH FOR HIS UNHAPPINESS AND HIS DISCOMFORT, IF ONLY BECAUSE HIS MUSIC ALLEVIATED THEIRS."

GINA GIONFRIDDO



"It is in this light that Elliott Smith's suicide seems such a terrible aberration. Recovering well from terrible periods of mental torment, it seems the destructive element within Elliott Smith surfaced as he was on the upward path to recovery. The autopsy performed on Smith however, has cast doubt on the fact that he committed suicide at all, and lends weight to other more chilling accounts of what occurred in his Silverwood home on the 21st October last year."

Peter Moore



"Generally speaking, it's not the kind method used by people who sit
around discussing the merits of various suicide methods. It's the kind
of thing one does out of desperation, when you are half out of your
mind (or completely insane) and you must end the pain quickly no
matter what.

Those people and samurai warriors (who aim for the stomach/bowels
rather than the heart). Thank god I'm neither half-insane nor a
disgraced samurai warrior. "

Pepper



"I was seduced again by the rawness and immediacy of the pain that the man was able to capture; was talented enough to shape and record; was courageous enough to share with others. Listening to this song it is so obvious how completely depressed and hopeless he was feeling in the moment of creation. Since I am not feeling low these days, my reaction is not to identify with him (as I have identified with artists in the past), but rather to resonate in sympathy. If there is a song in the universe that better captures the spirit of self-loathing and hopelessness characteristic of depression, I don't know what it is."

Mark Dombeck



"I just think of them as being real. I look for songs that are sort of happy and sad at the same time, that have conflicting feelings coexisting. I think there should be more words that represent that kind of combination. Melancholy is the only one that people really use, and that one has a huge stigma. It's essentially used to mean dark, when I think what it's actually supposed to mean is that combination.
What's the point in a one-dimensional song?There's gotta be a certain amount of darkness so the happy parts pop out. It's like a bright color. It won't look so bright surrounded only by other bright colors. It would just sort of be hard on the eye."

Elliott Smith



"As far as i am concerned, this woman is elliott smith's courtney love. you can sit in a puddle of your own apathy if you choose to, but don't attack me for pursuing answers. this entire thread has become a joke, as you all sit and argue over "being too nice omgz!" if you disagree with the post, don't reply to it. please don't clog my inquiry with your foolish banter."

Catherine Jones



"The last two weeks before Elliott died, a few strange things happened. [...]

One week before Elliott died, I heard his music in the daytime and I was shocked, I thought he must be completing his album and this was good news. [...]

The story said he was dead by suicide. I just couldn't believe it, it can't be true, it's a lie. [...]
I don't know why but the first thing I did was call Elliott's lawyer and ask him if this was true, I just didn't believe it. His lawyer said it was true. I was shocked but the first thing I thought was about the force and I wanted to protect Elliotts things, I wanted to make sure the force didn't come back and take all of his things. [...]

Apparently, Elliott had a meeting with the landlord one week before this happened and informed him that he was no longer doing business with his lawyer and that the force was now his manager. [...]

I didn't believe Elliott killed himself, gentle men don't stab themselves in the stomach or heart or wherever, they don't do that, he said he wasn't depressed, he was finishing the album, it was obvious those last two weeks."

Caroline



"It is much easier to stab someone else than oneself; therefore, suicide by stabbing is uncommon. Most deaths due to stab wounds are considered homicides. Stab wounds showing minimal penetration or wounds that barely break the skin usually identify self-inflicted stab wounds and are known as hesitation wounds. Stab wounds seen in people who have committed suicide vary in size and depth with usually only one or two “final” ones entering the chest wall or an internal organ. It is a rare individual who can self-inflict stab wounds without any evidence of hesitancy."

www.aorn.org/journal

[serendipity]

"The wife got it first hand last night.

she's known his girlfriend for sometime.

first, she's a fucking manic nutball.

second, she and elliott have had this emotional, dramatic table turning, door slamming, screaming "i hate you" type of relationship. typical for a manic and a depressed individual right? the wife has witnessed it herself in a bar one night."

Patrick


"I wanted to write about the Elliott Smith that I saw on tour, who seemed shy and fragile one minute then playing super aggressive basketball the next, whose music got me through some hard times , and when I felt bad about playing some gross club with profanity scrawled all over the ceiling, I knew Elliot was out there somewhere making beautiful music in the middle of the same kind of stink. Poets are inspired because they look up at the same sky that Wordsworth used to look at. I was inspired because I looked up at the same starscape of 'Dookie,' 'Nirvana Sux' and 'Eat Me' that Elliott used to look up at. Hopefully people will hear the song and five more people will go out and buy his records or think about what he meant. If it keeps him alive for another few minutes, then I accomplished what I wanted to do."

Ben Folds



"I don’t really do interviews about Elliott too much. I can talk a little bit about my involvement in that record, but it’s probably not gonna get past that. (...)
Rob and I said we’d do two interviews, and we did the two and that was it. One of the interviews , the person that was doing the interview fabricated that I burst into tears in the middle of the interview, which was not true."

Joanna Bolme




"Greg Dulli used his Afghan Whigs money to buy a seedy LA bar where a shy drinker came in every week who eventually introduced himself as Elliott Smith."

Mail Clerk



"I actually knew Elliott 13 or 14 years ago when the Whigs had played with Heatmiser a few times in Portland. But when I bought a bar in Los Angeles, I was bartending and co-managing it when we first opened. If I was bartending on a Monday night and there wasn’t a lot of people there, that’s when Elliott would come in. We remembered each other from Portland and still had a lot of friends and music in common. I’m not going to tell you we were best buddies because that wouldn’t be the truth. But for about a year, he would stay after the bar closed and we’d listen to the Beatles and the Hollies on the jukebox, and I’d be able to pick out everything he was stealing. Beautiful man, though.

I told somebody that the thing I felt the worst about it was not that he did it or not that I wasn’t going to get to talk to him anymore, but that I had thought about the five minutes before the act, and I think that’s probably the absolute pit of loneliness and despair."

Greg Dulli


"Certificate of Appreciation
presented to Steven Smith
whose gifts in the past year have helped provide 6000 meals for hungry boys and girls. May you be richly blessed for your exceptional love and generosity."

Larry Jones (Feed the Children)



"I'm not mocking, and there is no 'wrong doing'. I completely understand the way Elliott Smith's MUSIC means such a lot to such a lot of people. I just hate the phenomenon where prematurely dead rock stars become almost religious icons. Yes, indeed, as (I hope) well adjusted folk we may seek to pay tribute to sadly departed musical heroes of ours, but I've had a bit too much experience of people who are far from well adjusted focusing on the distress in those musicians lives and making them totems for their own self destruction.
I can't really speak for Elliot Smith, since his death was pretty suspicious, but I can say that when Kurt shot himself it was the biggest possible fuck-you he could ever have paid to his fans. How can I say... idolize the music, idolize it all you want... write articles, promote concerts, write books... but all too often we, as journalists can't resist getting involved in the human interest side, and the 'tragedy'. Fuck tragedy. There is no glory in ending your own life, no romance, just a fucking huge mess for those around you to deal with. To an extent we are talking about mourning here, and I am trying to say that it is a positive thing to celebrate his life and his music, but a negative thing to fixate on his death and the loss. The tone of the presentation is everything."

Anonymous




"If one of Elliott's musical "heroes" had died with such suspicious circumstance, I'd think he'd be more interested in the truth about that. And to want to know truth is not a bad thing. It is a natural thing to want to "KNOW". "

Brian B



"I know he was completely clean. His death was not about drugs and that's what makes me mad. He wasn't some stupid junkie on the nod."

Steve Hanft



"Throwing blame and suing people and saying in magazines that they know what's best isn't doing any good. We've all got the right to do those things, but I hope that you do understand that we're trying. I'm trying. Harder than I've ever tried. [...] try to keep in mind that things aren't always as they seem in an article or in one person's mind. There are so many perspectives, many of which haven't been heard,..."

Ashley Welch



"It seemed like he had falling outs with people all the time. It was really weird. It was almost like he sought out relationships on purpose so that he could have a falling out."

David Mc Connell




"Elliott had a good people radar. Like he knew who he should have in his life. But then when... it's almost as if, when he felt he couldn't live up to his own expectations of what it took to maintain that relationship, he messed with it. You know. Sabotage."

Margaret Mittleman


"Don't buy into the romantic myths of self-destruction that are now going to grow about Elliott. I'm still tremendously fond of the man and his work, but when I last saw him, he didn't look like himself, and there was nothing romantic about it."

Jem Cohen



"I think the thing he doesn't get credit for, and in some ways the truest thing about him, is that Elliott was hilarious. He was constantly joking, cracking people up, and I think that's really the opposite of what most people think about with him."

Slim Moon


"Happy Ending were a fresh exciting four piece alternative punk rock explosion from L.A , three girls lined up in red (well some times it's all white, gold...) at the front, boy drummer operating the glue that holds it together at the back.... they have us singing about dalmations... Classic grrrl punk/lo-fi pop/alt.rock with songs to lust after... the kind of thing you'd expect to find on a label like Kill Rock Stars.

HAPPY ENDING are/were COLOMBENE JARINGE, GILDEN TUNADOR, JENNIFER CHIBA and TOPO

And it was all buzzing and looking exciting and everyone was talking about their packed LA shows. We were all ready to put out the single here on ORG. Jenn's boyfriend Elliott Smith had been working on the recordings and, we were talking about following up the debut with an Elliott/Happy Ending split seven incher and... Well we all sadly know what happened next with Elliott... The recordings have been put to one side, the band are no more, it just best left. We'll leave it there (and please don't call us and ask us for quotes about Jenn and Elliott) "

ORG RECORDS



"pull the ripchord
the ship has lost its sail
your mama's got a new man
your daddy always fails
and you're eating again
at them
'cause nobody loves you

and even fancy things
have finally lost their charm
wine and diamond rings
they never get you anymore
you're sleeping again
alone
'cause nobody loves you

oooh
they should have seen you
should have known you
should have known what it was like
to be you

so come on kid
look at what you did
I don't know if you meant it
but you did yourself in
and I was even having a good day
when I'd found out we lost you

oooh
she said it was in the singing and the strumming
oh man I even saw it coming"

Rilo Kiley




“He never lets you on to which part of the lyric he’s lying about – that happiness or the sadness. And that’s Elliott.”

Luke Wood


"When someone that big dies – and for the people who loved Elliott his death was as big as Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain or Jim Morrison – there’s a sense of wanting to figure it out. It’s a way of displacing bad feelings."

Blake Sennett


“When they (the fans) come to the wall, they’re not happy coming, they’re not happy leaving. You’re left with these mixed feelings.”

Stephon Lew



"L.A. is pretentious and lonely."

Elliott Smith


"I really, really wanted him to live in L.A. I just thought that being close to us, and all these people i knew would be good for him (...) I feel guilty about the L.A. thing because I really thought L.A. was going to be healthy."

Margaret Mittleman



"Jon Brion played on Mary Lou Lord’s record. She told me that there was this guy knew all my songs and he might come down and play some songs with me at a live show I was playing in L.A. And I was like, “Okay.” He showed up and said he knew all my songs, and I was like, “Why?” “Because,” you know. So I said, “Let’s go through a couple things at sound check.” I didn’t think he knew all my songs at all. And he was like, “Oh, okay,” but the way he said it was sort of like, “Yeah, we can go through some stuff at sound check if you need to, but I don’t need to.” So we started going through a song at sound check, and about halfway through I was like, man, he’s not kidding. There he was, he even ended up playing on some songs that night that he hadn’t even heard before. And he was just really brilliant. He’s the most melodic, musical person I’ve ever met. He makes me feel pedestrian. He’s like our own Paul McCartney."

Elliott Smith


"Michelle and i spent every free moment of the weekend with gary and marta (elliott's dad and stepmom), and i played my new version of 'new disaster' at the taping of my radio show we did in portland, gary and marta in attendance. i announced it to the live audience as a song 'by the most important musician ever to call portland home: elliott smith'. on sunday, gary made an incredible chicken cacciatori, and i got to play on elliott's roland organ/synth from the studio, and we held his red gibson solid-body. but most importantly, we got to see gary's paintings, which are incredible. the both of them are incredible people and i miss them terribly already. a very special time."


Chris O'Riley



"I have a weird shaped head."

Elliott Smith



"Gonna grow my hair like David Bowie on the cover of 'Hunky Dory'. And it's gonna look like shit on the way. And when it gets that long... it might look like bullshit!"

Elliott Smith



"Cutting it short isn't an option because he's receding unevenly all around his pate."

Joanna Bolme




"I tried to wash my hair, but then it looked funny!"

Elliott Smith



"When I was first starting out, I made the coolest short film with Jem Cohen, who's now a much esteemed experimental film director. It's called "Never Change" and it's fantastic. Then MTV made a video out of some spoken word stuff I did and it was terrible. The worst! Then the Girl film happened and that went straight to video. It wasn't anybody's fault. They were all good people, and talented, sometimes things just don't come together. And now Paranoid, which has been like winning the lottery. Gus is my favorite film maker. Elliott Smith (who has several songs in the soundtrack) is my favorite musician. It was like if someone gave you the ultimate "wish list", that's basically exactly what I got. (...) At Cannes, when the Elliott Smith song started to play at the end, I cried."

Blake Nelson




“I remember talking to Elliott Smith for a long time about this one song he recorded and how he did it, and I was just enlightened. I’m blessed to be around a lot of fucking great songwriters. Not everyone has that. I think it’s hard not to, in some small way, have that rub off on you, or at least have it inspire you. Hopefully, I can just keep making music that moves people. I feel humbled and gracious to be able to do that.”

Blake Sennett



"Those are the two big enemies. Bitterness and style. If I can escape both, then I'll be happy."

Elliott Smith



"Just over two years ago, people were scrambling around trying to get footage of Elliott Smith. I had maybe twenty hours of live stuff of him, but it’s all audio. I started thinking, “Why didn’t I just let somebody film him?” I regretted it, not because he’s dead, but because Elliott was, in my mind, one of the greatest songwriters ever. At Largo, his audience was always a mixture of people—Marilyn Manson, people off the street—but all total fans. And they loved him; really, really loved him and wanted him to do well, but we didn’t have any footage to remember it by.(...) I really wish that a lot of people who used to play at Largo were still around. I wish people like Mitch Hedberg and Elliott Smith were still here. In a way, I’m really proud that Elliott was a part of Largo and that I got to know him, but in a way, I just really wish he was here for the filming. I mean, I think Jon Brion and Grant and everyone else are brilliant, but Elliott was such a big part in the beginning and he would just tie the whole thing together."

Mark Flanagan




"Elliott was a really sweet guy who wasn’t equipped to deal with some of the cards that life dealt him."

Mark Everett



As someone who spent time around Elliot, playing shows in pdx, common friends, etc. I want to let all of you know that this footage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCDKJCCmpD0) DOES capture a side of Elliot that was far from uncommon. He was a human with a variety of emotions. The idiots that think he was just a depressed artist are buying into a myth and selling him short!

The of my closest friends who I played with in a band during the period of this video also played in one of the bands that was on the tour. I would not consider Elliot a friend, but an aquaintance. Portland is not big, so our circles overlapped. Nevertheless, I simply grow tired of people judging him from the lyrics of his songs w/o ever having been around him. I just grow tired of people casting him as a one dimensional person: SAD.

Lcacique



"That's actually how Elliott and I became friends, because we were both hired by this crazy Lithuanian building contractor who kind of new people who knew people who were musicians. So I really got to know Elliott for a few months when we worked on this warehouse, in what is now the Peal District.
Our first job was standing on a big scaffolding and doing like drywall, like hanging, mudding, taping and painting drywall. And later I tried to start a little business. I thought, ‘well fuck man, we can make a lot of money doing drywall work and be lazy musicians, and just like go do this, like big jobs and make a lot of money out of it.’ The two of us were like the world’s most unlikely drywall team. We actually got jobs, we got like three or four jobs and bid ‘em, and ended up making probably the same amount of money and working really hard, and we ruined Elliot’s Ford Tempo that we used to drive around, we ruined the suspension on that from driving over these pot holes to work on this houseboat in Ridgeland, Washington in the middle of winter with one of those like jet-engine propane tank heaters, you know where the flames come out? So there we are, on the water and it’s really cold out in winter and we’ve got this propane bomb sucking in all this shitty warmth, trying to do plaster work on a houseboat that’s moving like this (motions waves with his hands). And we finished this job up, and I think this was the year that they had the big floods? Or at least it flooded in Ridgeland, and in the storm this particular houseboat broke into pieces and floated down the river.”

Pete Krebs




"I wanted to write country music, strangely enough, after I saw Elliott play country music. He and I were invited to play on a record by a band from San Francisco called Ain’t, they were friends of ours, and we recorded it in a studio in Northwest Portland. I was gonna play snare drum or washboard and he was going to play guitar. So he got there first, and when I arrived he was just dinking around– and you know, Elliott was a master guitar player, and he was playing this crazy-ass downhome Texas country stuff that I didn’t know he had, and I was just like, that’s the coolest thing I’ve heard in a long time, and it really peaked my interest in country music and old folk music. So that was another piece of the puzzle. That and hanging out with these guys through the Laurelthirst. But definitely hearing Elliott just like play. You know, he lived in Texas for awhile, and it probably just seeped into his bones. He probably didn’t do it very often, because I don’t think he really had a Texas sound much, but I remember that I was just floored. I was like, ‘how do you know how to do that, that’s so fucked up that you know how to do that!’ I made him show me how he was doing it. That influence is really on Western Electric."

Pete Krebs




"He sort of shut everyone out for the last three or four years, he just became really reclusive. Maybe he was in a downward spiral and he didn't want to take everyone with him?"

Mary Lou Lord



"I think the suggestion that all my songs are personal is insulting because that assumes that I have a bunch of issues that I feel the need to unload on strangers. That is not the case. It also assumes that I just talk about myself the whole time which, again, is not true."

Elliott Smith



"When I hear people sing about things that might reveal something of them, I take it as a sign of strength."

Elliott Smith


"He didn't like himself. He was turning into a person that he would hate (...) I think he sort of lost the ability to fight to be the individual that he wanted to be. And I think he was just like, fuck it, just take me on the bus. He let go of something (...) And so he just would be around people that would make life easier than being the person he really wanted to be."

E.V. Day



"People think they know all these things about other people, and if you ask them why they think they know that, it'd be hard for them to be convincing."

Elliott Smith




"Most everybody that I know, you could say they're fatally flawed in one way or another. But it doesn't matter; there are just things they can't get a grip on."

Elliott Smith


"Elliott has always been an artistic hero of mine. I gave him the script and I was shocked that he liked it and wanted to work on it. I gave the script to him, and then he dropped off the face of the earth.He went through his whole crazy time, but by the time I was done with the film, he was making From a Basement on a Hill and I was shocked that he was actually making music."
(The two reconnected and Mills screened a working version of the film for an enthusiastic Smith. The plan to score the film was revived, only this time the pair came up with the idea of recording a series of covers. )
"We didn't even know if we could possibly afford getting all the rights to the music. He had planned to cover Leonard Cohen's "Sisters of Mercy" and an unspecified Neil Young song. But that was the goal. It was just a crazy idea, but Elliott was so into it."

Mike Mills


"We wanted to emulate the Harold & Maude, Cat Stevens soundtrack a lot and I approached Elliott as one of my heroes, and he was really, really into it from the start. He was really frail, he did some covers of Cat Stevens stuff and he was working on these other things, he seemed like he was in a good way--he was working on John Lennon's "Isolation" and he had his own songs "Let's Get Lost" and then a cover of "Thirteen" and then, snap, gone. Five days later, he's gone. Somewhere on some master tape is his cover of "Isolation." But editing the film with that music that Elliott did for us--and my dad was dying at that time, too--it was a horrible time. My girlfriend and I went to a Polyphonic Spree show in that time and I asked myself, why not choose happiness? I was feeling so badly about the film at that time and that pulled me through. At the end, you know, the two really complement one another in that they both evoke The Beatles if different aspects--again that duality--of them."

Mike Mills


"Silver Lake is an amazing place to live right now. Missy, this Christian girl I met that some of our songs are about, once said that moving here from the South was like moving to Greenwich village in the mid-'60s. There's just music everywhere, an electricity in the air that you can feel. I think such things reach a critical mass and Silver Lake is there. There are so many great artists doing amazing things.
[...]
I think maybe it started with Elliott Smith dying. That was a big watershed event for everyone. It kind of brought the neighborhood together, because it was so tragic."

Mike Jollett, The Airborne Toxic Event


"Wynton Marsalis says that the 'blues' are like a vaccine - you gotta get a little to take it away. That's how it is listening to Elliott. It's so sad and heartfelt that it takes those feelings away."

Mary Lou Lord


"I do think people can go a long way on the moments of pure happiness in their lives. It's like getting a big shot of vitamins -- you don't get sick again for weeks!"

Elliott Smith



"He did not do this. I just know in my heart he did not do this. I have been so busy with our studio and touring, I did not go to the police and no one ever came here. I did check every day for news, I just wanted to have an answer. Maybe I felt after writing here that I was wrong, how dare I think such things. I don't care what anybody says, he deserves an answer, not everyone assuming it was suicide. Everyone deserves to go down in history as they choose. I knew he was straight every time I saw him in the last year and especially the weeks before he died. I knew he was straight, I believe in my heart he was straight. There is no way, that Elliott straight, would have done something that violent, no way. I am still paying for the electricity, to keep his equipment safe, while probate is going on. He was planning to finish his album, he was recording in the day time the last week, which he never did, never. And God forgive me if I am wrong about the person I believe could have had a part in it, but every instinct in my body tells me to believe they could have.

We tried to tell his parents that we believed that foul play had been involved. They seemed to not believe it, they were so calm, calmer then we were. I told his mother he was gentle and she said yes, he was gentle, gentle people, who are not on drugs, do not stab themselves twice, they don't do it. I don't know how Elliott was when he was high or drunk, but he was kind and sweet and gentle, sober, he could barely look you in the eye, but he was always kind, always.

This responsibility feels like a burden on my heart. But if anyone knows who I should contact, what division of the police is handling this case, please let me know, I have to go there, because obviously no one cares enough or they are just to busy to come here. I don't want to face the responsibility of this, I want it just to go away, but it won't and I have to go there and tell them at least what I experienced and what I know."

Caroline



"He was one of the more complex people I had ever met, harsh, funny, fucked-up, jock-hating, fast-picking, paranoid, abused and abusive, worldly, intelligent and insanely generous."

Imaad Wasif




"Dear Elliott,
I know you're never going to read this, but I have to get it off my chest. I just got a copy of From a Basement on the Hill , and I needed to talk to someone. Since you're the one that wrote the record, I thought I'd talk to you. Maybe you're reading this wherever you are?
Remember when we were at Colosso that one night, with Sean Croghan (or rather, I was with you and Sean, I tagged along), and you and I got talking. We talked about suicide. I told you that I was really depressed - stupid young adolescent shit like I couldn't get a date, was a virgin, felt like such a loser reject, yadda, yadda, yadda? And I told you I kept having these reoccurring thoughts of killing myself and that my worst fear was if I killed myself, nobody would care, my funeral would be empty?
Well, you told me that you would be sad if I killed myself. You then went on to tell me that plenty of other people would care too, all my friends and family, and that your fear wasn't that your funeral would be empty, because you knew it wouldn't. But you were scared that six months after your death, after all the grieving, people would move on, and forget about you.
I have to say you played it clever. Leave an almost finished record behind and have your family and friends finish it and release it a year after your death. By default, the release of the album a year later means you won! People remembered you more than six months later and your worst fear didn't come true.
However, just as you told me you'd be sad if I killed myself, I am deeply sad that you did. When I heard the news, from Ryan O'Neill, the other half of In Music We Trust and one hell of a great guy, I was speechless. I wanted it to be an Internet hoax. A bad Internet hoax, but an Internet hoax. So, what do I do? I pick up the phone and start calling people, anyone I had the number for. I finally got a hold of Shon Sullivan, and he was just leaving the Silverlake Lounge where, I believe, he saw Alaska! play (I could be wrong on that detail). Anyhow, Shon had sadness in his voice and was crying. I said, "So, it's true?" and he said, "Yes, Russ Pollard told me about an hour ago". I then said goodbye and sat in my bed, speechless. I couldn't believe it. I had to get on a plane only a few short hours later and go to New York, to CMJ, where all anyone did was talk about you. It was supposed to be my escape. Where your music had been my escape in the past when I was sad or hurt or depressed, this business trip to New York was going to be my escape. But, no, you're Elliott Smith, and there was no escape to be had.
On the plane to New York, I kept thinking of that one line, the one that you wrote: "Nobody's gonna drag me down to a death that's not worth cheating".
I kept repeating that line in my head, over and over again. Over and over and over again. It felt so... it felt like a lie, Elliott, I won't lie to you. It made me cry. I actually started to ball up and cry.
Why? Why? I am sure many others have asked that. But, I know that question will be answered by some, if only for comfort so they can get closure, while others will never even dare to answer it, because the truth is, nobody knows why, even if they have assumptions. Nobody knows why, except you, and, well, you did the deed and now you're gone and can't tell us why. Not even in song.
(...)
Now I sit here writing this, Elliott, to you, thinking back to that night at Colosso. How I felt renewed, somewhat confident, happy. It didn't matter I couldn't get anyone to date me. Couldn't get sex. Didn't feel like I had very many friends. You made me realize that I was loved and cared for and would be missed if I were to pass. And I hoped that in teaching me this, you would also learn the lesson for yourself."

Alex Steininger



"Heck, that was the night you helped me convince Sean Croghan to do a solo record. Jr. High had just broken up. He didn't know what he was going to do. I had just gotten a settlement check for a car accident and had some money. I wanted to start a label. We both wanted Sean to do a solo record. He didn't want to be a sad singer-songwriter like you; he wanted to rock out. But, together, as a team, we convinced him to do a solo record that night. And he followed through, as he said he would.
Though I doubted him that night, since you both were drunk. I was sure he would tell me the next day it was a drunken promise and invalid, but, because of you I believe, because he looked up to you and you were telling him how great he was and how he should do a solo record, he did. And it was my first release, and I am so proud to have released that. I still credit you with helping me convince him. I always will.
I remember us leaving Colosso. You had just bought that car off of the money you made on the American Beauty soundtrack. You and Sean got into the car, and were going to drive off. But I was worried. I didn't think you were fit to drive and tried to convince you two to let me drive you home, and leave your car there. But you two wouldn't do it. You promised me you were OK to drive.
I called Sean the next day. You both made it to your destinations in one piece. I was happy again. It made me start thinking about the night before. I was hoping that you helping me would help you. That you helping Sean, instilling confidence in him, would instill confidence in yourself as well, and everything would be OK. I would put out Sean's record (which I did). You would drive back to L.A., record many more records, take Sean on tour, and grow old, generations after generations using your music as a way to keep the bad thoughts out of their head.
From A Basement on the Hill will be medicine for many. It will help many realize there is a light at the end of a tunnel. It is an optimistic record. A record that says, "I have seen the end, I have fought it, it's not my time yet, I will struggle on". You lost the struggle. You gave up. You gave in. And took your own life. It's sad that a record this grand, this medicinal, is a lie. It's a fraud. You couldn't make it, but you made it so others will. It is for that, even though you couldn't bare to live on, if only for a moment, the moment that took you from us, that you will live on, live on through your music, and your final swan song, From A Basement on the Hill.
Elliott, I miss you. We all do. I wish I could have talked to you more, hung out more. Got to know you better. Not just through mutual friends, but through more one-on-one time. I never will now. But, thank you for the music. Thank you for the gift. And thank you for the time we did spend together.

Love,"

Alex Steininger


"I'm about to broil some catfish fillets; yesterday, i made a chocolate torte. Lots of cooking lately, although i don't really like to eat all that much, just to pass the time. But yes, i've been baking naan, roasting birds and beasts! In fact, just yesterday, I made a lamb curry with whole apricots. i need to expand my repertoire a bit , though, especially in the side dish department. I mainly just like to prepare things."

Elliott Smith



"Elliott is a good friend of Rob Schnapf, our producer. Rob has produced nearly all of Elliott's records. So he was in town and Rob said come on by and do something, so he came in. He's a shy guy, he didn't say much , but he came in and did a few things on piano and organ. It's good to have him on it."

Robert Pollard

[serendipity]

"I found out that same day... I used to work at a record store in town, and Elliott's sister worked there too and was called to the hospital from the shop. So the news spread quickly, yet was still kept under wraps. The next day when it officially broke, it was like a whole community gasped for air. We'd been holding our breath, keeping it in, and suddenly we could all say what we were thinking. Why? Wasn't he doing better? I don't know, he'd looked awful the last time I saw him... I'd heard he'd been clean for a while. Didn't he have a new record in the can? Everywhere I walked that day, it seemed Elliott Smith was on every turntable. (My brother happened to be in the Haight Ashbury the day Jerry Garcia died, and he had a similar experience. Except much more patchouli & sweat scented.)
The autopsy report came back not too long ago, and has cast doubts on the suicide ruling. Apparently, there were no "hesitation" wounds, something common to those who injure themselves. He had small cuts on his arm which could be considered defensive wounds, had taken his medication and had no illegal substances in his body. The only "witness" to the event was his live-in girlfriend who found him with the knife sticking out of his chest after she had emerged from the bathroom, where she'd locked herself in after an argument. When the cops came, she pointed out the suicide note on a Post-it, said he was into self mutilation and that she had pulled the knife out herself.
The police say the death is very suspicious. Elliott Smith was cremated. The rumor mill says his girlfriend has bolted to Canada, and won't come back.
We'll probably never know what happened. But I did hear a story, one that has made the rounds of this country told by Greg Dulli during his Twilight Singers tour. Greg and Elliott met during their Afghan Whigs and Heatmiser (respectively) days, but really became friends while Greg was tending bar at his place in Echo Park, the Short Stop. Elliott would come in at the end of the night and hang with Greg while he was closing up, and they'd chat. One night they got to talking about Shakespeare, and Elliott revealed that his favorite was Romeo & Juliet. He then acted out the lovers' suicide scene, which ends up with Juliet stabbing herself in the heart after finding her lover dead. "Oh happy dagger, find thy mark..."
Greg would dedicate "Martin Eden" to Elliott after that. It opens with, "Black out the windows, it's partytime... You know how I love stormy weather, so let's all play suicide..." He didn't tell that whole story in LA, and I think it's just as well. I know some people probably would have been very emotional about it. I greatly appreciate Elliot's music, but wouldn't consider myself an uberfan or anything. I'm glad that he was able to make it, I was able to hear it, and people were able to love it. I'm sad that his life ended in such a harsh way, self-inflicted or not, because I unfortunately know personally what it is like to have someone taken away from you unexpectedly, violently, like that. And I hope he's free of his demons now. And I also hope that the mural up the street, covered in messages, lyrics and drawings, ground strewn with flowers and candles, stays that way for a long time."

Mo



“I think aspiration to transcendence and intelligence is more than likely most people’s downfall. Easily in the artistic world. What happened in Elliott Smith’s living room is a modern day parable about what can happen. I didn’t know him well, but I did know him and I did have a deep fond affection for him. More than thinking about what he did, or the music he made before that, all I can think about is the five minutes before the act was completed. And that to me is just the absolute depth of loneliness. And that right there is why when you choose to expose yourself in an artistic way you’re putting yourself in a dangerous place.”

Greg Dulli



"To be honest, I rarely think of John Lennon as dead. There's too much life in his music to think of him as gone."

Elliott Smith



"i think she murdered him because i'm a nurse and its pretty hard to stab yourself in your own chest and punctor your ribs. not that it isn't possible but it's rare that someone would be able too."

A. Lee



"I actually know the Gurafallo brothers (twins) (and worked with one over the summer) who were pretty good friends with elliot smith and jennifer. The day Elliot smith was murdered one of the brothers went up to comfort jennifer and help her deal the the tragedy and when things settled out and they were alone, she actually admitted to him that she had killed elliot smith. Wether she meant emotionally or physically i'm not sure, i'm casting my ballot physically. "

J.S.



"It's an awful, horrible tragedy, and yet another example of the ravages of drugs. Only in a Shakespeare play, or on serious, heavy-duty drugs like heroin and crack, could you possibly stab yourself in the chest. His death means a lot to me on a lot of different levels, because whether it's him, Jeff Buckley or Kurt Cobain, male singer-songwriters seem to be particularly vulnerable."

Rufus Wainwright (10/23/2003)



"Once you become popular and you're on a major label, you're never popular enough, and he took that so personally, and became so bitter. It didn't make any sense to me, because he'd be like 'Oh, they're really mad because, you know, XO sold only 150,000 copies'. I'd be like, 'Oh fuck, that's great! But it seemed like it completely overloaded him. When he brought DreamWorks new material, the label rejected his songs, at least once. I think it devastated him. Elliott told me, back then, that they had complained about his voice, the songs he had written, and told him to clean up. The fact is, all major labels use that 'come back with a hit' line, but I think with Elliott, that tactic was irresponsible and misguided."

Lou Barlow



"Elliott was unhappy, at the moment, with the idea of doing this record for DreamWorks. He felt that to go through all the press and promotion, commercial radio, MTV - it was not something that was relevant to his career at that time. THat's wy we did a very unorthodox deal where we allowed him to put Basement out on any independent label he wanted."

Luke Wood



"Pretty soon, he wasn't our little hometown hero anymore. And frankly, I liked him best in that role, and I think he liked himself best in that role. But I don't suscribe to the idea that the machine chewed him up, or anything like that. I think he simply didn't have the structure within himself to handle being where he was."

Christopher Cooper



"I seem to exist in a pretty quiet place as far as all the stuff that can happen to people on major labels. I don't think people put a lot of unwieldy expectations on me."

Elliott Smith



The facts are not wrong. The location and direction of the stab wounds were consisted with self-infliction, but the lack of hesitation wounds is what give the investigators a possible homicide scenario. Two small wounds were found in his left hand and right arm corresponding to possible DEFENSIVE WOUNDS.
Why would you defense yourself from you if you want to kill yourself?
Plus the removal of the knife is weird. Everybody knows not to remove a knife from a stab victim cause the only thing impeding the victim to bleed out is the knife itself.

Plus who in their right mind sue the person you allegedly loved right after they died just to get money. Is a known fact that Jennifer Chibba stole items from Elliott after his death and then disappeared from the face off the earth.
A bit fishy.

Leni



It's ugly and cruel and I really need my friends to stick around, but dying people should have that right. I was hospitalized for a little while and I didn't have that option, and it made me even crazier. ... I'm not a tortured artist, and there's nothing really wrong with me. I just had a bad time for awhile.

Elliott Smith (about suicide)


"Yer Blues"

Sometimes you gotta freak out. Maybe it's cathartic; definitely unavoidable. People generally try to hide their own meltdowns, unfortunately. That's probably why it's a relief to hear a song like this one, at least for me. "Feel so suicidal, even hate my rock'n'roll!" That kind of thing is gonna get out somehow, so why not just detonate it all at once?

Elliott Smith



"To be honest, I rarely think of John Lennon as dead. There's too much life in his music to think of him as gone."

Elliott Smith

"To be honest, I rarely think of Elliott Smith as dead. There's too much life in his music to think of him as gone."

me




"In 1988 Swanson gifted the T-shirt to a friend, who consequently gave it to another friend before his death and who then after this tragic event gave it back to Swanson."




"After going out of sight, the victim turned his vehicle around and headed back toward the four young men. He stopped his vehicle three or four houses from where the defendant and the three other young men were standing, got out of his vehicle, and ran toward the four. The victim and the defendant fought. There was evidence that the victim, who was a student of karate, delivered a kick to the defendant's head and continued to attack the defendant. There was also evidence that the defendant had his knife in his right hand and that he stabbed the victim. After several seconds, the victim, who had been stabbed five times and fatally wounded by a deep stab wound to the heart, ran back to his vehicle and drove off. At Massachusetts Avenue the victim drove past his friends who had been waiting for him. Shortly thereafter he collapsed, and his vehicle went off the road."

masscases.com/cases/sjc/403/403mass659.html




hold on, you might be perfect
hold on, you might be worth it
slow down, they don't deserve it
slow down, I haven't learned yet
well, I miss you my friend
will I see your face again?
will I see you again?
and will you be smiling then?

Earlimart




"I guess I kinda blew it when I started talking to the press about Elliott right off the bat. Treble & Tremble wasn't meant to be some sort of concept record. I have this guilt thing where I don't want anybody who knew him and loved him to think that I was taking advantage of an awful situation. That's not the way it went down."

Aaron Espinoza




"Elliot was a great guy. He and I were living in the Atwater Village area at the time of his tragic death. I used to bump into him alot at a small taco stand. He was a quiet - to himself kinda guy. He was very talented and I miss seeing him around. I still believe that he did not kill himself. only "SHE" knows what happened."

prodman




"It had been more than several months since the last time I saw Mellowdrone so I was looking forward to this. I’d also never seen Elbow. The night turned out very relaxed and there was an underlying sadness to both sets. Jonathan started off the Mellowdrone set dedicating a song to Elliott Smith. The rumors were already sweeping the Troubadour that poor Elliott had killed himself. We didn’t want to believe these rumors. After an intense set of some new and old songs, my friend asked Jonathan if the rumors were true. Sadly, they were. We still didn’t want to believe even though we knew Jonathan and Elliott were friends. It was just to shocking and tragic and for a couple more hours, we held on to the belief that this was not reality. That Elliott was fighting to live and was not gone from this world."

Alyse


"I have a little bit of an older-brother feeling about him because I got to know him years and years ago when he still lived in Portland.I always felt kind of protective -- I think everybody did about him. And in the last year, I would hear all this bad shit and try to call him and say, 'You okay?' Of course, he would just pass it off. I mean, you knew it was all fucked up. A sad end -- but he sure talked the talk and walked the walk."

John Doe




"I truly hope the future will bring me something to feel nostalgic about, because there's really nothing much so far I can remember fondly."

Elliott Smith




"Nerdy, blond Todd is the kind of guy who could only fit in a place like this. He’s a collector, an archivist, a businessman, a fan and an indie historian. His five favorite Eastside bands currently are “Silversun Pickups, Earlimart, the Radar Brothers, Irving and the Brokedown.” Needless to say, Todd’s done the research. “I know all of the Silversun Pickups. Aaron from Earlimart I consider a friend. I know most Eastside bands by name, or at least by sight. Anthony Kiedis was here yesterday. He came to see the Jack Bambis at the Fuck Yeah Festival.”

But the Chili Peppers aren’t really the kind of thing that resonates over here. “ Elliott Smith used to come in here a lot. He lived up the street a bit. He was really nice. Gave me 7-inches.” Todd’s talking about a vinyl 7-inch single, not a sexual encounter with the late adopted Godfather of Silver Lake.

“Almost a holy figure in this neighborhood,” he continues in solemn tones. “All the musicians, the ages they are now were influenced by him. They liked the way he did things. His songs spoke to people. And when people met him, they really liked him.”

LAWeekly



"What, if push comes to shove is your all time favorite album?
Tough question, but you know I love the good fight. I love side two of Simon & Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence. And there's Rubber Soul, Revolver, Pet Sounds, The Bee Gees' First.....I'll quit fucking off and say Scott 3 by Scott Walker. Or Harry Smith's Folkways stuff.......OK, Either/OR and XO by Elliott Smith. He was among my very best friends, I think of him everyday, with every breath I take."

Anton Newcombe




"L.A. WEEKLY: To be blunt, does it make you sad spending so much time with Elliott Smith’s music?

Chris O’RILEY: Yeah, it does. I never met him. I’ve listened to 60 live concerts, and the big difference between him and Radiohead [is that] you can listen to five live versions of “Paranoid Android,” and none of them are much better or worse than the others. But as emotionally available as Elliott Smith was, he gives every performance a different flavor. As a performing artist he’s still incredibly alive — you’re hearing the permutations, and it’s as if he never left. And on the last record (From a Basement on the Hill), he doesn’t sound like a dying man."



"Enduring Mystery: Smith was transformed from cult miserabilist into Joaquin Phoenix–endorsed doomed genius poet as details of his drug-addled final months emerged. Adding grist to the controversy mill, a Kurt-like murder theory circulates, based on medical examiner Lisa Scheinin’s report that “possible defensive wounds” on his arms and hands “raise the possibility of homicide.”
Life After Death: Smith’s posthumous 2004 album From a Basement on the Hill hit the Billboard charts at No. 19, 80 places higher than his previous release, although super-harrowing tracks such as “Suicide Machine” were excised by Smith’s complicated estate (father Gary, birth mother Bunny and Elliott’s stepmother Marta).
In the Vault: A cache of twenty-two unreleased songs were leaked onto the Internet in fall 2005, fueling persistent rumors of another archive release, while Smith’s contributions to the soundtrack for the film Thumbsucker maintain the illusion of an artist more prolific in death than in life. The inevitable tribute album, To: Elliott From: Portland, is slated for February 2006."

Blender






"It may have been the fact that Smith's ditty, "Miss Misery" from Good Will Hunting lost the 1998 Best Original Song Academy Award to Celine freakin' Dion. Or it may have been pure dementia resulting from too much camaraderie with giddy guy friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the person who stabbed him. Regardless of the cause, the brooding troubadour was found with a kitchen knife stuck in his heart. Initial reports ruled it a suicide but later in-depth analysis by determined professionals led to the revelation that it may have been difficult for Elliott to stab himself in the chest. Twice."

Maxim


"I'm just crazy about Elliott Smith's From A Basement On The Hill - the lyrics, the music, everything about it is fantastic. There's something about his vocal melodies that I love - they remind me of John Lennon and The Beatles. It's sad music, yes, but I don't feel sad when I hear it and I listen to it all the time. And when I listen to it, I think about nothing else. It's beautiful."

Joaquin Phoenix



I would be more than happy to provide factual insight into my friends great work. Here's the thing, if it seems to me that this is a good project, I may be able to provide access to some people that were very close to him and know the truth, provided they wish to talk and as I implied, you are on the up and up."

Anton Newcombe



"I'm just kind of floating along, I guess, getting where I get."

Elliott Smith





"Its inconclusive whether was murdered or he did it himself. It is thought that it would be too painful to stab yourself twice in the chest. The fact he left a note kinda says it all though. The first time I saw him he was playing with Janet Weiss and Sam Coomes from Quasi and they just blew me away. I shared a flat with him for a short time afterwards. He will be missed by many people, myself included. Its such a waste of talent."

Kendo


"I'm not convinced he committed suicide.... his songs are more bitter sweet than they are emo, crying about shit... they are a expression if anything..... but I heard him and his junkie girlfriend were fighting.... I don't know anyone who would kill themselves by stabbing themselves in the chest TWICE!!!!! I do know a lot of people who are hopped up on drugs, and will stab you in a fight for sure..... I heard his girlfriend skipped out of the country soon after...... that makes a lot more sense to me."

Mrbungleface



"The Elliott Smith album From a Basement On A Hill is unbelievably beautiful. They're sad songs when you get into the lyrics, but I don't feel a sadness when I hear them. I'm just completely rapt."

Joaquin Phoenix




"My friend you were the model
A priceless work of art
Boys would fashion their emotions
To the pattern of your heart
And I heard you wrote that record
For a girl you loved but died
I'm here sewing mine together
Just hoping you're alive
And I know you'll never come back now
To the world where people are
Because you never understood
What they loved you for"

Bright eyes



"you will know by the way
that he cuts his eyes
looks away from the door
that walked in you
you will know it will go
down in history
how sweet he was to you
and all the others

so hand it over
cause we don't own it
it's in the mystery
our silent fantasy
cause i
nor you
could ever
know what it's like
to have the night fall
and be felled by the night
no, we don't own it

all you know is the way
that he made you feel
he made you feel safe enough
to feel at all
it's all there in the moment
you understood
that he's not going on
and you're still going on

so hand it over
cause we don't own it
it's in the mystery
our silent fantasy
cause i
nor you
could ever
know what it's like
to have the night fall
and be felled by the night
no, we don't own it

it's his story
our subtle jealousy
cause i
nor you
could ever
know what it's like
to have the night fall
and be felled by the night
no, we don't own it"

Joan as police woman



"...i ain't gonna work on maggie's farm no more...maybe charlie's farm...i've already planned to put at least a song up...maybe more than one...SOMEBODY ALREADY HAS, RIGHT?...now who might that be? THIS MESSAGE COURTESY OF THE BLETHER, but written by (h)hhelliott.

...i kiss goodbye the howling beast on the borderline that seperated you from me...(not my lyric, dammit.)


love to you all, even YOU and YERS,"

Elliott Smith




"I've had a sick feeling for a long time, but you will see LP6, IN LEGAL FORM (not that I care if people bootleg it). also, thanks for the photo album of letters and 2nd double disc. some of you sing better than me, of course. this record is not being held up by my (quite good) management or, some kind of corporate crap. I'm getting healthy after a bad time. 2 songs left to pick now from 40. i haven't died, y'know? (wished I had for awhile.) THIS MESSAGE APPEARS COURTESY OF THE BLETHER, but is from (h)hhelliott (i am not the blether, but i know...them.) sure seems like a lot of people on this thread running around with arrows in their hats. love to you all, m'friends. peace, (h)hhelliott (elliott)

...I ain't gonna work on maggie's farm no more..."

Elliott Smith



"i'm not a hero and you shouldn't be hated, but yes, e. you're completely wrong. sometimes i get TIRED. (no sarcasm implied) i slept on my f***ing arm wrong after 2 bad shows. should i have refused to try? apparently...to some...not in my opinion. i mean, if i'd cancelled with people already in the building...hmmm, same thread I guess...but i'd have felt like i let folks down without a try. performance minus risk equals BOREDOM for you and me. personally, i despise BORING PERFORMANCE. this tangled thread, however, makes me SMILE. it's my birthday today, i feel OK, so please don't infer any anger here, just a little clarification. perfection is not my ideal. it's an insult to the gods. love to you (i mean it) yer friend,
(h)hhelliott


NOT FROM THE BLETHER, but courtesy of...them, from (h)hhelliott (elliott)

...i ain't gonna work on maggie's farm no more..."


Elliott Smith



"I just want to set the record pretty straight.You can believe this post or not but I speak the truth.
1.Elliott's hand is fine now.I understand your concern but it is okay, no permanent damage thankfully. He was not on anything, he was not fucked up. He slept on his arm for the duration of the flight and lost all feeling. It was totally genuine and terribly upsetting for elliott, I reckon you guys can understand that knowing how important a functioning hand is to a guitar player !!!He didn't want to let anybody down by not playing. In hindsight maybe he should have to stop all the rumours and speculations, however ,there would still be whispers as to why he didn't play.I guess it was a no win situation for him. He had made the trip and had obviously not forseen his limb going numb for several hours, who would have Instead of speculating about his performance can you perhaps consider how courageous it was of Elliott to go onstage knowing he would have difficulty playing. He is a very honest person, that's why you all care for him so much and he didn't want to let anyone down as you all mean so much to him. I think you should consider what has just been written as it is the truth.

2.Elliott is delighted to have a manager as decent as Scott. Scott is in no way "mis-managing "him. They both have the utmost respect for one another .Scott is a fantastic manager and tremendously well respected within the music industry. He knows how Elliott works and let's him get on with it without interfering. A manger does not have to check in on his artist everyday, that's just bothersome and pointless unless there really is something to talk about that's important. He is available to Elliott 24/7.
2b.As for somebody commenting that Scott wasn't at any of the December shows, why should he have been? When touring an artist will normally have a tour manager, so why should the manager be there ......to waste money?? If Elliott had felt it necessary for Scott to be present then he would have been there, it's that simple !!

3.Elliott is still working on the album, is that not allowed?I do understand that you all want to have a copy and that it has been taking longer than "usual" but please be patient, it is definitely worth the wait. He knows you all want it to have been released 6 months ago but I know you don't want to put him under pressure to release just any old album.....yeah,I know even that may seem great right now but not really,eh?
Thank you all for your support, it really is appreciated.You all seem really nice and I've met a good few thousand of you !! Elliott is really lucky to have people like you to appreciate his music and stand by him(he's worth it).Don't worry, he's in several pairs of loving and capable hands.
Much love to you all"

the blether

[serendipity]

"I just like the idea of figure 8, of figure skaters trying to make this self-contained perfect thing that takes a lot of effort but essentially goes nowhere."

Elliott Smith




"Is music supposed to be a tool to get you somewhere else? No, it's just worth doing on its own."

Elliott Smith



" 'Hate’ll sing the ending that love started to say'

I think that is my favorite quote of Elliott Smith. And it fits today, upon hearing the tragic news. Last night, I listened to XO, not for the first time, but it sure felt like it. I got the feeling: the nervous anticipation for the next song, the butterflies in the stomach from the melodies and the need to press repeat when the album finished. This morning I found out that he died. It is a sad day, and I am left wondering why of all the chances to hear XO in such a fashion, it had to be on that night."

Rob Simonsen



"I just wanted to move out of Portland to do something."

Elliott Smith




"I don't really like New York better than Portland. It's just a different place."

Elliott Smith

"So if somebody writes a song that appears to have some meaning then everybody thinks that it's a really heavy song."

Elliott Smith







"I think that's a Western notion of demonizing inactivity. No one can be productive all the time."

Elliott Smith






"Happy Birthday Elliott.. thanks for sharing your place...

Today is Day 3 of the Everest record... an important day. Not only am I excited because it's Day 3 that I get to wake up and play music with my friends in this great sound sanctuary, but because it's also been 3 years now since we took the chance on the studio. Today, we'll honor Elliott's birthday with every breath within these walls, every smile, every note.

I feel a sense of anticipation and tension about many things in my life, but not about this studio. Every day I spend here, I go home knowing that we've done our best work and that the sound is an absolute dream come true. And every day I spend there, I go home and sleep a deep, rich sleep ... filled with a sense of pride and accomplishment. Day 1 of the album felt like what I hope my wedding day will feel like. That, and the last day of school. Happiness, Freedom, relief, and accomplishment.

Mike Terry mentioned that we've got the most elaborate setup yet in the place ... we're using the studio to its fullest. And it sounds unbelieveable. All the time, I dream and wish that Elliott would walk through the door and see the place now. I would break down crying and tell him all about what we've been through in the last three years ... all the struggle, all the joy, and all the beautiful sound.

Thank you to my studio partner Robert Cappadona, Mike Terry, Charlie Bolois, Fritz Michaud, Sweet Adeline (Charlie and the entire friend community), Ashley Welsh, the Smith extended family, Don Antacky, and most importantly ... all the bands in the last three years ... so many folks who have helped us keep this place not only open, but growing and flourishing. We're so damn proud that the studio is still here, still Elliott's place. And I am the luckiest guy in the world to be recording here.

xo,"

Joel Graves



“Oh, the domestic situation just wasn’t good. But it’s not something I want to dredge up because that’s been worked out between me and the person and they don’t need to feel bad about it forever.”

Elliott Smith




"Even though I had to play sports in Junior High in Texas because everybody in Texas has to. I played football. I played defensive guard of all things. I was not any bigger and I was always very average. I was always a little on the small side in height and weight. First I was a wide receiver which is great in junior high when nobody can throw the football. So every play you’d run out ten yards and then bump up against the guy. You hit kind of hard for about the first ten plays then the rest of the game you’re just kind of running out there and bumping up against the guy. He doesn’t want to hit you very hard either. You’re both in kind of a bad situation because he’s a corner back and you’re a wide receiver in Junior High. Then nobody would pass to me. I was even on the starting team because I could catch with my hands instead of letting the ball bounce against my chest first. Or you can catch it by letting it bounce off your shoulder pads...or your face. Then they moved me into the defensive line because...I just became aggravated by people who were bigger than me and threatening me and saying some of the things that junior high kids say. You know, when you’re down there like inches away from somebody’s head and some guy is going, “I’m going to fuck you up!” So the play starts and I’d just sort of dart out and cut him off at the knees and that was that. They’d always put the big guys by me because I was the small guy on the defensive line but I got my guy every time because I was smaller and quicker and I guess angrier in general or something. Yeah, it’s not too hard to trip somebody up. I just can’t believe I played so much sports. I can tell you it doesn’t build character by itself. Except maybe building the character to not play sports because you were forced to.”

Elliott Smith





"There's a humor and a 'fuck you' insistence in those songs which is also a weird kind of optimism, but people only seem to hear the darker tone."

Elliott Smith




"I like to think that, when I play other people's music (which is basically what i do as a classical pianist), I'm channelling them in a way; trying to get at the core idea behind the song, and fulfill the best promise the song holds, at least within the confines/parameters of solo piano. with Elliott's music, we not only have his inestimable talents on record, but a treasure trove of live performances, each showing a different way for the song to go while always holding true to the nature of the song. there's also something truly unique about Elliott's music, as testified by your own reaction to it, and my never tiring of hearing him do songs I've heard literally hundreds of times: there is no reducing them to hyper-personalized, autobiographical miniatures; they are whole realities, entire dramas self-enclosed and integral. so many songwriters strive only to 'express themselves', and end up sounding whiny and instantly obsolete. Elliott spoke of deep truths and worthy perpetual musings, philosophical in the most universal sense of the word and work."

Christopher O'Riley






“It is one of the sadder songs I suppose. I was thinking of a friend who’d passed away and when I started I was also thinking of Elliott Smith. I’d envisioned strings and a choir, but I think Mitchell was right in keeping it to a guitar and voice with a harmonium. I knew going in that this would finish it off, as a fitting way to go off into the sunset.”

Ron Sexsmith







The sun has gone
It arose but never shone
And now the day is done
Before it’d ever begun
It was such a pleasant dream
‘Til someone pulled the plug
T’ was a rude awakening
Guess it’s time we all woke up
And admit that something’s very wrong
The sun has gone
It arose but never shone
And now the day is done
Before it’d ever begun
Now I guess we’ll never know
Of the load you had to bear
When you walked that lonesome road
Did it lead you to despair?
I just hope
You’ve found some comfort there
The sun is gone
It arose but never shone
And now the day is done
Before it’d ever begun
I just hope
You’ve found some comfort there
The sun is gone
It arose but never shone
And now the day is done
Before it’d ever begun





"HERE we go... my take...

(sorry it took soo long, been crazy busy today)...

Elliott wore his Stevie Wonder shirt (for those who always care. hee hee. NO gold lame Steven... I don't think its his style... perhaps plaid go go shorts and argyle socks, but NOT leopard or gold lame.)

"That girl" on the stage is THE SAME girl he's been with forever it seems (or at least since I moved out here)... I am 99.9% sure thats his girlfriend folks... and I LIKE her. I think he seems VERY happy with her, and although being in the corner and Yoko-fied (LOL, ok, sorry to bring that topic up again... hee hee... actually one of my friends said that) was a little silly... but whatever floats his/her/their boats, ya know? She seems upbeat and normal, caring and supportive... and not in an icky way. And that's all I have to say about that.

Elliott looks healthy and happy himself. Last night seemed a bit utilitarian though, not enough half smiles and smirks for my taste. AND NO WAVE AT THE END! But he played everything to completion (except for the first which was a sound problem... yep, the sound was HORRID, AND there was a buzzing ALL NIGHT LONG, gawd. but what can you do... I DO like the ambience there and sheesh.. it was free!) and all "new" songs. (So odd to think that Silverlake Lounge was so long ago... a lot of the same songs).

It was a bit weird the way he whisked off the stage like that. For a moment there, when he left his guitar, we were thinking it was so they could tune it... although Elliott tunes his own guitars, usually, so... what a weird feeling for us in the audience though. WITH BATED BREATH we waited...

I'd like to think on some higher level that last night wasn't just a "dress rehearsal" but also a concert for those who aren't dishing out the $50 for Fri's concert... (although I'll be there.. yee!)... this one was for the masses.

The talking was SO COMPLETELY annoying, yes. I was smack up against the stage though (as always-- would you expect less of me?) and it was still such a fragile sound. Can't wait to hear it at the Wiltern."

Courtney 11/5/01





"Sometimes I slip up and read stuff, but in general I have to stop monitoring the little sea of opinions 'cos it's just not healthy to think about yourself all the time."

Elliott Smith




"The most amazing part of the show for me was that Elliott just kept going and going. He was obviously having a horrible time (he almost smashed his guitar after a string broke (the same string as in Portland) while tuning way up for Friends, which he also screwed up), but he stayed with it. Yes, I know he didn't really have much of a choice, but I still admired that he just stuck it out. After a while the show started working against him cos a small mistake in one song would seem worse after making others. I think he created some of the situation last night himself because he would stop a song in frustration after a mistake that I don't think anyone else even noticed. Then again, I don't know what standards he holds himself to. I didn't feel like standing for hours & hours, so I only made it to the middle of the floor, and I didn't hear his girlfriend telling him to just quit, as Christopher says. I really liked that he was going to try to finish one song, though, just cos he wasn't giving up. It was funny when he said "Sorry George" after messing up & quitting Give Me Love. I don't think George minded given the circumstances.

One of the perks of Elliott in screwup mode is that he talked a LOT. My favorite part of the show was when he talked about an out-of-body experience that he had last week. He talked about his house full of instruments, and how he's "all Hey Jude'd out" after covering it. I don't even remember most of what he said, but it was fun to hear him."

Peter




"Anyone would agree, gloomy singer/songwriter Elliott Smith needs the cheering up only endorphins (or possibly a strip club) can provide--and boyfriend's been workin' it! Several disbelieving onlookers reported seeing Elliott actually outside and jogging the weekend before last, in all-black sweats and a black wool cap (that MUST have been before the heat wave hit--unless E was feeling unusually masochistic). His coordinates? Pine/Pike at 12th Ave E. Gonna fly-y-y now!"

Shirley Rodell





"If you head west on Sunset Blvd., you'll eventually hit the Elliott Smith wall, located next to Malo restaurant. Elliott Smith was a singer/songwriter that was not only popular in his own musical right, but also among the Silver Lake/Echo park community. On October 21, 2003 Elliott Smith died from stab wounds to the chest due to an apparent suicide, although many would argue otherwise. After his death, a memorial was set up in front of Solutions Audio, where the cover of Elliott Smith's Figure 8 album was shot, in remembrance of his legacy."

Sarah Ardalani





"We were at Sunset Sound, and on a break we were playing basketball, and he had all these wigs and costumes. He brought out this pirate hat that somehow had an eye patch built into it. Anyway, we devised a game where we all had to take turns doing a lay-up wearing the pirate hat and patch, and we each had to do our best pirate impersonation while trying to make the shot. It was ridiculous and somehow so sweet! At least he had a light side in there at some point. I'm going to hold on to that image of him hobbling towards the the basketball hoop in pirate garb, shouting, 'Ahrrrrr!', and laughing."

Joey Waronker




"Hmm, well I’ve seen the original article that this was presumably lifted from - in the Guardian, way back in 2004, you can see it here: arts.guardian.co.uk/fridayrev...172275,00.html - and it tells a pretty different story to this which is quite a lot more balanced, suggesting possible other killers, such as drug dealers. However, I don’t know Chiba and I didn’t know Elliott but you only have to listen to his songs to know it was only a matter of time before he killed himself. He once tried to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff and was impaled on a tree instead - I wouldn’t mark him as someone afraid of sticking a steak knife in his chest. The knife wounds were consistent with self-infliction and the only question mark were the marks on his arms which are apparently a sign of defence - however these could have been inflicted by Chiba earlier in the argument, and not just before the fatal blow was dealt.
People always want to believe in these conspiracy theories when the truth is plain to see. Elliott Smith was a gifted man, but a deeply damaged one who suffered from chronic depression and sadly found little joy in life for a lot of the time. He frequently stated that he wanted to die - the truth stares us plainly in the face.
Jennifer Chiba lost her boyfriend in a horrifying way, lost her music career because of the huge amount of death threats she then received, and now you cannot even find images of her on the net, presumably for her own safety. It’s time to leave the poor girl alone. To us, this is interesting conjecture and an intriguing mystery, but to this woman it’s her life. Don’t ever forget that idle musings on this subject has caused Chiba terrible suffering and condemnation through a sentence without trial that she will likely never escape."

Sara Pickin




"After admirably uncovering the minutiae of what made Smith tick in his early years, Nugent runs into a bit of a wall trying to understand Smith’s final years in LA, in particular the final months. Nugent reveals in a caveat at the end of the book that Smith’s family and some of his closest friends wouldn’t cooperate with him. We are left with only a few paragraphs regarding Smith’s hari kari suicide. Some have suspected foul play but the authorities seem to have let it go. Nugent quotes police suspicion about the suicide (for instance, apparently most people who stab themselves in the chest take their shirt off and have “hesitation wounds” where they have prepared for the final thrust, neither of which was the case with Smith) but seems to think that Smith’s girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba, who said she was in the bathroom when Elliott stabbed himself and came out to find him walking around “with a knife in his chest”, is free from guilt. Nugent might not have wanted to dwell on macabre details about the suicide or engage in rumor-mongering, but something feels like it’s missing."

Jeremy Hurewitz





"One thing led to another and no one was certain of the details, so I made a mental note to look up the story when I returned to civilization. Its been over four years since Elliott Smith died and at least one journalist and a lot of fans, including myself, don't believe that Smith committed suicide. The details in his autopsy suggest homicide. His girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba, who called police, seemed all too eager, at least by police accounts, to explain that Smith was suicidal and had a history of drug abuse. Of course, it didn't hurt that his music tended to be dark and introspective."

Dingo




"Jenn's boyfriend Elliott Smith had been working on the recordings and, we were talking about following up the debut with an Elliott/Happy Ending split seven incher and... Well we all sadly know what happened next with Elliott... The recordings have been put to one side, the band are no more, it just best left. We'll leave it there (and please don't call us and ask us for quotes about Jenn and Elliott).'

ORG RECORDS






"Never lost for an opinion, Courtney Love called it "the best suicide I ever heard of". Although killing yourself in this way is uncommon - according to the LA Coroner's Office that dealt with Smith's death, less than 4% of suicides in 2001 and 2002 were due to "sharp force trauma", and most of those were wrist-slashings - it is not entirely unknown. You turn the knife sideways and plunge it between the ribs. It is an extremely painful way to die, a last resort for people so low they no longer care about themselves…

[Strangely enough, Courtney Love was a one time suspect in Kurt Cobain's apparent suicide, is she trying to tell us something?]"

Daniel Chan





"Turns out, despite the fact that I was working that night (I worked every night), I don't remember it at all. But Elliott Smith played in my bar. I'm guessing to about 15 people.
At first I thought it must be a mistake. Maybe there was another bar called Congo in Scottsdale in 1994/5. Surely I would remember Elliott Smith playing.
Then I read this, and knew it was my bar: "The show itself is incredible. Elliott is in top form despite noting that he was still getting over a cold. That having been said, the crowd didn't treat him all that well this show, and he sounded slightly perturbed at them a few times. "There's a lot of talkers out there tonight. Do you guys always pay $7.50 to go and talk?" ."

AB Normal






elliott song

standing in a raincoat in hollywood
pretend that people see you like i know they should
but everybody's busy, everybody rush
they better pass your way fast 'fore they see you crash
skin like rocks and diamonds,eyes that pierce right through
you're bleeding through my soul now like you say you do
but they will keep on laughing,they will think you're strange
they'll sell you in a heartbeat, they will never change
standing in a raincoat singing your song
pretend i'm good as you were but i know i'm wrong
but everybody's busy, everybody rush
they better pass my way fast 'fore they see me crash

Unlit Cigarettes



"Brendan Benson was the opening act for Heatmiser on that tour. Reporter Jeff Stark's article about a date on that tour, a December 1, 1996 show at San Francisco's Bottom of the Hill club, recalled Smith as "part charismatic rock star, part bar-band regular, oozing nonchalant confidence"."

Paul




"Elliott has committed suicide the day I wrote it. When I was fourteen, I had a really serious suicide attempt and when I heard about Elliott, it really brought me back to the place where suicide is a viable option.
He and I were both part of a circle in L.A. centered around a nightclub called Largo. Elliott was very closed and very quiet. It wasn't like he was so aware of his enormous talent -- it was always the opposite of that. Like he was scared for having to try and produce this thing that came out of him. When he sings, it's hard to deny that he's living the songs and that everything coming out of his mouth is true. It's just so fucking gorgeous. He was just so sweet and it's so fucking sad."

Rhett Miller





the believer

Activity killed you
When are you gonna find half of things that you knew in your body were wrong
I wanted to be friends with you
Now I have come to find it was mistaken
In passion nobody was wrong
And I believed you
They sat down in London
Had to be hard to be hard to keep hating yourself when these people are so well behaved
You did time in Duncanville
Part of you is living there still in a hole where the souls of the lost geared to save
And I believed you
When you said happiness
Is all you wanted
You said this
Is all you wanted
How I miss
We almost made it
Happiness
All of your good friends
All of the people like me keep a list of the things in this world that we trust
You are here in after referred to as someone who gave it a shot, gave it off, left the cruel world to us
And I believed you
You won't get nervous
You won't come down
You won't feel helpless
You won't be around anymore
Anymore
Anymore





After the mourning, Smith's music remains - with its opportunity for us to do as he said, not as he did.

Wayne Lewis



We talked for a long time that night about songwriting and art and, finally, depression. I told him that I had it pretty bad and was thinking about killing myself. He looked me in the eye and just said one word: "Don't."

Unnamed musician in Spin article 12/04





"To cap off the night, I watched "Love and Death." You can see the influence of Ingmar Bergman in this one in the way some of the faces are photographed, and also in the appearance of Death, as in "The Seventh Seal." There's another more earthy influence that is obvious - Groucho Marx. One truly hilarious moment was Diane Keaton as Sonja announcing her marriage the next day to an 81 year-old man. There's also the scene where Boris and Sonja try to knock Don Francisco unconscious with a wine bottle. A humorous sequence was set to Mozart's Magic Flute Overture, which I had to think was an homage to Bergman, whose film that year was "Trollflojten," which I just happened to watch last week.
It was rather wrenching to see Boris denied his true love of Sonja time and time again. I know that I've felt a similar pain in my heart, which is comparable to Jennifer Chiba's stabbing of Elliott Smith."

Christopher



"I think he needed to be where more people really loved him. He needed to take fast escapes from fame, and he did that in a number of ways, obviously. And at the brink of his 'comeback', he took his big escape."

Christopher Cooper



"I spent a lot of time running a skit with Elliott Smith, wherein I'm teaching him how to scat. That's probably my favorite memory of him. I'm just breaking it down syllable by syllable, and he's pretending that he's dumb and doesn't understand. We did it on a Heatmiser tour. We thought it was really funny. He was pretty big on running gags, like a joke that would come back and come back and come back. So that was fun. And really, my perspective on him is kind of skewed. I just played "Saturday Night Live" with him when he was a solo guy and went on tour with Heatmiser in their last vestiges. But yeah, he was super funny."

John Moen






"The first time I heard him sing 'I'm never gonna know you now, but I'm gonna love you anyhow' I thought I was going to pass out. Elliott matched straight-up musical skills with terrifying vulnerability without ever sounding delicate or precious. It takes a lot of courage to constantly bring your humanity to the forefront. It is the essential ingredient in musical longevity, but in the end it seems to do most people in."

Emily Haines




"Singer-songwriter Elliot Smith made solipsism a sacrament, singing of loneliness and detachment in an unforgiving world. Uncompromising in his darkness, he found legions of disaffected fans and, unexpectedly, a 1998 Oscar nomination for “Miss Misery” in Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting. The bittersweet taste of fame only hastened Smith’s unraveling. Taking a leaf from Kurt Cobain’s book, Smith nosedived into depression, heroin addiction, and, in a shrewd career move, a 2003 suicide at age 34.
Director Daniel Fish was not a hollow-eyed Smith acolyte; but when he happened upon Smith’s posthumous CD, From a Basement on the Hill, three years ago, “it blew me away,” he said. Touched by the despair of the lyrics, Fish also recognized a rueful wit behind them. At the time, Fish was mounting a production of “Hamlet” at the McCarter Theater in New Jersey, and Smith’s album provided company as Fish explored Shakespeare’s mopey Dane. After the engagement ended, the music continued to tease at his mind. “The search that Smith expresses on that record really spoke to me,” said Fish.
This summer, Fish has created a theater piece for the Spiegeltent, the outdoor cabaret at Bard’s SummerScape. Calling it “The Elliott Smith Project” (an earlier tag, “Speaking in Clowns” was discarded), Fish warns Elliottheads, “This is not a biographical piece about Smith; it’s not about his life and not about his death.” Henry Stram and Teresa McCarthy will sing the music from Basement while backed by a three-piece band.
Restless in his creativity, the guilelessly cerebral Daniel Fish is an ideal midwife for a reimagining of the Smith canon. Fish has already distinguished himself as a director at Bard. His 2005 revival of Clifford Odets’s “Rocket to the Moon” emphasized the everyman operatics of a dentist and his unfulfilled dreams. In March, Fish deconstructed the classic “Oklahoma!” at Bard. Handheld video cameras televised close-ups on monitors scattered around the stage. Actors served the audience chili at intermission. Most audacious was the suggestion that the true romance was not between cowpoke Curly and spunky Laurey but Curly and the melancholic Jud Fry.
Composer Polly Pen, who worked on Fish’s “Hamlet” and his Julliard staging of “Twelfth Night,” acknowledged the director’s fearlessness. “He’s brave in the way that anyone looking for the truth is brave. He tears things apart.”Fish began work on “The Project” last October, deciphering the text of Smith’s lyrics, which often were inaudible. He moved forward with purpose only this past March, after Smith’s family gave their approval. Reflecting this mercurial director’s creative process, the specifics of the show remain in flux. “I am creating my own narrative and it’s different all the time.” Fish is no autocrat during rehearsals. “I really try to respond very much to what’s happening in the present in the room. [It’s about] letting accidents happen; accidents play a pretty big role in the evolution of the piece.”

Jay Blotcher






"I think there's ways in which, even in pretty desperate situations, there's little micro victories inside them. And if you can highlight those..."

Elliott Smith





"It was sort of like, how do you continue to motivate and be a true partner to an artist who's gonna want to take turns and do different things, and reach his audience more directly without going through radio or MTV. I think it was really a sense of him being able to feel like he was in control of his own destiny. And he wanted to bring it down and do sort of less promotion, and focus just more on making a record and getting it out."

Luke Wood



"There was just something about the vibe that was all wrong. It was just going haywire. So we canned it, we just never released it. But they had paid for this whole record. And so part of the thought behind I Know it by Heart was, ‘well, we’ll make this cheap record and I can start paying you back.’ But fortunately, it was more than just a bail-out record. There are a lot of strong pop tunes on there, and I’d been listening to a lot of Kinks, I know that came through on there. And, this was before Elliott passed, but there were some tunes on there that had to do with Elliott and what was going on with him. So it was kind of cathartic and it was really fun to make. (...)
And, if you don’t mind talking about it, which were the songs about Elliott Smith?
Um, I’d rather just sort of leave it up to-
Let people figure it out?
Yeah, I-
I came into this not really wanting to mention Elliott Smith, because I think you get asked about him a ridiculous amount, while your own work gets glossed over.
Well, I don’t care about that. One of the things that I will say about Elliott is that there were so many people in this town that knew him a lot better than me. I’m happy to talk about it, because I feel like it’s cathartic, for one, and I’m just talking about my friend. My memories of Elliott are for the most part very happy. I know him as someone who joked around and was just hilarious. We had a lot of inside jokes and had a great time, you know? The fact that I’ve been interviewed again and again, and there’s a film that’s being made in L.A. that came up and interviewed a bunch of people. I always just sort of feel like, ‘you really should be asking (Elliott’s close friends) these questions,’ but those people have their reasons for saying what they say and not saying what they don’t say, and I totally respect that.
I have a limited experience with him. A very intense and brief experience compared to, you know, Larry Crane for example. So that’s always been kind of interesting to me.
Yeah. But then you were also around for some of his best stuff and breaking onto the national scene. It just must be weird to see an old friend become such an iconic figure.
It’s definitely weird. The moment that that really hit was when I was on Ebay one time, and they were selling Elliott Smith pillowcases.
Wow.
Yeah, that was really just like, fuck man, that’s really disturbing.

Pete Krebs





"I think he always had that button in there. That kind of self-destruction definitely accounted for his alcoholism and his drug use and the way he treated himself, the way he thought of himself. I can't say that I've met anybody quite as fragile and almost comically freaked-out as Elliott.
A lot of his really close, old friends wouldn't hear from him for months, years at a time. It wasn't him being a rock star, or being too busy -- Elliott kind of always had this aspect to him that was just crawling out of his own skin.
In Portland we got the brunt of Elliott's initial depression.We saw that a long time ago. Lots of people have stories of their own experiences of staying up with Elliott 'til five in the morning, holding his hand, telling him not to kill himself.
I don't think that anybody was really surprised, to be honest, that knew him from around here. If there's anything that people are freaked out about, or affected by, it's definitely the brutality of his act."

Pete Krebs





"While Elliott was living in Portland, drugs weren't a problem for him, he just drank and stuff. I think when he went to New York and Los Angeles, especially L.A., that's what kind of killed him in a manner of speaking. He was around people who knew him not as Elliott, but as Elliott Smith the rock star. But I think he genuinely wanted to stop feeling so bad.
I don't have a memory of him as a drug addict or as a crazy person or anything other than my friend, a really funny, really super smart, caring person."

Pete Krebs






"When I met Smith, he came across as gentle and fragile, speaking softly and slowly, pondering each question before he replied. After his in-store performance at Stinkweeds Records in Tempe, he accepted an invitation to continue drinking beer at my house. There were six other people present, one who brought an acoustic guitar, leading Smith to start a round-robin of songs -- though no one especially cared to compare their talents to his.
He played our favorites from Either/Or, covers of Neil Young and Hank Williams songs, and obscurities like "I Figured You Out," a song he wrote but never recorded, though Boston busker Mary Lou Lord had released a version of it earlier that year. Offhandedly, he told us that Lord, who had unsuccessfully pursued a romance with him, had told him he was the next Kurt Cobain, another tragic musician with whom she had a fling. Though Smith laughed it off as ridiculous, the allusion seems prophetic now. (...)
We spoke on the phone shortly before the televised ceremony, and joked about Dion pulling a Tonya Harding on him to secure the award for herself. "Yeah, some big thug guy that's abusive to her beats me with a monkey wrench to the throat, then breaks my fingers. . . . You never know," he said."

B.J. Kelley





"I've been listening to a lot of Elliott Smith in the last week. I really like him . He's one of the only artists who makes me cry. I'm a big girl, really. I read this book about Elliott Smith and he said a few weeks before he died, he came to see us play supporting Radiohead and said we were one of his favorite bands. That was really nice because we had been fans of his for a while."

Danny Goffey





" Elliott Smith- Elliott Smith

Elliott Smith's death was one of the most tragic things to happen to music. He was one of the most personal and effective songwriters out there. He still is. Not many people can match the emotional impact he brings to his music. This album is his best album. This is him at his most personal and most effective. All his other albums were great, but none can match up to this one. Every song is a treasure, and a good representation of what Elliott Smith was capable of.

The songs explore a wide variety of topics. The first song, Needle In TheHay, is a song about an addict. In fact, it could very well be the best song about drug addiction ever written. Some people may recognize it from it's perfect usage in The Royal Tenenbaums. Others may have never heard it. Well, to the people who haven't heard it, I suggest you listen to it. It is one of the most powerful songs you're ever going to hear. If you can't find it anywhere, then you could just watch The Royal Tenenbaums. Great movie. Or better yet, buy this album.

Needle In The Hay is, without a doubt, the song that will hit people the hardest. But every song should strike some sort of chord with the listener. Especially knowing that Elliott Smith has passed away makes it an even more emotional experience. One of the best songs on the album would have to be St. Ides Heaven. It's a catchy song, with the personal lyircs Elliott Smith is known for. It's a definite standout, and one of the many highlights.

Southern Belle contains the best guitar work on the album. Not only was Elliott Smith a great songwriter, he was also a fine guitar player. And this song proves that. His guitar playing is never showy, though. It's always just right for the songs. Alphabet Town makes effective use of the harmonica, and is another standout on the album. But really, there is no point in pointing out standout tracks when the album flows so well, and should be listened to in its entirety.

This album defines lo-fi and alternative folk (or whatever you want to call it). This album also defines Elliott Smith. Like I said earlier, this is him at his most honest and personal. If you are new to Elliott Smith, it is highly recommended you start with this album. It is one of the best you're ever going to hear, and that is the absolute truth. Every one of his albums should be checked out, but this is his best effort by far. And after the album is done, it will break your heart that the world lost such a genius."

SammyJay



"In one picture, Smith pulls up his hirt to display a cut-up lower back; at the exhibit's opening reception thursday night, de Wilde said Smith had gotten into a fight while standing up for a girl in a bar and fallen against a pane of glass. 'He was still mad about it, so he wanted to show me in a photo, so he could remember his pain.'"

Alina Xu





“Pretty (Ugly Before) is Elliott Smith’s first release since 2000s widely praised and adored Figure 8 full-length album. This very special single is burrowed, as always, in that spot where light fights to reach dark corners. Classic pop songs with Smith’s vocal and lyrical delivery building on and even outshining his past classics”

Suicide Squeeze






"I love words so much. I guess it makes me close to french people."

Elliott Smith




"He did not do this. I just know in my heart he did not do this. I have been so busy with our studio and touring, I did not go to the police and no one ever came here. I did check every day for news, I just wanted to have an answer. Maybe I felt after writing here that I was wrong, how dare I think such things. I don't care what anybody says, he deserves an answer, not everyone assuming it was suicide. Everyone deserves to go down in history as they choose. I knew he was straight every time I saw him in the last year and especially the weeks before he died. I knew he was straight, I believe in my heart he was straight. There is no way, that Elliott straight, would have done something that violent, no way. I am still paying for the electricity, to keep his equipment safe, while probate is going on. He was planning to finish his album, he was recording in the day time the last week, which he never did, never. And God forgive me if I am wrong about the person I believe could have had a part in it, but every instinct in my body tells me to believe they could have.

We tried to tell his parents that we believed that foul play had been involved. They seemed to not believe it, they were so calm, calmer then we were. I told his mother he was gentle and she said yes, he was gentle, gentle people, who are not on drugs, do not stab themselves twice, they don't do it. I don't know how Elliott was when he was high or drunk, but he was kind and sweet and gentle, sober, he could barely look you in the eye, but he was always kind, always.

This responsibility feels like a burden on my heart. But if anyone knows who I should contact, what division of the police is handling this case, please let me know, I have to go there, because obviously no one cares enough or they are just to busy to come here. I don't want to face the responsibility of this, I want it just to go away, but it won't and I have to go there and tell them at least what I experienced and what I know."

Caroline




"I was extremely lucky to see Elliott Smith perform five or six times before he died. Unfortunately, the last time I saw him he was so out of it he couldn't make it through one song. He kept apologizing and said he had slept on his arm on the flight to Chicago. It was sad. I idolized him. I didn't even expect him to be there that night. I was there to see Wilco, this was right before Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out. The show was put on exclusively for Northwestern University Students. Elliott Smith was the surprise opening act. Some surprise.
But when he had his shit together he was amazing. He was a great singer, song-writer and guitar player. "

Jeff





"I don't believe the guy stabbed himself in the chest; it just doesn't add up. I wouldn't be surprised if someone else did this. He was doing drugs with lowlife scum. He was around a lot of creepy people - some very negative, dangerous people."

Mark Flanagan




"Do you ever see yourself touring with Elliott in the future for major label exposure?

"Yeah, I mean, I've toured with him before. But who knows what will happen in the future. That's more his call than mine. He and I have known each other for a long time now, and it's always fun to hang out, but I know his life is pretty crazy. He may or may not have a say in that anymore. Who knows?"

Pete Krebs




steven's song

I miss you, though I never met you
And we were worlds apart
Whispered words I read
Scribbled from your head
And screaming from your heart
I never will forget that day
I was living out far away
Couldn't imagine what you would write
So then I waited all year long
Just to hear a brand new song

Swallowed up inside
Where you could not hide
Til you took your final bow
And everyone will love you
But its much too late for you

I never will forget that face
Emotions from a different place
Victim of the opposite crime
I heard that you were getting along
Thought that everyone was wrong
I said its only just a matter of time
Its only just a matter of time
I never will forget that day
I was living out far away
Couldn't imagine what you would write
So then I waited all year long
Just to hear a brand new song

Ashton Allen




"I’m sad to admit this, Portland, but I did not realize until Sunday morning that it was the four-year anniversary of Elliott Smith’s passing. No one had mentioned it to me but Spokane, Wash., my car’s likely-possessed CD player and a Smith fan’s MySpace page—not a peep out of you, Portland, not a peep.
Portland, did I somehow miss the Elliott Smith tribute show this week? Maybe it surprises you that I’m asking this question. Maybe you are thinking, “Why should there be a tribute show? Any special reason?” Maybe a great show did happen, where Portland musicians sang songs off Roman Candle and remembered the man who wrote his best songs in (and about) our city—and I just didn’t know it was going on. Maybe, Portland, you didn’t know about it, either. Hopefully, we were all just oblivious to an event that actually happened.
I started wondering about this a week ago, when I learned that Spokane was having a tribute show and I couldn’t quite figure out why. This turned out to be a highly coincidental discovery, Portland, as on Saturday morning the CD player in my car broke, making it impossible for me to eject the most recent CD I’d put in. It was Smith’s Either/Or, and I listened to it four times before I had to turn off my stereo. Later that day, I did some googling, and I learned that Walla Walla, Wash., was also holding a tribute show. (...)
Are you surprised that you forgot all about Oct. 21, too? I’m being presumptuous, Portland; I apologize. Maybe you didn’t forget. It’s possible that you remembered, even felt a little sad about it, but you probably didn’t talk about it with anyone. You probably just thought of Sunday as one more day, marking more one more year since Smith died. And I know, Portland, that you’ve done so much to keep his memory alive, from helping to release two posthumous albums (From A Basement on A Hill and New Moon) and installing a plaque at Smith’s high school, Lincoln High. I realize that LocalCut and Willamette Week have written many things about his memory—the most recent being just five months ago.
But I think, Portland, we should all feel a little bit little guilty that Walla Walla and Spokane brought musicians together to pay their respects but we—the city where Smith cut his musical teeth—just let the day go by. It’s a big month for Smith’s memory, too: Just last week, pitchfork.com reported that Smith’s former live-in girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba, lost a court case that would have given her 15% of Smith’s earnings as his “manager.” Later this month, a photo book compiled by Autumn De Wilde will be released through Chronicle Books. And we’ve let it pass without much reaction.
I’d like to feel, Portland, that Smith is so much a part of us—sneaking his influence into our songwriters, his rarely-smiling face still pictured driving up and down SE Division Street—that we don’t need a tribute to remember him. But as sad as I am that Smith is gone, I’m a little more heartbroken that it feels like this city is slowly letting him go."

Paige Richmond





" Elliott Smith was so on-point in his communication of bitterness that he inspired an audience empathy equating a license to berate whatever he wanted. He was a sincere politician of emotion, amazingly able to write an “I like my vices, leave me alone” harangue like “A Distorted Reality is Now a Necessity to be Free” and parse audience pity from a self-destructive tirade against the very people that were trying to help him clean up (and, dare I suggest, “save” him). He told the whole world to give up on him, and the whole world sang along. I, you, all of his fans would take all of this in, no matter how conflicting the message, because the whole of Smith’s work came to represent a documentation of ongoing, intriguing, and entirely relatable emotional conflict. There was something in this ascetic consistency that struck a common misanthropic chord with his huge audience.
Furthermore, because of his propensity for the pessimistic, the moments when Smith did sing sweetly about love, friendship, and optimism were rendered all the more poignant by contrast. Smith had so much bad to say, and said it so well, that when he could say something good it became indelible gospel. It took a decade of songwriting, an inexplicably alluring personality, a ghostly falsetto, a quiver of half-publicized demons, a Beatles-esque ear for melody, and some of the best scornful one-liners in rock music to slowly build up such a persuasive pied-piper status. "

Aaron Newell




“Elliott is definitely still there. He would write on anything and everything, so there were these gear cases around with scrawled verses and poems. His vibe is all over the place.”

Peter Walker






"We were both total depression junkies. We were addicted to being depressed. We were the doomsday brothers. We would go out together and sit at the bar and cry. A lot. 'Young Man's Disease' - that's what Elliott's dad called it."

Sean Croghan





"Elliott was my roommate, my friend and partner in crime. I recall feeling totally lost when he left Portland for New York. Elliott was not good with phones and once he left I knew I shouldn't expect to hear from him until he came back. I had lost my confidant, my inspiration and, most painful to me, my friend. Someday though, I hoped he would return. Unfortunately this wasn't to be. Now, not only I but the world will miss his immense talent, his shy smile and all the promise that will never be realized."

Sean Croghan




"In 2000, future Nine Black Alps singer Sam Forrest had saved his dole money to see Elliott Smith in Manchester, but missed the last train home to York and found himself wandering aimlessly outside the venue. Suddenly, along came Elliott Smith.
"He just said 'Hop on the tour bus,'" remembers Forrest. "I met him like a sad fan. I ended up begging him to tell me how to play the songs on guitar."
Something in that 21-year-old kid with the dreamy eyes obviously appealed to Smith because for three hours, he taught Forrest the entire recently released Figure 8 album."

Dave Simpson




I was watching MTV News and it was one of those times when it was just me and my wife in my house. I don’t really watch MTV because it’s all reality shows, but they were showing the reaction to Elliott Smith dying. I didn’t even know he had died, and it had been about four days since it happened.

I immediately went downstairs and wrote that song ["Bombs and Us"] because I wished so badly that I had met him. It was kind of stupid, but I kept thinking that if I had been a friend, it wouldn’t have happened.

He was a really heavy and emotional part of my music collection. A really personal part of it, and he was one of those artists that you felt like you knew. I always admired him.

You just feel like you know him.

Jim Ward


"In 2000, future Nine Black Alps singer Sam Forrest had saved his dole money to see Elliott Smith in Manchester, but missed the last train home to York and found himself wandering aimlessly outside the venue. Suddenly, along came Elliott Smith.
"He just said 'Hop on the tour bus,'" remembers Forrest. "I met him like a sad fan. I ended up begging him to tell me how to play the songs on guitar."
Something in that 21-year-old kid with the dreamy eyes obviously appealed to Smith because for three hours, he taught Forrest the entire recently released Figure 8 album."

Dave Simpson



Me to Sam Forrest at the MOCA museum, seeing that Nine Black Alps is rehearsing for their show the same night:
"Do you want to participate in a documentary that fans are trying to make about Elliott Smith?"
Sam smiling: "Oh I don't know, I would feel like an idiot talking about Elliott in front of a camera."

Laurence




"TSE: If you could play with anybody, alive or dead, who would it be?
- It’s such a close tie between Neko Case and Lucinda Williams for sure. I’ve always pictured myself meeting them or talking with them or working with them for whatever reason that is. I kind of hope that will happen. And dead, who knows man, this is hard. I guess I’m just going to say Elliott Smith because this week he’s just like the greatest, he’s my favorite musician who has passed. He’s totally self-contained. He’s doing everything himself. And the way he records, I was trying to describe it to a friend… it’s like your ear drum is going to explode but he’s whispering. The records are so loud and compressed. The sounds are actually quiet but they’re able to make them so loud when you bring them through a compressor. "

Caleb Travers



"Today's the day I realized
That I could be loved
It echoed though the park last night
He wasn't our son
He belonged to everyone

And this loss isn't good enough
For sorrow or inspiration
It's such a loss for the good guys
Afraid of this life
That it just is
Because everybody dies

And this loss isn't good enough
For sorrow or inspiration
It's such a loss for the good guys
Afraid of this life
That it just is
Everybody

And this loss isn't good enough
For sorrow or inspiration
It's such a loss for the good guys
Afraid of this life
That it just is
Because everybody dies"

Rilo Kiley



"Well I can't really say one way or the other, but it looks suspicious to me. Granted Elliott had a extensive history of drug abuse and depression and had made suicide attempts before, the fact that the suicide note was so short, that the knife had Chiba's fingerprints on it, the fact that Elliott may have had defensive wounds, the fact that the coroner couldn't rule out homocide, that she had his blood on her hands, and that she admits to being in the apartment when he died makes me suspicious.

If she was a guy and Elliott had been a girl then there is no way it would have been ruled suicide.

I think what may be the sticking point is that she probably didn't have cuts on her hands. Most stabbings --especially with knives not intended for stabbing humans-- result in the attacker winding up with cuts on the fingers of the stabbing hand due to the hand sliding up a blood-slick handle. "

GoldFalcon



"You're not necessarily depressed because you don't agree with the contrived happiness of tv culture."

Elliott Smith

[serendipity]

"I was deeply saddened to hear of Elliott's recent suicide. As I wrote for BUST magazine's "Men We Love" issue a few years back, "I moved back to Oregon the same week that saw the release of a local boy hero's second solo CD...my entire brain contracted the minute I heard his amazing songs." He and his music represent Portland to me, the way the rain leaks into everything we do. He knew how to turn that grey wet reality into something beautiful and transcendent.
I'd like it to be known that our absurd little song "Elliott Smith's Guitar" was in no way ever meant to be a pisstake. Larold and I had met up with Gail at Larry Crane's Jackpot! Studios in Portland, to which Elliott was connected. Gail pointed out his old Rickenbacker in the corner, and I of course couldn't resist plugging it in. The song immediately poured out of me, with Larold happily improvising drums. We recorded it right away; Gail proclaimed it a "brainworm" of a song; and that's how we got our name. And even though I felt cheesy about being star-struck, I was honoured to be playing Elliott Smith's guitar and improvising on the piano he had played. So our tune was meant to be a tribute, and I hope it's been taken that way."

Tiffany Lee Brown




"Elliott Smith isn’t “every day” music for me and he wouldn’t be even if the sad circumstances of his death weren’t what they are. Listening to Elliott is an exposed nerve. I have to be in a right state of mind to travel to the places his music inhabit inside me.

What are those places? Sometimes I’m drawn to the beautiful melodies he seemed to craft so effortlessly, melodies that seem to have always existed but become something more because of the special way he channeled them. Sometimes I’m drawn to the sadness, the fatigue, and the resignation. Other times he seems to have been a foreign correspondent who traveled to the dark places of the human experience and his songs are like his reports.

Beyond all that, there’s just a genuine high quality to his work. Whether doing lo-fi, spare acoustic songs or ornate pop, Smith was a craftsman and an artist. There is undeniable merit to what he was doing and sometimes I listen to him just because it’s good. His body of work, independent of what it means to listeners, is both challenging and accessible and possessed of a powerful brilliance."

Josh Hathaway



"I just graduated from Lincoln this year and have no connection to Elliott Smith other than having been really affected by his music. The memorial was my idea, to have a visible mark left on the school in memory of his time there, all that he accomplished, and the effect he’s had on so many students there. So few students, even fans, had any idea he had attended there (and even recorded a Heatmiser track on the stage).
I commissioned a bronze plaque through Just Right Awards, student artist Dash Robb and I designed it (after a meeting of fans voted on the lyric and image), and the student Executive Council funded it. I presented the idea to now former principal Peter Hamilton last winter: He was receptive although he hadn’t heard of him (it may have helped that his own secretary perked up at the name’s mention and lauded him). I found his father’s number in an old directory and got in contact and he graciously approved and has helped out all along. Since then, it’s been pretty smooth sailing although there was concern about the placement of the memorial and whether this would cause a slippery slope of memorials. But it’s up now, which I think makes it the first memorial in Portland."

Keith Brown



"It's not that it means hugs and kisses that made me like it. I like it because of the place in the letter that it's in, because it's the last thing they say to someone. A few people know 'XO' to mean 'kiss off' or 'fuck off', which is not what I had in mind, but it's sort of funny. Some people are like, 'So, is that what it is? Fuck you?!' And I'm like, 'No!'. No, that's really not what I meant."

solveig


"He opened for The Spinanes on tour in 1996. The van was peopled with me, Scott Plouf (now Built to Spill), Joanna Bolme (now Jicks and Quasi), John Moen (now Decemberists), Jason Ward (now (and then) top engineer), Erin Debenport (now Dr. Debenport) and Mr. Smith. One day I was sleeping sideways style in the shotgun seat, and woke up to Elliott staring me down with an Abe Lincoln mustache and beard made out of shiny electrical tape. I looked past him to see everyone in the van sporting some form of bewhiskered tape-created splendor.He was funny and when he laughed, it was hard not to laugh too, wildly contagious. Scott and I left all the giggling and messing about in the mix of "For No One Else" (Strand) because it was such a beautiful sound. That back and forth, Smith, Moen, I'm funny, NO I'M FUNNY."

Rebecca Gates



"Mr. Folds has the ability to make the audience laugh with the irony of his selection, while still singing the song in a very poignant manner. For a brief instant, I believed that he truly would never dance again. Even though you "had no idea who the hell" Elliott Smith was, his cover of "Say Yes" was quite sweet, as was his request that, "if anyone in the audience knows this guy, tell him to get it together and put out another album."'

Sean Keane



"Elliott Smith writes really heart breaking first person lyrics.He seems to write with blood. Every song seems to take a little bit of him.
I mean, he can bring tears to your eyes. I got to see him in Portland. He lived where we lived for years. I got to see his shows. You know in America people talk through yours shows, but him, he had like two hundred people just speechless. Yes, he is a heart breaking guy. He seemed like he lived hard and wrote hard. He wrote really hard felt stuff. And he is really good at that, expressing his depression or whatever, better than almost anybody I can think of."

Willy Vlautin


"After three incredible days off, we all awake stunned to the news of Elliott Smith's death, apparently by suicide. Stunned, shocked, but not surprised, and sad above all. The sorrow comes in waves; the sensation is as different from the loss of Kurt Cobain as Elliott Smith's music was from Nirvana's; as we all are now from who we all were then. Tonight is the Barsuk showcase at the CMJ music festival. Irving Plaza has been sold out for weeks. It's a big deal by ordinary standards, but the sadness has cast a pall over everything, making such a show seem almost indefensible. What was meant to be a big fun party will now have to serve as a wake. Smith inspired both of these bands, to say nothing of the other bands on the bill, our label, and each of us personally, a great deal. He was such an important facet of NW music, even (especially) after relocating to Los Angeles, that the thought of celebrating NW music without acknowledging his ugly, brutal, sad death was unthinkable. Just as unthinkable, however, was the thought of tainting his memory by trotting out his holy name at this crassest of crass events: a music industry convention, the exact kind of place that made him writhe with public discomfort when his star was on the rise, and which he eviscerated in the song "Angeles." It'd be glib and juvenile to suggest that the music industry killed him. But it certainly didn't lift a finger to help him. And so, and so, and so...
Everyone is wrestling with the question of how to pay tribute, or how not to. The first two bands—Kind of Like Spitting and Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter—don't mention it; they both play inspired, abbreviated sets. The Long Winters are third up. When a kid in the front row snidely demands that we "play one for Elliott," John replies soberly that every one of his songs is for Elliott Smith, because Elliott Smith influenced every one of them, because Elliott Smith inspired him to strive to be a better songwriter. The moment touches me, at least partially because I'm glad someone said something, and that it was neither gratuitous or sentimental, but real and simple. Nada Surf is up next, and they echo John's sentiments, going on to play an inspired set.
For the whole of Death Cab's set, the only reference to Smith's death is the small black "XO" struck to the breast pocket of Chris Walla's shirt. they play a lively and confident version of the show I've been seeing for the last three weeks, alternately joyful and serious, sweet and dour. (I can't help but notice, as they play "Pictures in an Exhibition," that my dancing is physically blocked by a stiff crowd of major label weasels who are too busy talking to pay attention to the show.) The high point comes at the end of the song "Transatlanticism," when all the other Barsuk musicians join the band on-stage to sing the stirring chorus of "come on, come o-o-o-o-n." Then, during their encore, as the final chords of "Blacking Out the Friction" give way to their cover of Bjork's "All is Full of Love," Ben instead sings the words to Smith's "Say Yes"—"I'm in love with the world, through the eyes of a girl..."—and a wave of recognition spreads across the packed audience with cheers and applause.
It's the perfect gesture for many reasons, not least of which because it affords a cathartic swell of emotion; in all this thinking about his death, I hadn't had a chance to remember Elliott Smith's songs, and this one in particular, which expressed such naked hope in the face of despair, had me sobbing. "Say Yes" was never one of my favorites before, but it is now."

Sean Nelson



"As I’ve said before, I saw Elliott Smith perform live more than I’ve seen about any other artist. The first time I saw him (5/6/07) was an accident really. I went to No Life Records (the long ago shuttered indie record store that was on Santa Monica Boulevard across from Formosa) for a Pete Krebs in-store and Elliott was also playing. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Elliott played earlier that day on Morning Becomes Eclectic (you can listen HERE or download HERE). Anyway, Krebs was pretty good, but Elliott Smith was amazing.

From 1997-1999 Elliott played a shitload of amazing shows around LA (especially after he moved here). I was lucky enough to see him at Spaceland, Silverlake Lounge, the Derby, the Roxy, Largo, Troubadour and El Rey. I was never friends with him, but guys like Aaron Embry, Jason Mason and Aaron Espinoza probably have a ton of great stories. I did talk to him on a number of occasions (he was always so nice) and after one of the Roxy shows I went to the Brass Monkey with a group of people and watched him do karaoke. I feel lucky to have seen him so many times during his peak period. I moved to Austin in 1999 and managed to see him a few times there. By the time I moved back to LA in 2002 the shows didn’t feel quite as magical, but were starting to get better again.

Duke



"I didn't really care that I was recording at Abbey Road Studios," Smith says with ease. "No... It was kind of a kick recording there. Just walking in the place was amazing. But when I was recording I was thinking of the songs and not that the Beatles were there. I never really thought about it all that much. There really wasn't any evidence that they were ever there."

He thinks about it for a few seconds and then casually offers,
"I made up a song on the same piano [The Beatles] used on "Penny Lane". It was fun. It was a big deal to me, but I like to play it down."

Elliott Smith



"Elliott Smith played an impromptu show in my bedroom once.It's kind of hard to think of anything that could top that."

Ashod Simonian



"One of the most touching accompanies a photo of Elliott Smith ridiculously de-linting a pair of slippers for a drunken guest. Of this, Simonian writes :'It captures Elliott in a light that many didn't see, but precisely as I remember him: warm and hilarious.' "

Portland Mercury


"Many nights (dwindled?) away at Elliott's place since he lived within stumbling distance of the bar."





It's just that a lot of songs that are popular right now, they don't have any meaning.

Elliott Smith



"He was one of the more complex people I had ever met, harsh, funny, fucked-up, jock-hating, fast-picking, paranoid, abused and abusive, worldly, intelligent and insanely generous."

Imaad Wasif



mr smith goes to heaven

waving a glass voice
itching to break
i saw your future on a stage in the rain
frail punch soldier
tired of fighting
hard to watch the weather wash your heroes away
give my regards to his liver and lungs
watch them recoup the cost
from the hole in his heart
hope we can enjoy it
have you heard the one about a black eyed dog
who chases the storm out of every song?
have you heard the one about the black eyed doggy?

Grüvis Malt


Do you have the music?
i found it there
but it's US only
so i don't know
if it actually plays the track 21

www.rhapsody.com/gruvismalt/tracks.html

solveig




"She was talking a lot about that movie, "La Jetée", which I think is really cool. It's all stills, except for one little moment where someone's eyes open, and that's the only moving part of it. There was some of that and some... not trying to cop "The Red Balloon", but there was something kind of interesting about following around an inflated thing. It could represent many things: definitely something that you have some desire for in some way or another. "

Elliott Smith




"The new songs were definitely really fun to hear you play live. I’ve listened to “Phantom Limb” so much that it seems like an old song to me…You’re living in Elliott Smith’s old house, right?

Yeah, well I guess one of them. It sounds like he’d been here for quite awhile.

And you didn’t know that at all when you bought it?

No, no, no. I wasn’t looking for…I moved up here in 2001. So, he was probably living in Los Angeles by then.

Do you feel like that’s just a neat piece of trivia, or…

I just think it’s, I mean, I love Elliott Smith, but to me…I guess it’s exciting for me for no good reason. I knew and loved Elliott, you know…it’s really kind of special. It says nothing about me, but it is interesting to me, about my house.

Do you feel like it’s an inspired place to work on songs?

Well, it has been the happiest time of my life, and I love it so much…I don’t know. It’s kinda strange to have so much affection for a physical thing, not a human, an inanimate thing, but we love it…and we’re slowly restoring it, kind of."

James Mercer



"Elliott had a heart and a brain much more rich than most people that I’d ever known. Those shows were a result of his disappointment in himself and what was happening around him in general. Even though he wasn’t making it through songs and he was just tired, it was an amazing experience to just be around him, from being his friend and seeing how he dealt with the situation. He did the best that he could in the condition that he was in and it was an amazing experience even though it was very hard to see him struggle."

Russ Pollard



"He tells us how his friend, the alcoholic folk singer Elliott Smith was the only person who didn’t laugh when an enormous fluffy white dog came into a club one day and started to hump someone’s back – because Smith desperately didn’t want to make the humpee (or the dog) feel undignified. That’s the right story. The one that gives a perfectly small and clear snapshot of the turmoil within the subject and the condition of the world around him."

Antonia Quirke



"In 1994, i had been asked to be on this five-person solo-act tour called Pop Chord with Tammy Watson, Carrie Akre, Sean Croghan and Elliott Smith. The first night at the Crocodile in Seattle, I didn't pay too much attention and people talked all through Elliott's set. Sean said during his set that it was too bad nobody listened to Elliott Smith - that they were all really missing out. The next night I listened very closely to Elliott's set. I went out to the van and listened to his CD for the rest of the night until the show was over. I watched his set very carefully every time after that, rest assured."

Slim Moon




"Hollis: Well you know the last recordings Elliott did was with Jon Spencer.
Me: Yeah, I've heard that.
Hollis: Yeah they were never released to the public. They're still somewhere in his collection his family holds. It's a shame because his evil-step father that he always hated is included in Elliott's earnings."
Me: So I was just wondering... did you ever actually meet Elliott?
Hollis: I did actually. And he even stayed with us for a little bit when we were over in LA
Me (shocked): really...
Hollis: Yeah he used to hang out with the lead singer of my band since they both did heroin and stuff like that..
Me: What was he like? I ask because I'm just obsessed with the guy..
Hollis: He was really a wreck. He just had too much stuff going on. I remember when we were going on tour with him, he had this huge bag [gestures the size] that was completely filled with pills. It was insane the amount of medication he was on.
Me: What was your impression of his girlfriend (Valerie)
Hollis: His girlfriend was utterly devout to him. She managed everything he did--the tour and basically kept him together. He tried killing himself a number of times and would cut himself. It was really awful. I mean he would talk about suicide all the time... in his songs, with friends, with me..."

Hollis



"People have let me down."

Elliott Smith



“We tried an intervention. It was ’98 or ’99, and we all met in Chicago and told Elliott we thought he had a problem. But we all had fucking problems, and who were we?”

Mary Lou Lord




“When he moved away, he said, ‘I’ll probably never, ever see you again. This might be the last time we talk, because I’m probably going to kill myself.’ He said that to everyone, to his family, his friends. I last spoke to him a year ago. He was supersick and suffering from hallucinations. He wouldn’t know where he was, and he was scared all the time that people were following him. We did a tour with him in ’99, and pretty much every time after that he was strung out or in rehab or just bonkers. He was terrified of people coming to get him."

Sean Croghan



"She was really sweet, which has made it impossible for me to dislike Celine Dion anymore. Even though I can’t stand the music that she makes -- with all due respect I don’t like it much at all -- but she herself was very, very nice. She asked me if I was nervous and I said, ‘Yeah.’ And she was like, ‘That’s good because you get your adrenaline going, and it’ll make your song better. It’s a beautiful song.’ Then she gave me a big hug. It was too much. It was too human to be dismissed simply because I find her music trite."

Elliott Smith


"Ron told us that you listened to certain types of music to try and get into this character. Can you tell us what bands you chose?
Daniel Radcliffe: Oh God, um... actually, I still have it on my iPod on my playlist. It was stuff, I recall there was a lot of Elliott Smith on there, a lot of William Mason, it was troubled guitar wielding man mainly. It was a fairly dark CD, but it helped."

Guy Davis



"There are still hundreds of tapes to go through."

Larry Crane [May 2007]



"Usually, when I start thinking about my place in the world, whatever it is, it's just kind of confusing, or irritating."

Elliott Smith




" "Tom Waits and the Attack of the Crab Monster" is the result of Elliott and I sitting in the studio for a few days straight. It was one or two in the morning, and we were downstairs, smoking and drinking, trying to finish the record [ WESTERN ELECTRIC]. The organ part that Elliott begins the song with is something he was fooling around with a lot, because there is a lot of organ on that record. I thought it was pretty hilarious, so I told him to just roll the tape and that's what came out of it."

Pete Krebs


"I really, really love Augie March - they taught me about jamming as many words as possible into a song. Listening to Thom Yorke taught me to space one phrase out over almost a whole verse. And Elliott Smith taught me about throwing horrible bitterness in there as well, and juxtaposing that against beautiful, really child-like sentiment."

Josh Pyke



"I just like moving around, because, you know, you only live once. I kinda wanna try out living in a bunch of different places and see if anything sticks."

Elliott Smith



"There was talk for awhile about Elliott and I forming a sixties type super-pop band. Kind of like what Apples In Stereo are like now. We've talked about it and stuff, but most of it is just drunken talk. We'll be sitting around and BS'ing with each other, but Elliott is so busy, Pete is so busy, and I'm so busy it just doesn't work out. Maybe someday though!"

Sean Croghan



"I think meeting Elliott would have been different had it been six months or one year later. I met him at a strip club where a friend of mine set up a Wednesday night acoustic night. Why at a strip club? I have no fucking idea. Anyway, he played one night and he called me the next week to accompany him to Seattle for a show. So, we became friends through music. I respect/respected him a great deal. His impact on my music? I don't know. Elliott is a very inspiring person to be around. He makes people feel important. I guess he made me feel important.(...) I have not spoken to Elliott for a long time, but I hope we can work together at some point."

Bill Santen



"I dedicated Greybay to my dear friend Elliott Smith."

Io Perry






"He was crying, saying that he’d told his mom and that she didn’t believe him. He said he was crying because he felt so horrible. He said he shouldn’t have been bothering her with it, that Charlie did it a long time ago, and that he’s a changed man. He felt horrible for causing her pain and bringing it up. He felt horrible that she didn’t believe him. He was crying like a baby. It was heartbreaking."

Io Perry




"I almost feel like someone could almost devise an exact methodology to prove that he was the best of our generation."

Jim Fairchild




"Elliott Smith’s contribution to music will never fade. He was a truly gifted songwriter and musician, steadfast in his "orphan at the banquet" ideals. (...) One of my best memories of him was from the tour that he took us on in 2001. We were all backstage at the Showbox in Seattle. Russ and I were rehearsing a song, and Elliott started singing along and said, "What’s that one called?" I said, "‘The Western Shore.’" He turned away and said, "I like that one."
In that second he made me feel fucking great. I wish I could have returned the feeling. I wish I’d told him how much some of his songs meant to me . . . I wish he wouldn’t have turned away."

Imaad Wasif




"I knew Elliott. I don’t pretend that I knew Elliott. Ours was a recent acquaintance, but it was no less treasured. I met him about a year ago, at the beginning of what appeared for him to be a slow rebirth following years of self-destructive behavior. He was a strange guy, acutely sensitive, but totally sweet. He didn’t say much, but when he did, you held your breath in anticipation of his thoughts, always profound and often witty. He was unflinchingly honest. His brain seemed to operate like a computer designed to accept only truth and produce only beauty. He recognized falsehood instantly, but he rejected it awkwardly, as if it threatened to crash his system. He seemed utterly unaware of his own genius and processed every compliment with total humility."

Liam Gowing



"I had an old boyfriend who knew Elliott, and he had an album of his early songs, Roman Candle, I believe, and I got to be a big fan of this local Portland album and would listen to it when we were shooting Good Will Hunting, to the point that during breaks I would put on Elliott’s music, and by that time two other solo records of Elliott’s work as well as Roman Candle. When we edited the movie, we put all of the songs into it, so the spirit and sound of the movie is largely Elliott Smith. We edited in Portland, so I finally called up Elliott, through the old boyfriend, and we had coffee and talked, then I showed him the movie on a VHS tape at my house, which was also the editing room. I said, Now, don’t be shocked too much, because we’ve put a lot of your songs in there. And normally I wouldn’t show you the movie with your songs in it, but they work so well that I want to. And Elliott seemed to be pleased with what he saw and gave us the permission to use the songs in the movie. He said after everything was over that he was happy with the experience, because his mom had something tangible to say to her friends about her son. That he was on the Academy Awards playing a song that he wrote for a movie."

Gus Van Sant

[serendipity]

"Elliott was very encouraging to me about my songs, and that meant a lot to me. (...) I’ll always remember walking offstage one night after playing "It’s a Motherfucker" and Elliott walking up behind me in the dark and patting me on the back. That’s how I will remember him."

Mark Everett





"He's really sweet. I told him: 'You're gonna have all these people marching around for you, you don't even get to carry your fucking guitar, you're not even going to tune your guitar! It's gonna happen'. And he was like [adopts Elliott's shy and somewhat sad voice]: 'Maybe in your eyes, Mary Lou...'"

Mary Lou Lord




"He was so warm and generous. I learned so much from him, not just musically, but in life as a whole. He was inspiring, hilarious, hyperintelligent and completely frustrating.
But there was always a lesson to be learned from his positives and negatives. I went over to his house so that he could help me out with a song I was stuck on. I needed some chord changes and some help with a melody (so why not ask the best, right?). We sit down at the piano together, go through the tune a couple of times, and begin to work on some chords and different melodies. He comes up with 10 different versions almost immediately. I asked him to show me again. And again. I was trying to keep up. He’s a far better piano player than I. Finally he gets frustrated and says, "You know, Aaron, maybe you should go home and work on this some more." I left. I was pissed off. I was pissed at him for not having patience, and I was pissed at myself for not being able to hang. I picked up a six-pack and drove straight to the studio, where I sat at that piano determined to finish the tune. It was great, not only did I finish it, but I used his ideas, embellished upon them and made them my own. The song has become one of my proudest achievements."

Aaron Espinoza




"I met Elliott Smith once, over two days’ time, for a profile in this newspaper. It was my first cover story, my big break. We met one night at Largo, where he played joyful Ringo-style drums with Jon Brion. The next day we played croquet in the Silver Lake back yard of his then-manager, and ate pizza at an unpretentious Italian restaurant on Vermont Street.
We talked a bit about the word melancholy. He had his own definition. To him it didn’t mean depression. "That word has a huge stigma," he said. "It is essentially used to mean dark, when I think what it’s actually supposed to mean is a combination of happy and sad." Over the next few years, I’d spot him in crowds at various bars and shows in Silver Lake and Los Feliz, but he wore an intense shyness, a cloud of privacy I thought it’d be mean to interrupt.
But now I wish I’d said some things. That our cruelties are ours to pay for, not yours. That the existentialists are a bad source of romantic notions. And that while you thought you had to die for our sins and errors and fumblings, all we wanted was for you to sing about them a thousand more times.
And when I go
Don’t you follow..."

Alec Hanley Bemis



"In 1998 I was hired to make a film for the reclusive rocker Elliott Smith. Very excited, I flew to Portland, Oregon, where he was staying and met with him to figure it out before we filmed. At the meeting he explained, in a very quiet voice, with a slight smile, that he didn't want it to be a straight-up documentary. So I suggested he write down some of his dreams. The next day, we met again, and he began talking a lot, and louder, telling me all about how he "had a fucked up dream last night". It was very funny when he explained it, everyone in and around the music business he was in was telling him to get a mechanical hand to replace the hand that he'd trained for so long to play guitar. There was also a military recruiter who came into the bar where he was writing a song that would yell at him for no reason, and Satan was there, that kills me. A lot of people who know him from his music don't understand that he was really funny. So we wrote the dream into the shot list and intercut it into the more traditional music footage. It was hard to get the documentary footage out of him, he hated being interviewed. He was much more into the dream sequence and we had a lot fun shooting it. It was an amazing experience and just knowing a guy like that, so talented and brutally honest, has changed my life. Bless him."

Steve Hanft



"Actually, I’ve been thinking about moving somewhere out of the US maybe. Get away from The Jerry Springer Show and all the angry people that live here. There’s a lot of them."

Elliott Smith



The news reminded me a lot of Elliott Smith’s death in 2003, and how disturbed I was when I heard not only that he had died, but also from self-inflicted stab wounds. I remember feeling a strange affinity to his act, the possibility that whatever emotion had caused him to do that might exist inside me too – though I have to confess that I’ve never seriously thought about suicide. But I identified with Elliott Smith as an artist and a songwriter, and so for me his death stood for the type of anger that trying to make music has at times produced in me, an anger that I too have directed at my body, though in other ways.

Tam Lin




"Near the end of The Royal Tenenbaums, Wes Anderson's storybook cinematic fable of wasted potential, the character of Richie, a disgraced world-class tennis player with a dark secret, looks soulfully into the bathroom mirror. It's impossible to say what he's thinking--he looks scared, confused, angry, on the verge.

A tensely strummed acoustic guitar spirals in the background, accompanying a hushed, faintly ominous vocal. It's Elliott Smith's "Needle in the Hay." Richie picks up a scissors and methodically, if crudely, crops his shoulder-length tresses down to the scalp. He lathers up his lumberjack beard and shaves it clean. He stares hard in the mirror, unblinking, trying to recognize the face he sees.

The music swells, whispery and unnerving. He nods slightly, pops the blade out of the razor and slashes his wrists. In the end, Richie Tenenbaum is saved.

Elliott Smith was not.

Last week he was found in his apartment in Los Angeles, dead from a self- inflicted knife wound to the chest. Sad to say, deep down nobody who knew him is really all that surprised. He lived in an orbit of despair, and he bore all the usual scars: inconsolable depression, unshakeable addictions, suicidal tendencies.

He was not a pretty man, but his music could win beauty contests. Over the course of five albums, he managed to channel a profound sadness into aching, velveteen folk-rock carols. The best of them sound like mercy itself. Eerily, his entire songbook sounds like a cry for help: harrowing, deeply wounded lyricism wrapped in gorgeous lullaby melodies.

That phrase--"a cry for help"--seems so obvious and cliched I'm embarrassed to type it. But that doesn't diminish its tragic license for truth. What makes a man plunge a knife into his chest? What makes a man jump off a bridge? Or stick a needle in his arm?

The short answer is as obvious as it is cliched: to relieve unbearable pain. That much is undeniable, and yet it explains almost nothing. As old as life itself, suicide remains the cruelest existential riddle. A surrender to the void, a fuck-you to the world. A desperate peace wrested from ordinary horror.

I don't pretend to know Elliott Smith, but I spent a week with him on tour and at his home back in 2000 when I was profiling him for Magnet magazine. From the outside he looked like the same badly drawn boy you saw peeking shyly out of the scores of high-profile magazine portraits that ran around the time he was nominated for an Academy Award for his song "Miss Misery" from Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting. He was wearing that same brown ski cap he always wore--the one that cocooned him from the world's harsher frequencies.

At the tail end of a months-long tour in support of his last album, Figure 8, he looked tired and thin. His long hair, unwashed for days, framed his ravaged face. I wrote that he looked like "Christ after three days on the cross." A bit dramatic, perhaps, but no less accurate.

He played me a new song he'd just recorded. In retrospect, the irony of the title is tragic bordering on the grotesque. It was called "A Dying Man in a Living Room."

So much of his art--bits of lyrics, album cover imagery--was a muted blare of distress. The cover of his second album, simply titled Elliott Smith, featured two people jumping off the roof of a building.

Elliot Smith was a very damaged soul. His childhood was rough, a fact underscored by his unwillingness to talk about it.

"There's not much I could say about that time that I would like to see in print," he said when I asked him about growing up. "I wouldn't want to remind any of the people involved of that time."

By his early 20s, during the flannel glory days of the early '90s Pacific Northwest, he was playing guitar in a Portland grunge outfit called Heatmiser. After three albums he quit the band, because, he told an interviewer, when you grow up around a lot of yelling and screaming, the last thing you want to do is be in a band where everyone's yelling and screaming.

He struck out on his own, making music that was the polar opposite of grunge: delicately acoustic, painfully introspective, full of flickering-candle reverie and blurred visions of personal disintegration. With each album, his audience grew--swelling with legions of crushed romantics, the desperately lonely and the clinically sad. Some listened to remember, some listened to forget.

By the time Gus Van Sant showed up, Smith had been crowned indie's sun king of rainy mood-pop. And yet even as his profile rose, he was collapsing inside. He seesawed up and down between heroin and alcoholism, full-blown depression and tenuous recovery. "Shoot me up/ It's my life," he sang with brutal honesty.

Friends staged interventions. There were hospitalizations. At some point, he told me, aided by Paxil, he simply willed himself back into the light with this personal mantra: Things are going to work out and I am never going to stop insisting that things are going to work out.

On the last day I spent with Smith, we sat outside his bungalow, tucked away in a leafy section of Silver Lake. I asked him a lot of pretentious big-picture questions about love and death and God. At one point, I asked him if he thought suicide was courageous or cowardly.

"It's ugly and cruel and I really need my friends to stick around, but dying people should have that right," he said. "I was hospitalized for a while and I didn't have that option and it made me feel even crazier.

But I prefer not to appear as some sort of disturbed person. I think a lot of people try to get a lot of mileage out of it, like, 'I'm a tortured artist' or something. I'm not a tortured artist, and there's nothing really wrong with me. I just had a bad time for a while."

Even then, I could tell he didn't really believe that. It sounded like whistling past the graveyard.

In the two years since I spent time with Smith, I'd heard discouraging things: that he had fallen off the wagon--hard. That his manager--widely seen as one of the pillars of his sobriety--had given up on him and moved on. That his record company passed on his new album, supposedly titled From a Basement on the Hill.

His people still loved him, though. He sold out the Trocadero back in June without having released an album in three years. A few weeks ago he released a limited-edition 7-inch on the Seattle-based Suicide Squeeze label which contained two songs: "Pretty (Ugly Before)" and--again, in retrospect, this is about as subtle as writing "redrum" on the mirror in lipstick--"A Distorted Reality Is Now a Necessity to Be Free." That's a long way from "things are going to work out and I am never going to stop insisting that they are going to work out."

Last week things did not work out. I don't know if he stopped insisting that they would, or he stopped believing what he was saying. Either way, 34 years was all he could stand and he couldn't take any more. We have to respect that. After all, he made it clear from the very beginning: Sooner or later the world will break your heart."

Jonathan Valania





Jeff Tweedy: "When I quit taking pills, I got so phobic about taking any kind of medication that I stopped taking all my medications. And you can't do that...But I did it and I was like, "Oh, this is great. I'm gonna be totally pure. I don't need anything!" And after about four weeks the panic became so severe that I was having trouble getting through two minutes of the day, much less the whole day. I was basically forced to go to the hospital by this panic that had become so severe, I was in the emergency room two days in a row. I just couldn't function. I was begging them to put me into a mental institution and knock me out, or do something. I just needed some relief and I didn't want to take drugs."

"From what I've been told about Elliott Smith's last days, he had gone through something similar. He had wanted to feel better, so he was quitting everything from the stuff prescribed to him that he needed, right on down to alcohol and even cigarettes. Then the panic and then paranoia - the parallels with your situation that you just described are pretty frightening. You're very, very lucky."

Jeff Tweedy: "That was the same thing that happened to me. I feel really fucking lucky I survived because [pauses] I didn't want to kill myself, but I wanted to die. I really did. I was so, so, scared. I didn't think I'd ever be normal again."

Gregg LaGambina



"I think everybody has those two irreconcilable impulses... people do battle with themselves every day, all the time. And yeah, it makes things interesting. Sometimes it sucks, but other times it results in people making a dream comprehensible to someone else. People seem so chaotic internally, but being filtered through something like making a record or making a sentence... filters it down into something that can be understood. It seems like if people didn’t communicate, they wouldn’t understand anything about themselves at all. That probably goes without saying, but..."

Elliott Smith


"Now that he's gone, I can't help thinking about a cold morning in 1994 when a friend and I crossed paths with Smith as he and his girlfriend headed towards an old diner that appears in Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy. It was bitter cold and the sun was bright and unforgiving. Smith was wearing a striped muffler, and in his greasy shoulder-length hair were two little girl barrettes. A few nights earlier Heatmiser had opened for another band at Club Portland. My friend had taken photographs of both bands as they played, and we'd looked them over at breakfast. Among the snapshots was a particularly unflattering image of Smith, the kind which the subject should by all rights be able to live their entire lives without ever having to see. With great insensitivity, my friend hauled out the photo and thrusted it in Smith's face, laughing, expecting the singer to do the same. Her gesture left me speechless, but the flicker of pain that flashed in Smith's eyes didn't go unnoticed. I wanted to curl up and die right there on the sidewalk and his remark, 'I hate looking at pictures of myself', sticks with me after all these years because his pained expression showed he really meant it."

Kathleen Wilson


"I’d like to say I got the tattoo because of the story. I do like the story, and that’s one reason. But my initial plan was just to get a tattoo of a bull, and I like Ferdinand better than I like the Schlitz Malt Liquor."

Elliott Smith




"It was between this and the Schlitz Malt Liquor bull, which I almost got at the time. Thank god I got this one."

Elliott Smith



"The thing that I like about Russian novels is there’s a lot of characters instead of just one or two main ones. In fact there can be so many that it’s difficult to remember them all. It’s like a kaleidoscope of people and it makes me feel how I feel when I can write a song. If I get stuck or get bored I usually go read for a couple of weeks and then try again. A bunch of new pictures."

Elliott Smith




"I certainly don't have fame like famous people have fame, but even the little bit that I've been privy to, there's an unspoken pressure to be more normal, whatever that means."

Elliott Smith




"We hit it off right away, talking about music and life. He treated me like I was his little brother. He was incredibly generous and kind."

Andrew Morgan






"Well, that was a long time ago, but I can tell you what i remember...The session itself took place in a basement of a house up in Portland Heights, near Ainsworth school. A basement on a hill, as it were. It was probably Jason Hornick's parents' house. I remember meeting Steve (not quite Elliott to the real world yet) and he was kind of quiet and intense with a dry and opaque sense of humor. He was serious about the music, though, even though he didn't really have all the tools yet."

"After graduating from college in 1991, I moved back to Portland for a year, and got a job selling bread and coffee at Le Panier in old town. Elliott was making sandwiches in back. I remembered him as steve, and he told me he was Elliott now, and he really did seem to be much more comfortable with himself. We'd sometimes hang out on break, and he'd make humorous references that would blow right by me. It's a real shame he's gone now. Good for him for getting some good music together before he went."

Collin Oldham



"Hello, Goodbye was inspired by Elliott Smith's death. For some reason that particular tragedy really stuck with me and seemed to hurt a bit more than many of the other horrible things that transpired that year. Of course there is a nod to the Beatles here, same song title...that sort of thing makes me a bit squeamish, but it seemed necessary. The first line is from "Tired Eyes" by Neil Young: he tried to do his best, but could not. This song is not just about Elliott Smith, but so many people I've loved, close and far, who've had terrible problems with self control."

Erik Sanden (Buttercup)


"A lot of people don't realize that Smith grew up here, in a single-parent household in Duncanville. His grandfather is a professional marimba player--even at his age, he's still a working musician with regular gigs. For an hour or so, Berryman told us stories about how Smith was a prodigy on guitar and piano by the age of 9, how he struggled with garage bands here during his teenage years and then how, out of sheer frustration, he moved to Portland, Oregon, to eventually play in the band Heatmiser.
He also spoke of Smith's favorite day job, working early in the morning at a bakery. About how much he loved the solitude and simplicity of creating a single loaf of bread. His grandfather's eyes sort of glazed over as he told a story of a camping trip they went on when Smith was a teenager. A pack of wild raccoons tried to steal some of their food, and Berryman ran out into the woods with a rifle looking for the raccoons to try and either frighten or kill them. When he got back a few minutes later, Smith was sitting by the campfire feeding potato chips to one of the raccoons by hand. "That's what kind of person he was. He wasn't about to harm or injure any living thing. He loved everything and everyone."
Tears welled up in Bill Berryman's eyes as he spoke of watching his grandson play his first sold-out solo show at Trees a few years back. Elliott Smith had returned home and showed us all what he was really made of. "Yeah, a lot of people were surprised to see an 80-year-old man hanging out at a big rock concert in the middle of the night, but I was just so proud of him. I wasn't going to miss it for anything in the world."
You could tell by the look on his face that he was just starting to come to terms with the fact that Smith was never coming back, that all of the trappings that often come with success in the music business had taken his grandson before it was his own time to go. He had walked into that record store with a big smile on his face, happy to be there, not really knowing what to expect, pleased to meet the fans who had turned up to pay their last respects.
And as we stood there at the front counter of the last dusty, dirty record store in our city, sharing a cigarette with the owner who has smoked five packs a day for the last 40 years, the two Bills looked around and saw the same thing that I had seen that morning in Echo Park--there were smoke and ashes all over everything."

Jeff Liles




"Focusing on material off of Figure 8, but, as always, playing plenty of back catalog treats, Smith delivered a near identical performance each night, from the clothes he was wearing, to the set list.
Which brings me to my biggest concern for both shows: do Elliott Smith and bassist Sam Coomes ever change their clothes? Coomes' attention getting "Bull Shit" shirt graced his body both nights, despite the sweaty performance he delivered each time. And Smith's outfit didn't change either. They may both be amazing musicians, but they might need to change their clothes more often."

Alex Steininger




"I really need to get some new clothes. A photographer brought some pictures by, and I realized that I was wearing the same shirt that was on the cover of my last record. I was like, Jesus, anybody that cares to notice is gonna be like, 'What, does this guy only have one fucking shirt? Does he ever bathe? He looks exactly the same as he did a year ago.' ""

Elliott Smith




In more recent work Swanson stretches T-shirts and treats them like the skin of animals, and as most of us know, favored clothing may at times resemble a second skin. Speaking about some of his most recent work, a mixed-media piece that includes a T-shirt that was for a time on extended loan to the late musician Elliott Smith (with whom Swanson lived for a time), Swanson explained, “That piece is elegiac, for me personally. It also includes bottles my grandmother made, and during the time I spent with Elliott, we drank a lot.”

“But it's not necessary for people to know all of these details,”

Marc Swanson



"You wouldn't think that he cared about his appearance from the clothes that he wore, but he would sometimes try on outfits for half an hour to get to the right combination of faded cords, t-shirt and baseball cap."

Andrea Manning



"That is kind of weird. I mean, it's good to have names of songs, but if no one else is going to play on them, then you don't really need names, because you don't have to be like, All right, let's play one of those that doesn't have a name. You just go, Ah, I think I'll play this one now. But then it ends up that you're playing somewhere and someone wants you to play one of them, and so they call out the name that's on the record. And so I've come to know which ones are which numbers, you know, but that wasn't supposed to be the name of the song. It was supposed to not have a name.

But anyways, I dug my own trap there."

Elliott Smith



"It still feels weird to him, but he understands that people are passionate about him and his songs. Some fans are just obsessed, and he's really great with them. But it's still awkward for him to walk into an airport or a restaurant and have people know who he is. He's uncomfortable having a car sent for him. It definitely hasn't gone to his head. He's still Elliott."

Margaret Mittleman



"He was such a better musician than I was and had such a distinctive sound that you know, I could only just do it my own way. I think we were both influenced by Portland, the old dark Portland thing crept into our music.
What do you mean by ‘old dark Portland’?
Well Portland was a lot different. I always sort of liken it to just… wet old bricks. You know, old rusty metal things. Dark skies, and, you know… I don’t know. I’ve always had this maddeningly undefinable feeling about certain bands or musicians in Portland. It was a real big influence to me, but I’ve never been able to put my finger on exactly what it was. But I hear it in the music of the Wipers, or in the music of Crackerbash. Just like, seeing them live, there’s a vibe there that’s tied into the region and the climate and the Satyricon, and you know, junkies and rain eight months out of the year."

Pete Krebs




"I think a person's darkness or lightness factor is their own point of view. I don't think Elliott Smith thought of his songs as dark. Kurt Cobain, his songs were pretty dark. Angst-ridden. And booming. And loud. Later, I realized that their songs really sounded like fallen trees and chain saws. I don't know if it was an accident or what. They lived in a lumber town. They were using a sound that was relevant to them."

Blake Nelson





"I'm happily surprised by the way things are going. I expected we would write songs we liked but we didn't know what would happen after that. I really like words, but I don't think of this as poetry. It's rock. It's a low art form."

Elliott Smith



"He loved taking a joke and running it into the ground. He would repeat it a thousand times!"

Sean Croghan



"Part of what I like about Figure 8, well, to the extent that I can like my own music, is that I like it better when it's hard to name it, you know, or to really describe it. I think it's more varied than the last record, there's more different kinds of songs and the range of emotions on it are greater. Or maybe that's just what I prefer to believe. The only thing I know is that it feels different than the other ones, and that's all I really require. (...) Sometimes I know what I was thinking (when I wrote the songs), and sometimes I only have theories about what I was thinking, that change from time to time. And even if I knew what I was thinking, I wouldn't necessarily want to talk about it. "

Elliott Smith





"The interesting thing for me is trying to make a song out of the words that draws, at least, my attention. It's the same way that the verse and chorus kind of pull you along. The lyrics should be doing the same thing. It seems like with the majority of bands, their interest is primarily in the music and the words are just something that has to be done. There's not as much adventurousness in lyrics; certainly not as much as there is with the music."

Elliott Smith

[serendipity]

"I'm not Mick Jagger. I don't dress up in a costume and pretend that I'm 20 years old."

Elliott Smith



"I want to be both John Lennon and Paul McCartney at once."

Elliott Smith


"I don't know that the recording industry system made Elliott Smith do it a few weeks ago, but ... I used to play with Heatmiser . Elliott used to come into the Shortstop at night. It's like, you look at a guy, he looks at you, you remember where you met. I'm not saying we were best buddies, but I did consider him a friend, his loss is my loss. ...
He was also incredibly funny and could be really sociable. I'm not going to sit here and say I'm shocked, because I've seen him before and I've seen people look better. I saw Layne Staley waste away. But people come back. People had Mark Lanegan marked for death, but he came back — he's house-sitting for me now(...) I can't cover Nirvana or Elliott Smith. I can't. I knew those guys ... I'll talk on stage, and talk about Kurt on stage. ... Maybe as time passes, but right now, I'm alive, and I'm not going to do a Smith cover. That's how I'm feeling about that now — right now I think it would be in bad taste, I think it would be slightly necromantic."

Greg Dulli




"Elliott Smith in my opinion should be regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of our time, his tales of melancholy, love lost, sadness, loneliness have touched anyone who has ever suffered from any of them. His melodies were perfect, enough to stand up against the finest of McCartney’s and Wilson’s his lyrics too. Sadly though, until an oscar nomination for “Miss Misery” from the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, his work went largely unnoticed. And with his untimely death on October 21st a hole for another songwriter who is truly brilliant has been left unfilled."

Ross Drummond




" When I first moved to Los Angeles a thousand years ago, one of the first bars I set foot in was The Roost in Atwater Village. It was only my third or fourth night in town, and at the table next to us Elliott Smith's birthday party was going on, which led me to assume that anytime you go anywhere in L.A. there's sure to be birthday-celebrating rock stars just popping out of the woodwork. (Which turns out to be completely untrue, but oh wellskis.) It was about two and a half months before Elliott died, and Lou Barlow was there and they played "Happy Birthday" on the jukebox and brought out a big chocolate cake and everybody sang. I remember thinking it made sense that Elliott was a Leo, since he kinda looked like a lion."

Liz



"Tragic, unconfirmed reports have come in that Elliott Smith has taken his own life at the age of 34. Various rumors circulated the internet throughout Tuesday (October 21st) and then finally Charlie Ramirez, the webmaster of Elliott Smith's official website, Sweetadeline.net, posted an obituary on the site. Early Wednesday morning MTV News was reporting that Smith's body was found in his Silverlake, Los Angeles, apartment by a female friend, with a knife wound that appeared to be self-inflicted. He was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead at approximately 12:18 PM on Tuesday. We are very saddened by the loss of such a gentle soul and musical genius, and our thoughts go out to his loved ones.

He was born Steven Paul Elliott Smith in Omaha, Nebraska on August 6, 1969. He first came to the attention of music fans as a member of the band Heatmiser, but truly made a name for himself when he went solo. Smith gained national attention for his 1998 Oscar nomination and Academy Awards performance of the song Miss Misery, from the film Good Will Hunting. Since the release of his 2000 album Figure 8, Smith had been relatively quiet, but in late March he gave us an opportunity to catch up with him for a cover story article we published in June. Smith invited us into his house and studio for a day and seemed generally in good spirits. We found him to be humble, generous and soft-spoken. At the time he said he was 90% done with the double album he had been working on for over a year: From a Basement On the Hill. It is unknown at this point whether or not he was able to put the finishing touches on that album before his death.

Smith mostly appeared to be optimistic about his future when we spoke to him. He excitedly played us songs from his new record and seemed very happy about them. "Thanks for coming around," Smith said as we finished up our interview with him and prepared to leave his studio. "You know, for a couple of years I dropped out of just about everything. But I feel better today. I think it'll be a good record." Elliott Smith: may his good soul rest in peace."

Under the radar




"I didn't have a hard time making it, I had a hard time letting it go."

Elliott Smith




That was about either/or.

"...I got turned around by getting concerned about what someone else's perception was gonna be and that's just a total waste of time."

Elliott Smith




'Loner'

"Well, no. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody called me that, but it's not a word I would choose to describe myself. It has a darker connotation. A loner in a lot of people's minds is someone who's alone because they can't interact, not that they maybe choose not to. I don't know why that freaks people out. I mean, why do they care? Why go out of your way to give someone shit for not interacting with you? ...Sometimes it seems that the simple fact that I've played acoustic music equals that I'm some sort of hermit, a very depressed hermit who can't do anything but sit on the edge of his bed and look at his shoes writing songs. And it's not like that at all. I dunno, it's a strange thing. I can talk to people, but sometimes I don't want to."

Elliott Smith




"The only people who really seem weird to me are people who think they're normal. People who think it's possible to be normal just by doing the same things that most people do. Is there a 'most people'? I don't know. Television makes it seem like there is, but I think that might just be television."

Elliott Smith





"I liked short pop songs that conveyed a great intensity, even if they were not loud and fast. My goal, even with acoustic sounds is to find that energy again, the energy of punk."

Elliott Smith




"When I was nominated for the oscars, all the professional film-industry press interviewed me, asking me which other movies I am working on. Suddenly they assumed I was a soundtrack writer! ...I don't want to compose cinema music, neither do I have the desire to mingle with people in Hollywood. I don't want to see my name in the credits of 'Terminator 7' [laughs]. I hate action films, just as I hate action. I just want to continue to write songs which mean something to me."

Elliott Smith



"Rumor had it that you were covering an Elliott Smith song on Tu Mi Piaci. What song did you cover and why didn’t it make it on the EP?
Caralee was working on it so i am not sure (she lives in a different city). i think she was unhappy with how it turned out. he is her big hero so i think she would never feel did it well enough.
A rumor on the Internet says that Elliott Smith was killed by his girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba. The question is what do you think about Smith’s death?
It is sad and pointless no matter what. he was a mess and is in a better place now but sad sad sad."

Jamie Stewart



"You know, I never really had big hair, although at one point I thought I was punk for a while, along with about three other kids in my school. We were punk because one person had a skateboard. And we all had spiky hair. But at that point everything that wasn't like, classic rock, was punk. So like Bauhaus was punk. You know, we just didn't really get it."

Elliott Smith



"This record is dedicated to the memory and music of Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash and Elliott Smith."

Ron Sexsmith





"Alex: Recently, at your last La Luna show [March 29th, 1998], you did an Elliott Smith cover. Is this a normal thing, or because Elliott was in attendance?
Sean: We have done that song a couple times. It was just a song I really liked a lot and wanted to learn how to play it. So we figured it out for a show we had it a few months ago, and then we just played it as a surprise for Elliott, because I don't think he knew we played it. He was there, and is a friend of ours, so I was like, "Let's play 'Division Day.'" Actually, we might record that song for a b-side of a single.
Alex: Did he enjoy the song?
Sean: I don't know . He left right after the show, so I didn't get to talk to him that much. But I hope he did. A long time ago he played one of my songs at a show, so it was like pay back for him. It's really weird to see someone else on stage playing a song you wrote. "That's my song.""

Steininger/Croghan




"DreamWorks started to put together an impressive roster of interesting artists. Shortly after I signed on, I was happy to hear that Lenny (Waronker) intended to bring in Elliott Smith, a singer and friend of ours who we all admired a lot, as his next signing to the label. It felt like a nice place to be with such great company on the roster."

Mark Oliver Everett




"One morning during the tour I wake up in St Louis to the sound of my hotel-room phone ringing. I get the news that our friend Elliott Smith has died back in Echo Park. The first time I met Elliott, back in 1996, I walked out of the room and pulled one of our mutual friends aside and said, "I'm worried about this guy." He was a super sweet and quiet guy who didn't appear to have any armor to protect himself, and he was on the rise in the music business- not a good place for the armorless, it turns out. I felt really strong and safe in comparison, and that's saying something.
I remembered one of the last times I saw him, we were sitting on the couch in the office at Largo, the Los Angeles club where Elliott and I both played at often. Lisa Germano was telling Elliott and me a story about something that had recently happened to her. Flanagan, the owner of Largo, had a big, white, fluffy dog named Seamus, who had just jumped up on the couch and squeezed in behind Lisa. As she continues her story, Seamus throws his front paws over Lisa's shoulders and starts humping her back, but Lisa appears to be oblivious and continues her story. Flanagan and I are laughing so hard we're crying, but Elliott just kept leaning forward and listening to Lisa's story, trying to give her the dignity to finish, even though a big white dog was straddling her and furiously pumping away on her back.

That same night I got up on the stage to play a few songs. I finished with George Bush's favorite, "It's a Motherfucker," and walked off stage into the dark. As the house music started up I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Elliott standing there in the dark. "Nice song," he said. If anyone knew that it is, indeed, a motherfucker, it was Elliott.

He found a way to give himself some armor and in later years his personality took on a massive change as a result of the kinds of drugs he was taking. I started to hear stories about him buying disposable camera after disposable camera so he could snap photos of a car that he was convinced was constantly following him. One night Elliott gave me his new number and said he'd like to get together to play guitars and see what happens, which I really wanted to do. But I waited too long to call. Once he got into this dark period, I was too scared to go through with it. I think Elliott and my sister Liz had a lot in common at this point and I'd already had enough of it, I'm sorry to say."

Mark Oliver Everett



"You know, I really haven't been listening to music much lately, because everything I hear, I hear 'record company' in it. Or I hear the artist's conversation with the manager or producer in it. I'm having a hard time hearing stuff that I find to be completely genuine...I know it's out there, stuff like Sparklehorse and Elliott Smith and Cat Power. But CD's are so expensive, so unless I know I'm going to love something, I can't afford to buy it."

Lisa Germano




"Here in L.A. we got to see Jennifer Chiba coquetting around Silverlake just days after his death, in which she played more than a minor role. She played the part of a hipster Courtney Love with Oscar-worthy zeal."

Skywilde




"It makes sense that a lot of people would have addictive personalities if they don't find a lot in mainstream culture to interest them., because they either get bored or disillusioned with what's available in the mainstream or supposedly appropriate ways to think and feel about things. So they jump off the boat in one way or another."

Elliott Smith


"I met him a few times, you know for autographs and stuff like that, but I never really said 'hey, I'm this guy who does this website'. But I did in November, and he was really nice, and he said some really nice things...He seems like he likes it. Sometimes he even uses it to...we have a bootlegs section, where we have setlists of old shows that exist on bootlegs, and he said that he uses the site sometimes to go and check out the setlists."

"I went to a show a few weeks ago, in LA at this place called Largo, and I was actually really lucky to be at that show because it happened that during the break between sets, [the first] by this musician Jon Brion, who's a really awesome guy, and also produces records...between the sets, it just happened that they played one of [Elliott's] new songs, over the speakers, which was really cool. It's called 'True Love'. It's a really long song, like a 'Condor Avenue' song...and then after that, right before Jon came back on stage, the gentleman who runs Largo announced that Jon Brion was actually producing the new record, so that was really exciting."

Charlie Ramirez






"Another cut, "A Lot Like You," finds Droge identifying with a musician who died, fellow Oregon songwriter Elliott Smith, who committed suicide a few years ago."

Jim Farber


www.myspace.com/petedroge




"A small slight laceration is noted to the palm of the left and right hand and another slight laceration is noted under the upper right arm as well."

Dr Scheinin




“I think Either/Or is the best album I have ever heard. And I also love his first two albums. The sound of early Elliott Smith is so honest, pure, cool and very, very, very mysterious. As I started to record songs, I wanted to be Elliott Smith. After a while, luckily, I could find my own style, but yes, he was my big inspiration.”

Saint Thomas




“Look at Elliott Smith. You have a heroin addiction. You’re depressed. So why live in LA? And then he takes his life and everyone says he is an icon. He is an icon but he could also be alive.
You’ve always got a choice. Like who the hell is putting Amy Winehouse on stage still?
She’s there because she wants to be and wants to be famous. She is offering herself on a platter and everybody is taking a piece."

Ida Maria




"Don't worry, they won't dye my hair blonde!"

Elliott Smith





Tuesday marked the fifth anniversary of Elliott Smith’s death.

For me, it marks the fourth anniversary of not listening to his music. This isn’t because I don’t like it. I actually share the view that Smith was one of the best two or three singer-songwriters of his generation.

When I was in college I’d have XO and Figure 8 on repeat-play, sometimes hearing them three or four times a night. My roommate and I would waltz around the room, singing along to every song, completely unaware of the sentiments spilling from our mouths. We knew his lyrics were “deep,” but we heard what we wanted to hear. To me, the songs were dark but beautiful, haunting yet comforting, stark and lush at the same time.

Then I learned. Way too much.

In October of 2004, a year after his death, Spin ran a feature on the untold story behind Smith’s death. Though it was assumed he committed suicide by stabbing himself in the chest, the coroner's report noted that “several aspects of the circumstances… are atypical of suicide and raise the possibility of homicide.”

Some people believed his girlfriend Jennifer Chiba, who was with him at the time of his death and who pulled the knife from his body before calling 911, murdered him. Most others thought this was ridiculous. While our story by Liam Gowing touched on the rumors, it made a case for suicide. And since I was the research editor of the magazine at the time, it was my job to make sure that case was solid. I had fact-checked hundreds of articles for the magazine, but nothing like this.

For almost a month, I poured over transcripts of interviews with Smith’s friends and loved ones; I read books and newspaper articles; I tried to interpret lyrics of songs like “Suicide Machine” and “Abused,” which would never be released; I spoke with former band mates, medical professionals, music executives, girlfriends -- even Jennifer Chiba, who was so willing to talk that I found it unnerving. Some people hung up on me. Others choked up, sharing particularly troubling memories. People told me things they shouldn’t have, things I couldn’t repeat. I cried a lot that month. Sometimes it was because of stress, but mostly I was crying for Elliott Smith.

In May of 2002 I saw Smith play a private show for Northwestern University students at a club in Chicago. His set lasted 50 minutes, but he didn’t get through a single song. He seemed drunk, high, completely out of it. He kept saying that his left hand hurt -- that his fingers had gone numb -- and that’s why he couldn’t play. “It's like having stuff on your hand and you can't get it off,” he told the crowd, shaking his wrist, trying to remove the imaginary goo.

My friends and I thought this was hilarious. We repeated this line for weeks, mocking his slurred, drawn-out speech. But we didn’t know what it meant. We didn’t know that at the time he was addicted to heroin and crack, smoking up to $1,500 worth a day. We didn’t know that he had actually tried to OD but failed, on more than occasion. We didn’t know that he believed he was sexually abused by his stepfather as a child. We didn’t know that three months later, he’d check himself into rehab, get clean, and finally face the pain he’d spent years trying to numb. We didn’t know any of this. We just figured he had smoked a lot of pot backstage.

They say you should never meet your idols. Nor should you get too intimate with their demons. Today, I can’t separate the songs from the story. Each one is a reminder of how cruel life can be -- allowing someone like him, someone with that much talent and heart, to suffer through so much pain for so long. I know I should celebrate his music, be grateful for his life and gifts, and that he shared them with the world, but right now I can’t. Maybe one day I’ll feel different. I hope so. I miss him.

Ellen Carpenter




"Tribute albums suck in general. I chose 'Rose Parade' because it's one of the less emotional songs. I didn't feel as funny singing something that wasn't so personal to him.I was obviously nervous because Elliott Smith is probably the only person I idolize. Him and Stevie Wonder, for very different reasons."

Josh Hodges


"Sounds like it might be a murder. Everybody knows that you're not supposed to remove objects that have stabbed people because it increases bleeding and cuts through more tissue.
Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that she killed him (it's entirely possible that she's an idiot), but I personally think they should investigate her a bit more."

Mycoplasma





"I glanced through a copy of today's New York Post, reading an article about John Lennon's murder; this Thursday is the 25th anniversary of his death. It reminded me of Elliott Smith. Elliott, for me, was what John Lennon was for the generation before mine. It reminded me of how I thought Elliott's suicide seemed more like a murder than a suicide."

Joseph Riippi



"I haven't heard anything about her at all since Elliott Smith died, she seems to have disappeared completely, not saying anything at all about what happened that last day at their place.

He stabbed himself in the chest while arguing with her, according to a neighbor she'd stormed out of the house briefly after a loud screaming match, but then she turned around and went inside and found Elliott all bleeding. Did she drive him to the hospital? I want to think I remember it that way. He survived for a short while before the bleeding was too much. Did she kill him personally? With her own hands? If she did, Elliott didn't say so, and he had at least some opportunity to explain such a thing.

Someone found an epilogue in an old printing of Sorrows of Young Werther where Goethe says that stabbing himself in the heart felt like the only honorable way to take his own life, and that he would practice with a knife near his bedstand for a long period before the desire to die finally went away.

Well that's weird.

Don't do that."

Dave



"I said to myself, "I've got to do a Bowie poster, or I'll regret it' — I've let things slip by.... I kicked myself the day Elliott Smith died. I never created a print for him, and I had the chance at least a dozen times."


Jermaine Rogers




"You know, the most amazing shows are usually when the audience is totally focused on the music. I saw Elliot Smith many times and I loved his music and really enjoyed his shows. Like Vic Chesnutt, his music can be very quiet. And I’ve seen them both play in rooms where the conversation starts at the bar with ‘What can I get you?’ and the talking just swells up from that point. The show would start and you could hear the conversation just start to grow like a cancer, spreading toward the stage and infecting the room."

Ian MacKaye




"I think a lot of fuss was made about whether i'm personally happy or not, what difference does it make? just because somebody doesn't go around singing jubilant songs doesn't mean that they're necessarily more happy or unhappy than anybody else. it's like if you have a bad dream, does that mean you're not a happy person? dreams are the same place that songs come from."

Elliott Smith




"'figure eight' was like a children's song and it got replaced by something else, but i liked the name. it's a twisted circle. like skaters going around. it's a perfectly self-contained thing that you can do forever. you're not going to get anywhere, but the thing is you don't need to." could it be the metaphor for the Elliott Smith philosophy of life? "yeah, maybe. always moving with no particular direction. i must admit i rather like that."

Elliott Smith




"i think my friends are very proud of what is happening to me. some of them are concerned, they assume i am not solid enough to take the blows and they anticipate that i will get lost in the turmoil of the business. people think that because my songs have a fragile quality i am myself someone fragile. this is totally false, i am way more robust and resistant than my songs. possibly so far i’ve been misunderstood by people who think that all the sad things i’ve written are autobiographical. I noticed that sometimes they felt sorry for me because of my lyrics, and this ended up disturbing me. i hate self-pity, and i don’t like people who play with that, it is often dishonest. in the new album the lyrics are more imprecise, they come in general from dreams i had, so there’s no use in trying to associate them with real things"

Elliott Smith



"It's sort of like looking in a circus mirror. For a little while if you're just passing by the mirror you can sort of laugh at it, but if you have to stand in front of it for several days you'd eventually start to believe that's what you look like."

Elliott Smith



ballads for Elliott Smith

blogs.lesoir.be/festivals/200...#comment-10059


blogs.lesoir.be/festivals/200...party-project/




blogs.lesoir.be/festivals/200...#comment-10075




"I don't know that there is anything I could have said that would have changed him. I'm sure his close friends and family all had those talks with him. If I were to go back in time I would just tell him that he had a gift and that it changed peoples' lives. And I would thank him."

Anthony Davis





"Happy Ending were a fresh exciting four piece alternative punk rock explosion from L.A , three girls lined up in red (well some times it's all white, gold...) at the front, boy drummer operating the glue that holds it together at the back.... they have us singing about dalmations... Classic grrrl punk/lo-fi pop/alt.rock with songs to lust after... the kind of thing you'd expect to find on a label like Kill Rock Stars.

HAPPY ENDING are/were COLOMBENE JARINGE, GILDEN TUNADOR, JENNIFER CHIBA and TOPO

And it was all buzzing and looking exciting and everyone was talking about their packed LA shows. We were all ready to put out the single here on ORG. Jenn's boyfriend Elliott Smith had been working on the recordings and, we were talking about following up the debut with an Elliott/Happy Ending split seven incher and... Well we all sadly know what happened next with Elliott... The recordings have been put to one side, the band are no more, it just best left. We'll leave it there (and please don't call us and ask us for quotes about Jenn and Elliott) "

Org Records




“Fake concerns is what's the matter, man
and you think I ought to shake your motherfucking hand
well I know how much you care;
don't be cross, it's sick what I want
I've seen the boss blink on and off
Come here by me, I want you here
Nightmares become me, it's so fucking clear


Oh Elliott. My dear one. My love.

Nearly four months have passed since your death, and they still don't know what happened to you. The LA coroner's report was "inconclusive". You didn't have any drugs in your system, apart from "normal" amounts of meds for depression and ADD. A little Ritalin, a little Zoloft. You were fine... clean and sober for months, according to your friends. Recovering. Better than ever.

So how did you end up with two penetrating stab wounds to the chest?

I'm sorry Elliott, but I don't buy your girlfriend's story. Sad boys usually don't stab themselves. They don't stab themselves deeply in the chest, twice, manage to slice both their palms cleanly in the process, and then quietly bleed to death. Boys dealing with severe depression usually spend days or weeks holed up alone, not seeing anyone. If they are suicidal, they plan their deaths with meticulous attention to detail. They generally leave a suicide note, being mindful of the feelings of others. They usually give a signal to everyone just before the end, so that maybe their bodies can be found quickly. I know the M.O. - and your case just doesn't fit.

Fucking hell! Your "suicide note" was written on a Post-It note? It read: "I'm so sorry -- love, Elliott. God forgive me." You supposedly wrote this after a heated argument with your girlfriend, concluding with her locking herself in the bathroom. An argument in which your girlfriend emerges from the bathroom to supposedly find you self-impaled with a kitchen knife, which she then proceeds to remove from your chest herself? How did your palms get cut, Elliott? Would you stab yourself in despair, and then try to save yourself by pulling the knife out by the blade instead of the handle? Were you really that stupid and careless? Did you try to stop your girlfriend from pulling the knife out? Were you even conscious at that point? Does this ever happen in real life?

No, it doesn't. People who commit suicide do not have multiple defensive wounds on their bodies, post mortem. They do not have girlfriends who pull the lethal weapon from the body and then refuse to answer police questions for a period of time after reporting the incident. These things do not happen to suicide victims, Steven. Steven Paul Smith, of "Heatmiser" fame. Academy Award nominee. Born in Omaha and drug across Texas as a kid; you managed to escape to Portland for a while. Spent your professional years in Los Angeles. Hung out at Largo, with the other members of LA's misfit music scene. Had some drug problems, but who hasn't? Struggling to get your shit together, and recording a new album that was almost in the can. Clean and sober for months, for the first time in a long time. Finally starting to turn the next corner in your life. You could see it, man. It was right in front of you.

Elliott, what happened on October 21, 2003? If they tell me that you killed yourself, I will laugh in their fucking faces. You knew so much pain, so much grief, and expressed it time and again in song, with a talent that has made many a grown man weep - myself included. I refuse to believe it, Elliott. I know from suicide. You know from suicide. You did not commit fucking suicide. You got in an argument with your "girlfriend", Jennifer Chiba, and that bitch stabbed you. You tried to stop her, and got your palms sliced up nicely in the process. Maybe she waved the weapon around beforehand, cutting you under your right arm prior to the fatal blows. She stabbed you right in the heart, Elliott. Then she scribbled some words on a Post-It note and called 911 as you lay beneath her bleeding to death.

And so all the kiddies dressed in black are lighting candles to commemorate your "suicide", Elliott. The authorities are standing around smoking cigarettes and jerking off, while your "girlfriend" continues to make statements to MTV and the media about how she and your family "know the truth" about your death.

I still love you, E. And I don't believe a word of it.


And oh my
Nothing else could have been done
She made her life a lie so
She might
Never have to know anyone
Made her life the lie, you know

What I used to be will pass away
And then you'll see
That all I want now is happiness
For you and me "

Instantkarma





"Are you surprised that you forgot all about Oct. 21, too? I’m being presumptuous, Portland; I apologize. Maybe you didn’t forget. It’s possible that you remembered, even felt a little sad about it, but you probably didn’t talk about it with anyone. You probably just thought of Sunday as one more day, marking more one more year since Smith died. And I know, Portland, that you’ve done so much to keep his memory alive, from helping to release two posthumous albums (From A Basement on A Hill and New Moon) and installing a plaque at Smith’s high school, Lincoln High. I realize that LocalCut and Willamette Week have written many things about his memory—the most recent being just five months ago.

But I think, Portland, we should all feel a little bit little guilty that Walla Walla and Spokane brought musicians together to pay their respects but we—the city where Smith cut his musical teeth—just let the day go by. It’s a big month for Smith’s memory, too: Just last week, pitchfork.com reported that Smith’s former live-in girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba, lost a court case that would have given her 15% of Smith’s earnings as his “manager.” Later this month, a photo book compiled by Autumn De Wilde will be released through Chronicle Books. And we’ve let it pass without much reaction.

I’d like to feel, Portland, that Smith is so much a part of us—sneaking his influence into our songwriters, his rarely-smiling face still pictured driving up and down SE Division Street—that we don’t need a tribute to remember him. But as sad as I am that Smith is gone, I’m a little more heartbroken that it feels like this city is slowly letting him go."


PAIGE RICHMOND



"He had that thing that every confessional songwriter needs to be great — his lyrics could be simultaneously personal and observing from a distance. And he had one of those singing voices you love to hear whispering in your ear. His music was filled with beauty and sweetness, not just darkness. Personally, he was like that, too. The struggles he went through, and what it eventually led to, should not be his legacy.I was struck by a late-1990s performance in New York City in which he seemed poised to move into the realm of having his music speak for a generation. The parallel was striking — he began covering Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," tentatively at first but gaining confidence with each passing stanza. Itwas really moving and exciting to see him accept that role.That's the Elliott Smith I want to remember, the one whose music had the power to make people feel good."

Ann Powers




"I'm not a pussy and I don't wanna sound like one, and that's why I've declined most opportunities to write about Elliott Smith post-suicide. After Smith split for the Great Whatever in October '03, the critical outpouring was gross, precious, and unbecoming. Honoring dude's life by writing about vintage sweaters and tearstained cheeks is bullshit and doesn't do the man justice. Because, really, that's what he was: a man. His songs, even at their most quote unquote emotional, weren't nearly as wussy or melodramatic as, say, Matchbook Romance or that dumb cunt from Dashboard Confessional. Smith's music was—and is—unflinching and fully brutal, tore-up ache; over-sentimentalizing it in print is just reductive.
Still, with music this intimate it's easy to slip into breathless homage and maudlin indulgence, and that's how a lotta Smith's obituaries rolled. But fuck that; there are better ways to eulogize your heroes!"

Adam Gnade






"An art therapist in any agency is required to pass basic first aid to treat a child. We know that she treats children. We also know first aid…..Okay?"

KtK




"“You know his girlfriend murdered him.”
It was a somewhat chilly Silver Lake evening five years ago and people were grilling hot dogs and hamburgers and smoking Chestertons and roughly eighteen hours earlier LA’s most famous singer-songwriter not named Beck, Elliott Smith, had been discovered with a largish knife sticking out of the center of his chest.
“No, dude.” Man bangs were pushed away from guylinered eyes. “She Facebook messaged me at four in the morning saying people were going to start saying she did it. She didn’t do it, man. She promised.”
This is how I remember the scene, but it is hard to vouch for the details.
Guyliner dude, who played for a local band that had been too well hyped for well too long, could have easily explained instead that there wasn’t any motive for that crime, that Jenny was a friend of his. That night, Elliott Smith’s famously rumpled performance at the Academy Awards (for his Good Will Hunting theme, “Miss Misery”) was as far back in time as Smith’s death is now. A lot had happened between ’98 and ’03, and although much of it was ironic not much of it was good. Ambiguity was cultivated and non-commitment a social compact. A blurring of the basic facts took shape as a habitual coping mechanism.
But if some percentage of the hipsters who survived Elliott Smith were themselves amateur blurs, Smith was the town professional, a wastrel who earned his stripes and a hero to the healing and the decaying alike. Over the course of a blotchy career that peaked on that Oscar stage but never escaped the darkness, Smith released a series of increasingly baroque, intricate, and depressing acoustic-based records that catalogued everything truly defunct about life as a skinny, greasy person entangled in, but always disappointed by, drug-and-sex-based relationships.
When he was criticized, he was derided as not just a downer but a whiner. But Smith — who worked out his musical amateurism in the earlier outfit Heatmiser — was one of indie’s most potent tunecrafters, a smith indeed. His natural ear for melody produced some of the sweetest pop gems ever to emerge from a warren of stale apartments, dirty clothes, and cat hair. Though 1998’s XO is his most polished, straightforward effort — try not bopping down the street with “Bled White” on the iPod — 1997’s almost cruelly spare Either/Or reveals the real genius of Smith’s songwriting: deceptively complex bridges wind like lost ribbons between barren and unforgiving posts of chorus and verse. Smith’s early and late work faded in and out respectively; “Needle in the Hay” off 1995’s self-titled album didn’t make a mark until it played over the pivotal scene in The Royal Tenenbaums (a suicide), and 2000’s Figure 8, recorded as he crashed hard after his brush with the big time, sank like Smith did in its wake.
The building he stood in front of for the cover of that record became a shrine almost immediately after his death. (Shortly afterward, that year, you could drive further west down Sunset into Hollywood and see another wall shrine, a cluster of votive candles and little notes piled against the black of the Viper Room.) It remains a testament to the irresolvable quality of pain in Los Angeles, where all goods are presumed to be damaged and as many people come to find themselves as come to invent themselves. In the inevitable scramble of clutching and groping that follows, the distinction between finding and inventing — and then losing — breaks down and seems arbitrary.
It was never clear enough whether Smith was helping people through that process or helping them along; it was all too clear, by contrast, what he was doing to himself. Those who knew him could never do enough. It seems unfair to criticize a talented, soulful artist in profound pain. Yet in a place where everything is indulged under the right (or wrong?) circumstances, the enervating power of Smith’s kind of darkness makes it too hard for those accustomed to part-time bad vibes to find their daily sunshine. One day you give Elliott another hug — this story was told to me by a bandmate — and you say “cheer up, guy,” and you mean it, and you realize that this is going to accomplish absolutely nothing. It is like throwing a shiny nickel into the cold black Pacific.
Reckoning with the implications of that is always more awful than listening to even the bleakest and most harrowing of Smith’s lyrics. But sometimes they converge, and the plangent beauty of the song hangs hauntingly over the ugliness of his death and what it means:
I heard you found another audience to bore
A creative thinker who imagined you were more
A new body for you to push around and pose
It’s all about taking the easy way out for you I suppose.
For reasons like these, it’s easier for everyone to still presume that Elliott Smith’s death was a suicide, so they do. And the line between poetic justice and poetic license? It’s still a blur."

James Poulos



"The big time? What's that?"

Elliott Smith




"Two years after the death of Elliott Smith, independent film director Gil Reyes is finishing his documentary on the Lincoln alum. Working only six minutes from the house where Smith had allegedly committed suicide, Reyes, a local television reporter for the Los Angeles news station KCBD, has spent nearly four months traveling across the nation to delve into the life of what Rolling Stone calls “the patron saint of indie rock.”
Reyes’ filming in Portland, early in December, brought him to the location of Smith’s teenage years with his father, after severing the relationship between his mother and the life he had in Texas. Residing friends, fans, and past band members of Smith were interviewed while Reyes was in Portland.
Ending his four years at Lincoln with the Class of 1987 as a National Merit Scholar, Smith attended Hampshire College in Massachusetts following graduation. There he majored in philosophy and political science before returning to Portland to form the band Heatmiser.
At Lincoln Reyes filmed current staff that had taught Smith.
"I wanted to get a sense of Lincoln High School and what the school was like; sort of get a feel for it and get it captured on video,” Reyes said. Civics teacher David Bailey, who was interviewed, said Smith was “one of those rare, bright individuals who teachers loved to have. He had a deep concern for others, as well as a passion for life.”
(...)
Reyes has veered away from Smith’s death in his documentary, saying he “didn’t want to deal with that part of his life”. He has gathered accounts from Smith’s life in Portland to his last years when he resided in Los Angeles.
Smith’s struggles with depression, drug addiction, and alcoholism prior to his death allowed for parallels to be drawn between his problems and his reported suicide. Yet since the LA County coroner’s report of his death was released that December, controversy has arisen as to whether he could have been murdered.
No accusations have been made, but investigations are still in progress. Reyes feels the authorities “jumped the gun in calling his death a suicide,” which led the press to “come down on the fact that he was depressed.” Reyes’ documentary looks upon Smith in a different light, encompassing the entirety of his career in music, not simply his death.
Reyes is unsure of when the documentary will be released, hoping there will be a conclusion to his death. “And at that point,” he said, “we can hear the story.”
Looking back into why he began the documentary in February, 2005, Reyes said, “I started off being a fan, and if you listen to his music, he speaks to you like he was an old friend. I want that same experience to be felt bya lot of his fans.”

Chris Stadler





Job Title: Expressive Art Therapist - Full time - Full Benefits (2nd St & Roosevelt
Location: Phoenix (metrowide), AZ


Job Description:
Job Summary
Provide direct services and participate in the coordination of behavioral health rehabilitation services for clients enrolled in the agency's Art Awakenings program.



Essential Functions

· The employee’s primary duty is work that requires invention, imagination, originality, or talent in a recognized field of artistic or creative endeavor (also called the ‘creative professional’ exemption).

·Facilitate expressive therapy and social skills groups for adults and children in art studio settings.

·Conduct and document individual assessments.

Qualification Requirements
Education/Experience:

·Bachelor's degree in Social Work, Counseling, Psychology or a related human service field.
·Art therapy experience preferred
· Four years supervised counseling experience with the client population in a mental health center setting. Supervision must be documented and provided in advance of hire.
· Relevant experience requirements may be decreased if the incumbent holds a Master's degree in Social Work, Counseling, Psychology or a related human service field.
· Bilingual preferred but not required.
· Current and valid certification in first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation and valid driver’s license, 5 - year motor vehicle report."






"It's called The Killing Card. Not to be understated, it's a huge departure from the last record. There are most certainly some pop moments but the majority of it is riddled with droning, dirgy, rock-ish melancholy. There are a handful of strange sound collages (including a nearly three-minute, tape hiss-heavy one that is the first track of the record) and bizarre and cryptic songs about anxiety and sever hypochondria (one of which is the first "song" on the disc, which features Ruth Keating of the bands Ida and The Malarkies on drums and Joel Stroetzel of Killswitch Engage on guitar). There are several direct references to the late Elliott Smith (including a song written in tribute to him called "Forever Every Evening"). It's going to be close to being an hour long. I'm really proud of it. I feel like I'm hitting a pretty decent creative stride. Maybe I'm getting close to the ever-elusive idea of finding my voice. Whatever the hell that means."

Mark Schwaber

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSjTSbNjJwE





"It was finally finished two or three months before he died. Then he kept remixing it. One of the girls in the band broke into his studio, took the tapes and sent them to me. Then it really went off. People started yelling. I was pretty much like, 'Let's just shelve it.' Then he died. The worst thing that ever happened to the Happy Ending was Elliott getting involved, to be honest."

Sean Organ




"That was said beforehand, people described them as a Sid and Nancy couple, constantly arguing, splitting up and getting back together again. I can't really comment on it because I'm in London, they were over there in LA and I've never met them. The stories that were coming back were yes, that it was a crazed, druggy Sid and Nancy situation."

Sean Organ



"I think when people feel bad they often lose touch with reality, and they think they're unique in a bad way. So then they hear these songs, and it's like when you get upset and you talk to your friends so that someone can go 'this happened to me, too.'"

Elliott Smith





"The Elliott that I knew, God, he was probably the most intelligent person I have known. The most well-read person. He was an excellent dancer, too. He did a killer moonwalk!. One night at a Raging Teens show in New York a few years ago, the bass player hadn't shown up and Elliott said, `I'll do it. I'll do it.' He was going to play, but the bass player arrived 10 minutes before the show. He stayed for the show and he was dancing the whole night to the Raging Teens, this rockabilly band. He had this funny dance. He would sort of halfway bend over and do this sideways shimmy, like a sort of sideways hand jive. And he would just march in place. We called it the Elliott Shuffle.''

Mary Lou Lord



"I'm pretty sure he had issues of trust. Trusting people. Because he could see right through you if you weren't completely honest. (...) There were a few hard feelings between us at the end because I was part of a little campaign of people that tried to get him help. It was what I thought was best.I thought, I can't live with seeing him like this.(...) Kevin and I knew that if he didn't completely get well, that one day we would get a phone call. And we did.''

Mary Lou Lord





"Some people who really like stripped-down music were like, 'Hey, why'd you have to go and pile on all this crap. You should have just played the songs."'

Elliott Smith



"Good time for a cigarette break!"

Elliott Smith



"We went to high school in the same district. We have a lot of mutual friends. He had already moved away by the time I moved back to Portland, so I never got to hang out with him. But I have always admired him. One of the reasons his songs appeal to me are the constant references to Portland (which is where I was born and raised). The thought of a tribute came to me one day when I was talking to Josh Hodges about maybe doing a cover on his album. I couldn’t believe that no one was doing a tribute album to Elliott. He has so much amazing material. It seemed fitting for the tribute to come from his home town. Plus Portland has so many amazing bands. It all just made sense.
I picked people whom I thought would do tributes befitting Elliott Smith. Many of the people who worked on the album knew Elliott. A few played with him on tour or in other bands. Tony Lash (who’s mastering) was in Heatmiser with Elliott. I just tried to pick people who would do a great job, and everyone has. The album is completely amazing. I’m very proud of it."

Anthony Davis




"On the evening of Saturday, May 3rd, Glynn's friends Jimmy McArthur, Alex Chiba, and a host of others put on a memorial concert for a packed house at Steamboat here in Austin. All proceeds went to the Glynn Owens Foundation for Educational Scholarships.
Noisetet Obscure, an instrumental group that includes Glynn's drum teacher, opened the show and mesmerized the crowd with their blend of saxophone, drums, bass, experimental instruments, and digital samples, starting and ending their performance with haunting saxophone riffs on Amazing Grace.
Evergreen, a popular band at Trinity that Glynn enjoyed, reunited after five years to rock the house with their fabulous originals and a raucous Rolling Stones cover from Exile on Main Street, in honor of Glynn.
Bill Jerram, a friend and jam session collaborator of Glynn's, took the stage with his band and kept the crowd on their feet and screaming with his original rock songs and a sublime cover of the Rolling Stones classic "No Expectations."
Jetsuns, featuring Lee Allen (another friend of Glynn's) on bass, wowed the crowed with sizzling space rock songs, written by guitar player and vocalist Jeremy McCord, and an out-of-this-world video montage.
In a surprise appearance, a friend of Glynn's from Trinity came up on stage and performed a perfect acoustic rendition of the Schoolhouse Rock classic No More Kings, in honor of Glynn's love of American history.
Finally, Oscar-nominee and indie favorite Elliott Smith performed an acoustic set to an overpacked house. This concert was the Los Angeles-based musician's first appearance in Texas in over two years, and his fans were out in force, singing along with the man that Rolling Stone called "the very model of a modern troubadour."
Many thanks are due to the bands for donating their talent, Steamboat for providing the venue, all of the organizers whose hard work brought it all together, and everyone who showed up and helped make this benefit such an unqualified success."



"When I was a kid my favorite thing about songs was when they would change from one part to another. So I would make up all of these transitions and put them together. They were really linear and phosphorous, and didn't repeat enough to be songs. They had lots of chords. Too many. But I learned a lot about transitions."

Elliott Smith



"For a while it seemed like everyone was asking me why I was so depressed. But I can't do anything about what people read into the songs. If people are constantly going to be putting someone under a microscope, then that person is either going to quit what they're doing, or get good at not being bothered by it."

Elliott Smith



"The report said that Smith had been stabbed twice - both wounds had entered his chest cavity and one had perforated his heart. That in itself is not suspicious: gruesome as it sounds, suicides who choose to stab themselves to death frequently jab the weapon into their chest a number of times.
Smith, however, had no "hesitation wounds" - cuts made as the victim works up the nerve to force the weapon through - and had stabbed himself through his clothing. The autopsy also found small lacerations on both his hands and under his right arm, which it described as "possible defensive wounds"."

Alexis Petridis

[serendipity]

"With 2 stab wounds in his breast, one through his heart, and another close to it, a man, not fully identified, lay for nearly 2 hours last night in the new west 20th street station.[...] That the man was murdered was evident, but the police are at a loss to explain why no cuts were found in the man's outer shirt, which was a new one. The theory of suicide was put aside when investigation showed that there was no blood on the man's hands."

New York Times

"One city's just as good as another. I've lived in L.A. for about a year and a half, and I'll probably move pretty soon. There's no real reason to stay in one place for too long."

Elliott Smith



"Sometimes it's difficult for me to tell people what certain songs are about, because I don't necessarily know myself."

Elliott Smith



"My first exposure to Elliott Smith came when I was working at a college radio station and he was in the press following his Oscar nomination. I never really heard his material until I caught the video for "Son Of Sam." The music floored me, it was so different from anything else you would have heard in '98/'99, but the emotions were so powerful. What's more, when I was in second grade our class watched The Red Balloon, which the video was based on. For a 7-year-old, that movie was about as dramatic as you could imagine. This made the song's sentiment sting all the more. And though I'm not down anymore, that song resonates cause there's a solidarity in knowing someone has a sense of how you feel. Elliott Smith had a gift for that kind of empathy. Fast forward a few months and VH1 is doing a show on inspirations, and there's Mr. Smith talking about Stevie Wonder, and that a friend of his suggested a song to play that would cheer him up, and the song was "Don't You Worry about a Thing." I'd never made note of the song, but anything that could make Elliott Smith smile was worth seeking out. It cheered me up, and I passed it along to many a friend, so I credit Elliott Smith with writing songs that put a finger on a quiet pain that many people raised in the divorce riddled, drug addled '80s, and pointing a finger to happier times cause he saw reason to connect with the joyful times that preceded them. I am in his debt, and will share what he gave every chance I'm given. "

Willie Smith




"Well if you don't get too bitter, you can find your way around things. When you were saying before that "bitter" is the main enemy," I think that's true just in general, not even just for music. For me personally, that's enemy number one. Cause if you get bitter, you are sunk. What can you do?
It's harder to be around other people and it's harder for people to be around you. Being able to be in love with someone is a lot harder. All the things that, to me, make life worthwhile are infinitely harder.
But it's hard not to get bitter about things, apparently."

Elliott Smith




“I’m a huge fan of a lot of the stuff Rob has worked on. I mean, Elliott Smith - a really brilliant, gifted, singular voice who changed the way I look at writing music profoundly. (...) One thing I love about Elliott Smith or Dylan is that ability to kill you in a lyric but have it sound so inviting."

Kevin Devine



``I haven't done anything yet that I'm ashamed of. I'm bound to fuck up sooner or later. Everybody does. "

Elliott Smith



"I'm kind of glad I don't take acid anymore. I became convinced that I was actually like a robot, just a bunch of pieces of mannerisms and stuff I picked up from other people.''

Elliott Smith




www.greenleafcolor.com/Music_...ott_Smith.html




TRY THIS AT HOME
US 2001
DIRECTOR: elina shatkin, cris dupont, thomas loyorei "An ambitious documentary about the creative community of Olympia, Washington, and its impact on the rest of the world, TRY THIS encourages our nation’s scrappy indie-art scenes to get off their collective asses and do just what the title suggests. Infused with all the idealism of the world’s largest hippie commune—with guitar string in place of patchouli—Olympia emerges as a lively, creative community that enthusiastically supports individual expression in any artistic medium. Using the 1997 & 1999 Yo-Yo A Go Go music festivals as a starting point, the film uses lively concert footage and revealing interviews with Elliot Smith, Sleater-Kinney, The Make Up and other bands to explore art and community."—SOUND UNSEEN 2001. (80 mins.)




"I hate conspiracy theories and that whole way of thinking but logically this doesnt add up. the girlfriend jennifer chiba is kind of off. i dont think its entirely impossible that he was murdered. someone with defensive wounds and two stab wounds to the chest in the midst of a heated fight with someone who reportedly stole things from his music studio just after he died, then left the country for a few months only to come back to falsely quote smith's family, and then proceed to sue his estate for financial support that elliott supposedly promised her for the rest of her life after only dating him for a year? and at the death scene, pulling the knife out (maybe an excuse for finger prints on the weapon) and then right in front of the cops she notices a "suicide note" on a post it? i dont like it, and i dont think people sometimes fully grasp the fact that murders happen every day and by people who you wouldnt suspect or by people who never thought in a million years that they would ever committ a murder themselves. so i would never totally rule it out. my own personal belief is that he was killed. sorry to all the elliott board regulars who have probably already hashed this one out. bye "

secondgeneration1




"I'll use a cut-up method or sewing box I have that's full of words that will send me down a certain path. It does seem to unlock your unconscious, I kind of feel the song is buried back somewhere. I turned a few people on to one-minute songs. It's like this little ritual that you pass to those who might be receptive.Elliott Smith was one of them. There's a tape somewhere."

Grant Lee Phillips




"He is impossible to explain!"

Autumn de Wilde



"It's all about the record. The record company wants to sell the record, and people like the record or they don't like the record, and the record is like this little part, you know? It's not even my favorite part. My favorite part is when I go, "Oh, OK, there is a song here, and it's about to be done, like made up." Like "Oh, OK. I see what I am doing." That's really fun."

Elliott Smith




"...even if I couldn't afford to buy a cassette tape to record onto, I would still play songs. That's the good thing about it, is nobody can fully take it away from you."

Elliott Smith



"It sounds like I am being really pessimistic and awful to be like "I'm never going to get the carrot. I'm always going to be a failure in a certain way," but it is a failure that means nothing to me. By accepting that I am not going to be at the top of the charts, it frees me up from all that crap like "Oh, I gotta be at the top of the charts." Because if I felt like that, my god, I'd never get anything done. I'd hate everything I'd do."

Elliott Smith






"Elliott's legacy may not be just what he recorded, but also what he inspired."

Andrew Morgan




"As a teenager his records were a godsend to the point where I even played a couple of his songs at a school talent show. My friend Nathan introduced me to him in junior high and it was a window into a whole different world of records and musicians that blew my mind. He’s my sentimental favorite and I’m still sad that I never got to see him play."

Robin Pecknold




For Elliott Smith


Today I heard your new album in the record store.
Outside a barefoot man was picking brown leaves and cigarette butts
off the pavement in the middle of traffic.
Outside two funeral ushers were waiting in black suits
drinking coffee and talking calmly.
They told the relatives and friends where to park.


Birds dot the weather vane,
change positions from East to North a few back to South then West a little,
get their normal view of us.
I’m beginning to think they don’t look down as much as we might assume.
When I get somewhere high, like an apartment roof,
I go right to the edge, look down,
see how small things have gotten.
For the second time this afternoon I pass the boy with the burned face.
For the first time I see a father keep his hands in his coat,
nudge the street-crossing button with his elbow.
People cross and re-cross:
they run with bouncing back packs,
wheel themselves along, stumble on the curb
or laugh so much they don’t realize where they are.
One time an arm came to rest between my arm
and the rest of me.
I changed the way I was walking,
saw nothing,
not looking down,
just noting how light an arm could be.


My dad makes dead people look nice for their parents,
the boy tells the class.
He spends recess standing by the wall
for throwing a handful of gravel
at a girl who had convinced him
his father would catch death from touching all the bodies.
While they count to one hundred, waiting for their own
one hundred counts on the swings, he lightly drags a fingernail
against the metal siding and thinks
what if his dad’s hands fall off one day and
he can’t change the TV channels on his own?


She makes a little sound,
rushing out too quickly from the elevator,
nearly running into me.
I’m pushing buttons for a while,
thinking how much we rely on things to make light for us—
to grow our plants, read by, find the bad wire
on the back of the stereo—
and wouldn’t it be better to be something
that made its own light?
Like a miner’s hat,
only more permanent.
Or better yet something that didn’t need light at all.
The fingernail slides off the Three button,
catches in the groove that circles it,
the door opens to a quiet library room
and suddenly the thoughts feel noisy by contrast,
like when they get back from a party
laughing into the dark house
with leftover loud voices.
You’re waking up now,
it’s nice to have alive people in the house again,
you’re thinking maybe they’d like sandwiches,
pancakes or ginger ale, you’re a grandmother now
and you can be fully awake in moments,
like a marine.
You remember drinking
all night until every smell disappeared.
You could kiss whatever face was nearest,
have no idea if his breath was terrible or not.
You’d remember other things that night:
food poisoning from a bad fish sandwich,
the view of Barcelona from the hill of Park Guell,
the hunchback naming his bells and loving them,
and you’d wake up six hours before the grandkids,
spend the morning repotting the plants
and praying to God.
I remember now how sad you were
when I was leaving and he was tugging at the slack skin
on his jaws,
sitting up from the arm chair where I would sit a few months later,
feeling very warm on his leftover hydrocodones.
He was shaking like the spokes of a rake,
and the next time I was in Rhode Island
he was fatter with what they used to make him look healthy.
They did a great job, you were telling the aunts. He looks like
he did before he got sick.


Sometimes the dreams stay with me all morning,
like the grease of an English breakfast and
I can’t eat anything,
I’d rather be a raccoon or
something without obligation,
no commitment to rendering exactly the
feeling of walking through leaves.
I saw swans, small on the gray river.
They were shaking their necks,
slipping their heads into the water,
stretching their wings.
Mexican boys running gloved hands
over the railing of the suspension bridge
ask me about my camera,
what I’m taping,
if I’m a cop or not.
Black ridges where the rocks
break the shallows.
The white necks like
long boneless arms
trying to grab at something
in the disappearing light
that dissolves all contrast,
blends the swans into the water
and the camera is trembling from the
cars crossing the bridge.

Aaron Gerber




"When I look at people like Beck and even, unfortunately, Elliott Smith, who was one of my favorite singer/songwriters, the ability to do what you want to do at your own pace is appealing to me, you don't really have any fiduciary responsibility to anyone but yourself. But being in a band, you do. It's like, you can't just say, 'You know what? I don't want to tour.' You just can't."

Scott Weiland



"He had to go to some group-therapy thing, and he walked into the group and the group greeted him by making this big huge wave and going 'Howdy!'
And he was kind of like, 'Fuck this. Don't say 'Howdy' to me like that.' "

Dorian Garry



"Elliott would stop shows like that! I loved it when that happened. it showed humanity, and that was something Elliott brought to his music, and we all loved him for that."

Lou Barlow




" Between the bars and Needle in the hay were on constant rotation twice during my life. Once, when I found out about what it felt like to be cheated on. It was when I was much younger, when Summer was turning to Autumn, and the object of my obsession decided to disappear completely. The second time this song played was after Elliott Smith put a knife in his chest. I realised then, that I’d never really known intense pain, much as I thought I did. We all tend to over-dramatise our suffering but those who really suffer, do so in silence."

Vivian Wang



"When Oscar-nominated singer-songwriter Elliott Smith died two years ago of what appeared to be self-inflicted stab wounds, he was facing charges of fighting with a policeman outside the Universal Amphitheatre. And during the last months of his life he was haunted by the incident, scared of going to jail and anxious to get out of L.A. Now a police report provides an account of what transpired the night Smith went to see a Beck–Flaming Lips double bill. According to the deputy sheriff who fought with him, the diminutive indie-rock god evinced a Hemingway-esque bravado one might not have expected from the man behind the Good Will Hunting soundtrack. When security dragged a man out of the theater for refusing to leave a seat that wasn’t his, Smith “approached the [guards] trying to handcuff the suspect on the ground and pointed his finger at them saying ‘That’s not right,’ ” the report says. After the deputy warned him off, Smith said, “I don’t have to get back.” They started struggling, and Smith kept at it even after being hit with pepper spray. “The subject closed his eyes,” reads the report, “but continued to hold on to me and grapple.”

Benjamin Nugent



"I really would like to think that he committed suicide because it means he got to choose when he wanted to go.But it's very rare when committing suicide to stab yourself in the chest.
They mostly stab themselves in the gut.
But then again you can never tell. Also Chiba from what we know which is very little and possibly entirely inaccurate seems to be a shady character.
You just won't have enough force to stab yourself in the chest, take it out and stab yourself again.
Anyway she's an idiot for pulling out the knife, how convenient to explain her fingerprints..."


Deidre Isadancer



"I think the whole case raises more questions than answers. It was widely reported by friends and family that before his death Eliot Smith was 'on the up' he was well in mind and spirit and raring to get back to work so it seemed strange to them that he would suddenly kill himself.

Okay, questions:

1. Defensive wounds? Who was he defending himself from? Sounds as though someone repeatedly tried to jab in the chest with the knife and as you would, he put his hands up to try and save himself.

2. Why have the police who were meant to re-open the investigation, not done so? We have heard nothing since 2004!

3. Why has the case not be thoroughly investigated? One would hope that the police would want to eliminate all doubt concerning the girlfriend and thoroughly and conclusively report that Eliot death was in fact a suicide but they have not done this why? How has Detective King gotten away with refusing to return phone calls about the suicide note? This 'investigation' is at best remiss, and at worst, incompetent!

4. There are conflicting reports one says he was stabbed once in the chest other reports and the Autopsy say that he was stabbed twice

5.How does a suspect in a police investigation get away with 'not speaking to detectives'? The girlfriend claims to have spoken to police 'many times' so why no available copy of her statement?

6. She has also given conflicting statements that need to be researched over.
In her first statement the girlfriend claims that Smith told her he would kill himself, but being used to such claims from him she ignored his latest claim and went upstairs to take a shower, when she finished her shower she claims to have left the bathroom and found Elliott's body, where she then removed the knife.

However, in a further subsequent statements she claims that the two had had an argument where she locked herself in the bathroom, she then heard a scream and went to investigate to find that Smith had stabbed himself. What no shower?

These two claims surely contradict themselves and warrant further questioning at least!

7. Claiming that you will kill yourself is in a way a revenge attack upon people around you, a kind of: 'You'll be so sorry when I am dead' type of act so you would be angry (if having an argument) and want to get back at someone by killing yourself. Would you really sit down and write a suicide note whilst in a very distressed state? The words: 'God forgive me' would indicate to me at least, that the person who penned the note would have been capable of clear and concise thought and also, wanting to absolve themselves of what they were about to do...Would you do really do this in the midst of a heated argument? I mean, the most obvious scenario would be to yell 'I am going to kill myself' rush downstairs or wherever grab the knife and plunge it fully into your chest! Not go downstairs get yourself a post it note and pen write a suicide note then kill yourself? Why bother? The person you are trying to get back at by killing yourself IS THERE WITH YOU! They are not going to stumble upon you whilst returning from doing the weekly shop at Sainsburys. THEY ARE THERE IN THE HOUSE WITH YOU,. YOU JUST TOLD THEM YOU ARE GOING TO KILL YOURSELF, THE NOTE WOULD APPEAR PRETTY POINTLESS!...
It is also vital that we find out whether the misspelling of the name Elliott was indeed a typographical error on the part of the coroner or was the misspelling on the note itself? Detective King needs to let us see the note.

8. If you are going to stab yourself, firstly, there would be no defensive wounds as you would not be defending yourself against anyone but yourself yet he had sustained defensive wounds, how did they get there?. He had (depending on which report you believe) two deep stab wounds to the chest. Now if you are stabbing yourself it is possible that you would have a deep stab wound. But two? You deeply stab yourself once you are going to be weakened and in incredible pain? Would you be able to inflict another stab wound just as deep?

9. 2004. It is now 2006 and there has been no other investigation. Why?

10. No further word from his family on why it is taking so long to investigate what went on. Why?"

Orchid



"Maybe they can have some synchronized swimming during my performance. The swimmers could spell out the name of the song?"

Elliott Smith



"The family has every confidence that the ongoing investigation will determine the actual circumstances of Elliott's death. Until such time as their investigation has concluded, however, and especially in light of the recently published coroner's report, neither Elliott's family nor anyone else can claim to know 'the truth' about Elliott's death, and any statement to the contrary mischaracterizes the family's position."

Conrad Rippy




"He had a hard time with relationships. He had a hard time with depression. He had a hard time with, you know, remembering to take a fucking shower. One day we're sitting here and I'm thinking, 'God, he smells', and he's like 'I'm sorry, man - I forgot to shower." He just got so focused on his music."

Larry Crane




His last three years were his hardest struggle to stay alive; it kept getting worse and worse and worse"

Steve Hanft


"In the last six months, it was like the light at the end of the tunnel. It was like, 'He made it,' you know? And he was going to be stronger than ever."

Steve Hanft



(On seeing the singer five days before death)

“He just seemed like he was imploding on himself. He was still really sweet and nice and really smart, but he just seemed like he was starting to cave in physically. He just wasn’t happy.”

Steve Hanft



"He was a complex individual. One of his lyrics that I always loved is from ‘Say Yes,’ where he says, ‘A happy day and then you pay.’ Love and loss are tied that way for him."

Luke Wood



I’d always dreamed of getting the chance to meet Elliott after a show, and to hand him the ten or so short stories I composed, all inspired from his songs on Roman Candle, Either/Or and XO. I believe he taught me how to be a better writer; how to push that feeling into the uncomfortable territory, how to pick out the beauty in the minute details of an ugly or uncomfortable scene. I intended to give him my stories the next time he came to St. Louis or Chicago. There is no other artist that I would have driven five hours alone to see, in torrential rain, through construction zones and miles of farmland at night, damn near risking my life--but he made it totally worth it.

If you’ve followed his career at all, you know he was dropped from the DreamWorks label after Figure 8, and has spent the last three years trying to find a record company to release the still-unreleased album, From the Basement on the Hill. I guess I could get mad and blame the industry for never fully supporting and embracing him (they didn’t). But all his fans know his problems ran deeper than business and it breaks my heart that there was no one there to pull him out of it. Goodbye to the greatest singer/songwriter of the last decade; maybe of the last thirty years. Elliott, I pray that you find the peace you were looking for.

Julia Gordon-Bramer



"The saddest part is that music was a respite for this gentle and fragile guy, and he was just starting to get to a place where he could express himself again in the way he loved doing."

Chris Douridas



"To me, From A Basement On The Hill is a recovery record. He sees the end of the tunnel and he's going for it, which makes it all the more ironic and perplexing."

Alex Steininger






"This lyrical content peaked as poetic expression in these themes covered in the posthumously-released From a Basement on the Hill, a concept album to some degree, and they were handled much differently than on past outings. During the period in which that album was recorded, Elliott struggled to be more than a child abuse survivor, who triumphed over the aforementioned afflictions, but also a healer of others. This is reflected in not only some of the lyrics of his most experimental album, but also its overall sound, yet, more importantly, he started a foundation for abused children. As a lyricist, it is as if Elliott Smith took the Tao’s admonishment to “embrace the darkness with all your heart” to the fragile, scarred core of his being with a vengeance in his work before From a Basement on the Hill and a passion on that much misunderstood album."

Nelson Gary



"There's a lot of common ground between Elliott Smith and Schumann. They were both a trifle manic with an individual sense of form and format. They were given to flights of fantasy and the flow of energy is tremendous in both of them. Every one of them opens a different window with different meanings."

Christopher O'Riley




“I’m a long standing Elliott Smith fan and was aware that he was sick and suffering from problems with alcohol and heroin abuse. I didn’t know Elliott Smith personally, but just the day before he died I was telling a friend how stupid I had felt because I had written a letter to Elliott asking him if he wanted to come to Dublin for a break. I knew it was a ridiculous thing to do and he would never come, but I just wanted to ask.
He was my favourite songwriter. He was a genius lyricist and a stupidly brilliant guitar player. The first time I ever heard his music it stopped my heart. I had never heard anything so honest and so beautiful. That was his record Either/Or. He had three records out at that time and over the next two weeks I bought the other two. He became the bar for me, the songwriter I most envied and admired. He made me rethink how I wrote and why I wrote. I have seen him play live a few times and I couldn’t help but notice the way everyone mouthed every word and felt every note. People who listen to Elliott Smith listen, because if you don’t you will miss the beauty of it. You can understand his music without knowing what it’s about, he puts a bit of his soul into each song. It’s Sunday morning music, it’s for you, it’s not for sharing, it’s to sing along to when you’re alone. It’s for listening to with a hangover, the booklet of the CD in your hand, reading every lyric.
I have heard people say they found him depressing. I never found him depressing. I found his songs intelligent, loving and enlightening. He wrote about what he knew and he knew hard times. He didn’t write for you or me or for MTV, but for himself like some sort of healing process – and I understand that.
I met him once and I really hoped I could meet him again someday. I wanted to play him my version of one of his songs or just sit and talk and play music with him. It probably wouldn’t have worked, he was a weird dude. Maybe he said it best himself when he compared himself to a spinning top hitting the ground as it spins in ‘Say Yes’, “I’m a crooked spin that can’t come to rest, now I’m damaged bad at best.” He is a huge loss. He was a great musician and songwriter. He felt too much, that’s what made his songs so beautiful and his life so hard.”

Ollie Cole


www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Kt_OgbkBI



My friend Felice was Ellliott's publicist during his rise to fame, and I met him a few times through her. Once I moderated a conversation between him and Mary Lou Lord, for SPIN, I think. I remember him as one of those darkly gentle guys who couldn't quite push himself forward enough to be comfortable in the world -- except in his music.

My favorite moment seeing him live was at NYU, around the time of the Oscar nomination. He played to a hushed room (of course) and mid-set he broke into Bob Dylan's "Don't Look Twice, It's Alright." For that short while, he was the voice of his generation. But of course He wasn't one to take on such roles -- which is why his favorite 1960s icon was probably George Harrison, the Quiet One.

Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times



Right from the first LA Times story back in October it seemed fishy. Stabbing yourself in the chest to kill yourself? Seems an awfully difficult way to die. I wonder if Pelisek can or did pull the 9-1-1 transcript.

tom



Yeah, exactly, most people don't interrupt a fight with their girlfriend to pause and stab *themself* in the chest with a kitchen knife. And it seems even more fishy that she pulled the knife out of Elliot before the cops or paramedics arrived.
Mr. Ricey



Elliot Smith : Murdered. Some may say.
the fire you left me

Who's saying this? All your links say that the autopsy was inconclusive, and the coroner can't say for sure if it was a suicide or not. Do you have any links suggesting that he was murdered?
Vidiot

I agree. Yeah, it raises some eyebrows to read that there were two stab wounds (I seem to recall all the press at the time reporting only one), and it's interesting that there were no drugs found in his system, but for now it's an open investigation; though it could turn into a murder investigation given more evidence, etc., it doesn't mean that anyone has so far publicly suggested a plausible homicide scenario.
scody


On the various Elliott-centric message boards, there's been Scooby-gang-esque buzz about the possibility of foul play since the beginning. Wishful thinking, perhaps? There was quite a bit of posting from someone who apparently rented studio space in his building -- I can't find the original thread, but there's summary and a pasted version of it here. Whatever the outcome... it may comfort his family and friends, but at the end of the day, he's still gone. Sad.
kittyb


Not to be crass, but I've been wondering about the logistics of stabbing one's own self twice in the chest. Do you hold the knife and run against a wall or something? I'm not saying it's murder, just that it's weird and should be looked into.
elwoodwiles


Hmm, I live in Portland, Smith's former hometown and have met a few people who actually knew him. One who knew him quite well was a guy who used to be in My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult. Anyway he said Smith killed himself because he was fighting with his girlfriend and basically said, "If you leave me I'm going to kill myself" and she blew him off.
dunno why I'm writing this, but since the whole Elliot Smith death is kinda gossipy anyway....
efalk


As Vidiot points out, nobody in the links posted seems to suggest that Smith was murdered--only that they can't definitively rule it out.
Well, let's see here -- the report does not rule the death a suicide, and does not rule the death accidental. What conclusion are we supposed to draw, exactly? This seems to send a pretty clear message to the LAPD to investigate the possibility of foul play.
Probably the same bastard who murdered Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain, and Michael Hutchence.
Surely the differences between those cases and Smith's should be readily apparent. I should think "stab wound to the chest" is much more common among homicides than among suicides, while the reverse would be true of hangings and point-blank shotgun blasts to the head.
jjg


...he was fighting with his girlfriend and basicallly said, "If you leave me I'm going to kill myself" and she blew him off.
Somebody should've told him he wouldn't have been the first to break that promise.
I should think "stab wound to the chest" is much more common among homicides than among suicides, while the reverse would be true of hangings...
That's what the people who want it to look like a suicide specialize in...
...and point-blank shotgun blasts to the head.
Except for people with very short arms.
Hey, maybe Phil Spector did it...
'tis the season to be snarky
wendell


I should think "stab wound to the chest" is much more common among homicides than among suicides...with the stabbing, and the thrusting, and the bleeding...glaven.
adamgreenfield


Not to be crass, but I've been wondering about the logistics of stabbing one's own self twice in the chest.
I wonder about the logistics of doing it without any drugs or alochol in your system, as the reports indicate. When this happened, I assumed he had fallen off the wagon and offed himself in a Sid Vicious-esque "I was so fucked up I don't remember killing Nancy" stupor. To stab yourself twice while stone cold sober is completely bizarre.
jpoulos




"Statistically, they have reason to be skeptical. Self-inflicted stabbing deaths are rare. In 2005, the most recent year for which national statistics are available, 32,637 people committed suicide in the United States. Only 590 did so by cutting or piercing, and of those deaths, most were slashing or cutting to the wrists and, to a lesser degree, the throat, according to Lanny Berman, the director of the American Association of Suicidology. "Suicide by stabbing is very rare, and it's particularly rare for someone to stab themselves in the torso,"

Tim Sandberg




"Suicide by stabbing is exceedingly rare; only about 1 to 2 percent of victims die this way. The death of popular singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, from two stab wounds to the chest, two months before Luna’s death, was originally believed by the Los Angeles police to have been a suicide. (Now that case too is being investigated.) “There is this notion that people who use violent methods for suicide may have more anger or hostility behind their actions, either at themselves or others, the manner of death is more typically a matter of convenience and efficiency."

Dr. Ken Conner, University of Rochester’s School of Medicine




Elliott Smith's death is still, I believe, considered "unsolved," as the act of committing suicide by stabbing oneself in the chest TWICE is, while physically possible, so rare as to be unheard of. It's just strange how unwilling we are to accept suicide and intentional overdose as a cause of death.

RLS-1



Here’s another example: The Nerve’s Home and Garden Editor Carl Spackler spent Christmas in LA last year, hanging with a mutual friend who works for Axl (Corn) Rose. Anyway – he takes Spackler to some Hollywood party and they bump into Elliott Smith’s old girlfriend. I don’t know what she did, but Spackler figures she’s crazy. He told me, “Everyone down there says she killed him.”

“What?” I gasp, “You mean Elliot Smith didn’t commit suicide by stabbing himself in the heart? Come on!”

Like I said, the ‘official story’. The truth is a mind-fuck.

Herman Menervemanana



"I'm usually reading something that someone's giving me shit for, because it's not Gen-X."

Elliott Smith



"I was backstage at this show (Sunset Junction) and was astounded to see that he had almost finished off a enormous bottle of whiskey before going on. He got onstage and trainwrecked thru the whole show with the exception of "Thirteen" which I thought was interesting that the only song he could remember completely was the one he hadn't written... I watched Elliotts whole set from about six feet behind him. I could see that he was having such a hard time remembering the words to his songs that a couple of girls in the front row were yelling them up to him... Afterwards he came off stage and started crying. It was really sad. By a coincidence the wall where the figure 8 cover was shot was only about fifty yards from the stage.
“A fan who had come all the way from indiana was on the other side of the fence and asked us if we'd get an autograph for him so we went into Elliott's tent and asked him and even though he was bummed about the show he was totally gracious and gave it to us and we handed it back over the fence to the fan.
“A little while after this show I started working at Amoeba records with Elliott’s sister Ashley. So on the morning after he died it was really heavy. It wasn't just Elliott Smith the songwriter who died, it was Ashley's brother. A few days later I went to the memorial show for him at the Henry Fonda Theatre. It was really moving.”

Erik Meade





"He is someone who I just think was meant to live in another time, when being a musician didn’t mean having to be seen. There is a reason that people—and I include myself in this—there’s a reason people are drawn to sound, because there’s something you can’t quite take about the straight, visceral world.
He just didn’t want to be looked at. But that’s part of being a musician at this point. I think with most artists of our generation you embrace it, and you make it part of what you’re doing, and I’ve tried to do that as much as possible. But I still think about this all the time. And for these songs [on Knives], the reasons I would lock myself in a dark room and play the piano was not because I wanted everyone to look at me. Quite the contrary. And that’s what I hear in Elliott Smith's music. He created this different place that is using different senses. And he did it, but he didn’t want to be here for it. I just feel really fucked up about his death."

Emily Haines




"Back in 1998 at around the time of the XO album I interviewed Elliott Smith for the UK style magazine Dazed and Confused. I hadn't been particularly aware of his work until the week before I conducted the interview when I'd been mailed the whole back catalogue. Since then I've listened to the albums a lot and in particular the posthumous From A Basement On The Hill album which remains one of my favourite records.
XO was his first album for a major label and we met up in the oppressively glitzy, chrome, leather and glass offices of Dreamworks in a road just behind Oxford Street in London. He seemed uncomfortable in the surroundings and only relaxed once we'd left his record company appointed assistant behind and gone to a neighbourhood pub to do the interview.
I liked Smith. He was charming and funny. This was the last interview of a long week of press on the back of months of increased US interest after the success of the Good Will Hunting film and his appearance at the Oscars. He bitched conspiratorially about having to answer the same dumb questions over and over again.
A lot of musicians will try and spin you the "All I care about is the music" line. More often than not its complete bullshit. The impression I got from Smith was that the songs really were the only thing that mattered to him. He couldn't have been further away from a career rock star.
When I asked him about the Oscars (as everybody HAD to ask at the time) he just laughed and told me about the TV crews who were coming up to him asking if his dreams had come true. He thought it was such a ridiculous thing to even consider that being on TV could be any kind of dream when all he wanted was to try and write a song that made him feel like I Second That Emotion made him feel.
He was a nice guy who created some great songs. And sometimes it's just right to remember the good guys."

Kirk Lake




"People've been asking me, like, well, was he, you know... was he just a miserable person? And, uh, no... we had a lot of fun making these records. For example, XO, a lot of it was made in a wig... you know, we were wearing wigs... we weren't all depressed, we weren't shoegazing the whole time."

Rob Schnapf



"Personally, I like more diverse weather than L.A. usually gets. I like wearing a coat, I like having pockets and somewhere to put my hands. I don't like wearing shorts. When I moved here, I'd go out and be the only person in the bar with a coat on. I like wearing a coat..."

Elliott Smith



"His music is so incredible on so many levels, a lot of the musicians playing here tonight have commented on how difficult it is to learn it. He was such an amazing player and incredible lyricist and beautiful voice. For this generation of songwriters, he was incredibly important and timeless."

Jenny Lewis



"Hell Below /Stars Above is a completely different album than how we recorded Rubberneck. We did Rubberneck to try and capture the sound of playing live. But with Hell Below, we grew in the studio. We experimented in the studio. We added piano. Elliott Smith played piano for us."

Clark Vogeler




"once in a while, i've had people approach me in bars just to tell me they don't like me. if that happens, i just try to diffuse the situation by telling them that it's really not worth them going out of their way to criticise me, because i'm nobody special. but mostly, i've been lucky. it's been at least a year since anybody wanted to kick my ass."

Elliott Smith



"I was good at taking tests, because the answer is always imbedded in the question. It's just an accidental little skill."

Elliott Smith




"The good thing about his songs is, they're so well made, they're so crafted and meticulous, they can weather even the most feeble rendition. I've been working on them pretty hard the last two days."

Beck



"I got an email one afternoon, around 4pm, from the owner of lit, asking me if i wouldn't mind coming down to shoot a small, 'secret' show by Elliott Smith that night. i grabbed my camera and ran. the basement of lit holds about 100 people crammed in tight. there was no stage, just the floor and a chair and a mike. everyone was sitting on the floor, and was reverentially quiet.
sad to say he barely got through an entire song. i could actually smell him from where i sat, and it smelled like a bar at last call. his girlfriend had to physically support him to get him to the chair. it was a long way from the last time i had seen him, on the xo tour, with quasi. that was exquisite. this, i was just happy to commune with him, albeit briefly, if only to remember how much his music meant to me, and how good it was when he played it well.
That was his best tour. The lit show was not a good show. It was really sad , actually. He could barely walk, let alone sing and play. This was not long before the end."

Flybutter




"A brief word on Elliott and depression: It is true, as I have witnessed, that Elliott could sink into despair but, keep in mind, remember that the people surrounding him were feeling not that much different than him... This was the Portland scene that Elliott was part of. To be honest a lot of the dark nature came from the city itself; a place where it rains just as often as not and economic depression was prevalent, and bars outnumber cultural centers 25 to 1, once again, Elliott was merely reflecting what was around him and he not only reflected its sadness but, also its beauty and joy. The guy could go from tears to running a joke into the ground (another talent of Elliott's) in about two steps. That joker, prat falling goof was just as much Elliott as was the guy crying over song lyrics written on napkins with a shot of Jamesons at his elbow. He could be a jerk and selfish, and he could be very giving (he bought plane tickets for me to go to Mexico after I had a bad breakup, because he felt I needed some time away). Elliott was like all of us, a complete human being.... I feel both lucky and distraught that I knew him so well. Lucky that I was privileged to get that close to a genius, distraught that everyday I miss my friend and I can't find him in the night no matter how hard I look."

Sean Croghan



"Nothing was very good, then things got better about six months ago. This is sort of close to me, but it’s not exactly connected to just me. It touches on drug use. I got caught up in that for almost two years. Then, I went to this place called the Neurotransmitter Restoration Center. It’s not like a normal rehab. What they do is an IV treatment where they put a catheter in your arm, and you’re on a drip bag, but the only thing that’s in the drip bag is amino acids and saline solution. I was coming off of a lot of psyche meds and other things. I was even on an antipsychotic, although I’m not psychotic. It was really difficult, but also something to get the word out about because it doesn’t cost as much as it does to keep someone in a 28-day rehab. It’s usually a 10-day process, but for me it took a lot longer. I think most people go there for just a week. Some people even go there for gambling problems." [...]

"It just bombards your system with amino acids that kick all the shit out of your nerve receptors, the different amino acids in the proteins eventually sort of rebuild the damaged neuro-receptors. But nobody seems to know about it. There’s been like 15,000 people treated with it, and its success rate is 80% versus 10% for the normal 28-day 12 step."

[...] "I had an unusual reaction to it because I was cut off from a whole bunch of things. It [the treatment] is very good, and I would recommend it. But for me, it just wiped me out like some debilitating weakness. A lot of my frustration came with being too weak to reach over for a glass of water."

Elliott Smith




Kurt (Cobain) was the most talented songwriter I'd ever met. But he was the same way [as Elliott]: He appeared really fragile, in a lot of ways was really stubborn, and he internalized everything. He would go on and on in his songs about how nothing was going to relieve his pain. But at the same time he was searching hard for something to relieve it.

Slim Moon




"He seemed to be doing really well lately. That's why it's really sad. We all had a hope that he was in a good way, or at least heading towards that."

Russell Simins




"What was lost Tuesday was "someone who was really admirable as a person and as a star. There's so much bulls*** around, so many unhumble people who are all about the glitz and the glam and the bulls***. What we lost is a very, very, very, very truthful, truthful, honest star. I think both as a person and as a musician, as an artist. It's really sad because he was just brutally, brutally honest. And very smart. And if you put the two together, it's undeniably appealing."

Russell Simins




"two nights consecutive nights earlier this year, i remember seeing him opening for, and preforming with, the jsbx. the first night, he was a little unsteady. when performing with the blues explosion it seemed as though he was hanging on for dear life as they powered along through some songs. regardless, it was endearing to watch. the second night, he was so on. his solo set was mesmerizing, and when joining jsbx he just rocked out so hard. it was pure bliss to watch. i suppose some days we should stay in bed, and some days were just so on.

fortunately, i also got to see him perform a solo set this past june. both his old and new material was so incredible. he played a near flawless set and seemed relatively happy and cheerful. i left feeling the show really looking forward to what was to come from him. i'll be waiting for a long time now."

9000




"I don’t believe he killed himself so that’s all I have to say about that, but I really don’t. But, having said that, I wasn’t surprised because he had been through really rough time, you know, and I would see him from time to time and it was not getting any better, and rather than surprised it is really gut wrenching sad, you know."

Mark Flanagan

[serendipity]

Singer-songwriter, Elliot Smith died October 21, 2003 of two apparent self-inflicted stab wounds to the chest (Smoking Gun). Smith had many issues in the past battling drug addiction, most notably an addiction to the narcotics, heroin and morphine. At the time, Elliot Smith was clean and not using drugs which made the apparent suicide a bit suspect (Pelisek 1). One of the first things that was troubling about the entire situation was the manner in which it was told through the first hand account of his girlfriend Jennifer Chiba. Elliot Smith’s suicide note was written on a post-it note and while it was first reported his name was spelled wrong (leading to more suspicion), this was ruled a mistake by the investigator, botching the investigation to a further extent. However, the question of handwriting still remained. The handwriting on the note did not match Elliot Smith’s normal handwriting. The autopsy reports revealed that while the death would be consistent with a suicide, other circumstances have arisen leaving the case open for a possible homicide investigation (The Smoking Gun). This came about through many different ways.
Smith was taken to a hospital where the staff attempted to save his life to no avail. Because he died at the hospital, there was no formal crime scene, other than the initial house in which he performed the alleged stabbing (The Smoking Gun). Collected at that scene were a nail and hair kit as well as a black t-shirt he had apparently bled on. When the body was inspected at the morgue the noted operational scars were seen as well as the two small lacerations directly into the middle of the chest. What was also extremely notable about the body were two small cuts on his left and right arm (The Smoking Gun).
Because Smith had a history with drugs, he was tested to see if there were any illegal substances in his system and it came up negative. The reason why this was done was to ensure that his death was in no way influenced by a substance he used to abuse such as alcohol or heroin (Petrides 1). Heroin is opiate that sedates the senses. As an opiate the chemical structure of heroin fits in easily to the receptors that exist in the brain (Girard 277). Because the addict is put in such a euphoric state, it is possible that one can be rendered so high they might not understand an action they commit towards themselves, such as a stab wound (Arnold Reid 656).
When someone dies of a heroin overdose, in most of the cases track marks are also found along the arms or various body parts where the heroin might have been injected (Girard 277). The only cases where this is not relevant is if the decedent was snorting the powder form of heroin. When the body was examined there were visible scars on his body, but there were none recent enough to deduce that he had been using heroin again (The Smoking Gun). Testimony from close friend and relatives also attested to this citing Smith’s year long sobriety and eagerness to continue making music for the rest of his life (Petrides 1).
Toxicology reports found no traces of heroin or any illegal narcotic in his system. The kidneys were examined and there was no evidence to believe that this was an illegal drug related death in any form. This coupled with the various statements from those close to him, all led to the eventual conclusion that there were no drugs involved. The autopsy report that was filed concluded that there was no evidence of a drug overdose or an abuse of drugs at the time. The tests had yielded inconclusive results as to this theory (The Smoking Gun). For this reason, the coroner had to be certain that Smith had not taken any illegal drugs and this lends itself to the statement that Smith’s death might have involved foulplay. [...]

The autopsy report left the possibility of a homicide open. The stab wounds while fatal nature had no marker of hesitation which is usually consistent with suicide. The knife had also gone through closing (The Smoking Gun). According to the reports, a knife almost always has evidence of certain ways they went in when it comes to suicide. The stab wounds had no distinct angle and seemed as if they were driven with more force. Being that the stab wounds went trough his shirt, it is suspected that there was force used. The biggest inclination finally were the two lacerations on his hand and arm which indicate that there might have been some sort of struggle or a form of defense that was used (The Smoking Gun). The only person present at the time was Jennifer Chiba, who refused to talk to the cops. This act made her an official person of interest in the eyes of the authorities.
The lacerations on the arm did not have a specific pattern to them. Typically if there is an act of self-mutilation that leads to death or that precludes death, there tends to be a pattern of marks along the arm, as with any pattern of stabbing or scratching. In this instance, the marks were scattered throughout different parts of the arms and body to indicate there might have been some sort of struggle (The Smoking Gun). If one were to abide by the suicide conclusion, they might deduce that the struggle might have taken place once the girlfriend realized he was trying to stab himself and tried to stop him. However, the story given and her uncooperative attitude with the police made her a bit suspicious. The fact that her fingerprints were on the knife makes it really difficult for one to believe that she just “pulled the knife out” given her secrecy to the event in question.
Another theory that came about was the possibility of a mixture of alcohol with the prescription drugs to create side effects such as depression. Elliot Smith was not only in rehab for heroin, but also for alcohol as he was a severe alcoholic. Since alcohol is a stimulant which can lead to depression and the medication that Smith was taking was for medication it was widely believed at first that the two might have been mixed. The prescription drugs were anti-depressant drugs and drugs for his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (Pelisek). A drug that might have been taken was Ritalin and given its mix with alcohol, it could be thought that used to an excess and mixed with alcohol, the results can be depression (Maher 720). This was one of the first things that was looked at in the autopsy report.
Results were inconclusive though as toxicology reports revealed that there was no alcohol in his system and that the medications were taken at prescribed levels. The post-mordem toxicology report discovered that there were no traces of alcohol in his liver, which is where a bulk of alcohol tends to accumulate and have an effect on (Maher 112). While there was decomposition due to his years of heavy drinking, the reduction reaction was not significant and the blood alcohol levels, which were also tested, revealed no alcohol in his system whatsoever. The analysis of the toxiclogical information revealed no evidence of drugs or alcohol used in the body. This begs the question then as to why Smith would have done this, after being sober for a year and seemingly in higher spirits (according to those close to him).
In the police report, it was noted that when the evidence was analyzed, there were two sets of fingerprints on the knife. Both were latent fingerprints that were discovered using the powder method which is typically used when trying to get fingerprints off of hard materials, in this case a stainless steel kitchen knife (Girard 139). The fingerprints were close together; this was also an indication of there being a struggle during the supposed, “suicide”. Chiba refused to answer questions as to whether or not there was struggle. The only council she was willing to give was that she pulled the knife out of his chest despite his willingness to want to kill himself.
Another specimen that was investigated in the report was the heart as the stab wounds to the heart seemed to be what caused the death at the time. Upon further inspection and analysis during the autopsy, it was found that the two stabs wounds had in fact caused the damage but that the first stab wound had only done minor damage (The Smoking Gun). The second stab wound not only pierced skin and bone, but did in fact rupture the heart resulting in a fatal stab wound to Elliot Smith. There are many questions that arise as to why there were two stab wounds and why it was done in such a harsh matter, delivering a blow so brutal it would damage the heart beyond repair causing death (Pelisek). [...]

What makes this suspicious was the fact that there were two stab wounds in the first place and that the second one was done with such force as to pierce the heart. It is often difficult for one to have that type of strength wherein they could take an instrument and force it into their chest cavity, through clothing, bone and into their heart. The angle and distance from the arms to the heart is such that it makes it extremely difficult for one to gather that much momentum for a stab wound to be that harsh (Pelisek). Additionally, after the first stab wound, it can be implied that one would not have the proper amount of energy to deliver the proper blow to rupture the heart. The knife used was also a simple kitchen knife which would have required even more strength on the person attempting to end their own life. If one were to have stabbed Smith, they might have tried once and failed and tried once again, rupturing the heart and causing the death. Regardless of these logical theories, the plain truth on the autopsy report was that the cause of the death for Elliot Smith was a rupture of the heart, caused by the second stab wound to the chest (The Smoking Gun).
The final piece of evidence had nothing to do with the body but had everything to do with the theory of suicide. Before the supposed suicide, Smith had written a suicide note on a post-it note that supposedly read, “I’m so sorry—Love, Elliot. God forgive me.” Questions arose as to the legitimacy of the note as well. One of the questions that were brought up was why Smith would write such a hasty note and something as trivial as a post-it note. If he were so intent on killing himself and it wasn’t a momentary lapse of sanity due to drugs (as the autopsy report indicates), why then would he take to writing a short note before he killed himself? One thing girlfriend Jennifer Chiba did mention in her statement to the police was that they had a terrible fight and that she had locked herself in the bathroom (The Smoking Gun). If one were to examine Smith’s psychological state they could say the sudden fight might have led him to such irrational actions, however, those who were close to him had stated that this was a surprise and that they had never thought he would do this because of his new found happiness (Petrides).
The biggest question with regards to the note was whether or not the handwriting was actually his. Initially when the evidence was collected, the investigator reported that when Smith signed the note he had spelled his own name wrong which brought forth many suspicions from his fans, however it was later discovered that it was mistake on the part of the investigator as the writing had been so illegible it had only looked like he had spelled his name wrong (Pelisek). This instance calls into question the legitimacy of the handwriting and the note. Because the writing was illegible they would have had to do comparison analysis with other documents to see if the handwriting was in fact Smith’s or if it was a forgery done by someone else. [...]

The specimen that was collected was an unrequested specimen as at the time of writing, Smith had no idea they were going to be compared (Girard 161). What made it easy to compare the styles of writing was the fact that Smith was a prolific writer and was proud of the songs he had made. Many times in CD booklets, the lyrics were often copied straight from his handwriting showcasing the love and dedication he often put into his work (Petrides). When comparing the specimen to the writing, it was found to be similar in that it was script, but still not indicative of it not being a forgery (Girard 159). Because his writing style was so public and he had many things with his signature and handwriting lying around, it is quite possible that the forgery could have easily been made by someone close to him, who knew him better than anyone else. The logic was that if he did write the note, he did so in such a hasty and crazy fashion that it was eligible given his mental state. The handwriting wasn’t a one hundred percent match but enough to “gather” a suicide on the part of the investigators, which is a conflicting result from the autopsy which left the death open to a possible homicide (The Smoking Gun).
While the biological, toxicological, and physical tests revealed there was nothing to implicate a suicide, the psychological evaluations are evidently what led to the police shutting the case and not investigating it any further (The Smoking Gun). Smith’s music was often extremely dark and depressing as much of his earlier work spoke about his battles with drugs and depression. Because of his public battles with addiction and suicidal thoughts the authorities felt no need to push the case any further and chalked it up to a depressed guy who finally offed himself, despite the fact he had been clean and sober for a year and he was in the midst of recording an album (Petrides). The autopsy results contradict much of what the police authorities said had been substantial evidence to rule it a suicide (Pelisek). Ignoring the forensic reports and criminalistic science in favor of not delving any deeper might have been a mistake, although to save time and money the authorities would have needed to rule on something, and this was the easier route to go.
Whether or not Smith’s death was in fact a suicide remains to be seen, although the scientific evidence seems to hint at the major possibility of foul play, so much so that the autopsy results explicitly state that there is reason to believe that this might have been a homicide. In this situation science and human biases tended to conflict like they have so many times before, and in the end Smith’s death (although “solved”) will always be a mystery to fans like me and others. A year after his death, girlfriend Jennifer Chiba attempted to sue the Smith family for money she said she was promised by Elliot. Her claims were that they lived together basically as man and wife and that he had promised to take care of her regardless of what happened. They were thrown out of district court and she is currently in the process of taking it to the California Supreme Court.

Chris



Some people are afraid that if they don't seem like some sort of perpetual winner all the time, if they don't make a lot of money and wear expensive cologne and go to all the right places, that then people are going to think that they're some sort of loser. But just because people have a range of emotions and thoughts which can coexist at the same time and at times sometimes they get ecstatically happy about something and at others times ridiculously depressed, doesn't mean that there's something wrong with them when they're sad and that they are only successful, good Americans when they're happy, when everything's going right for them...

Elliott Smith




He was an amazing guy to watch and work with, because the songs were always fully formed in his head when he came to the studio. I've seen very few people like that. He really didn't need a producer or an engineer, because he knew exactly how he wanted it all to fit together. It was fun to watch--he'd lay down a drum track, and I'd be like, where is that going to go? But he would pull it together.

Larry Crane





Everything changes writing, and that (9-11) changed it, but I don't know in what way, exactly. I've been making up some things that are hardcore, sort of hard lyrically — maybe it's because of that. I can't believe it happened. It's unspeakable. But I'm not going to write a song about it. I'm not the person for that.... I don't think what people need right now is hardness. I think they might need some softness, something a little more comfortable. They don't need death imagery and masks. There's kind of some death imagery in my own music, but not on a mass level.

Elliott Smith




Mostly it's just Elliott in his room, playing his songs into one microphone. Kill Rock Stars was using it as a promotional film, and it wasn't earth-shattering...but it was very beautiful. After Elliott died, I rewatched it. What really struck me was the directness of the performance...watching someone present his craft into one microphone and realizing that you were witnessing the pure source. There's no trickery here—nothing but a man and a microphone.

Brendan Canty, on Lucky Three




Smith’s music always hovered over the sadness of death, briefly touching the crippling destructive thoughts that have echoed in his mind in songs like “Needle in the Hay.” To say his music was sad is a misunderstanding of depression and suicide. It’s not a sadness but a supreme understanding of the futility of life. For most people that understanding is tempered with flashes of joy and excitement and meaning. For others it becomes sharp as broken glass and impossible to ignore. It becomes their understanding of everything.

Derek Phillips




If one of Elliott's musical "heroes" had died with such suspicious circumstance, I'd think he'd be more interested in the truth about that. And to want to know truth is not a bad thing. It is a natural thing to want to "KNOW".

BrianB




"I'm not sure my songs would make good singles... Aren't you supposed to have drums and stuff?"

Elliott Smith, 1998



"He was and is a really remarkable soul. just over and over again would just give and give and give. He was someone I looked up to as a person and an artist. People like Elliott work on such an honest no bullshit level that it raises the bar for everyone around him. You couldn't work with him or hang out with him and be an asshole. It just wasn't possible."

Ross Harris


"The saddest part is that music was a respite for this gentle and fragile guy, and he was just starting to get to a place where he could express himself again in the way he loved doing."

Chris Douridas




"Fragile. That's such a bummer. It's not true, not to me. Some people who are used to listening to the radio equate acoustic songs with fragile songs, which I never did."

Elliott Smith







"Fragile.That's such a bummer. It's not true, not to me. Some people who are used to listening to the radio equate acoustic songs with fragile songs, which I never did."

Elliott Smith



(Most treasured possession is) a guitar that my dad gave me. But the really prize one is a flat-rock that I put a bunch of religious stickers on as a sunday school project when I was a kid. It says "Jesus loves you" on it. It's called the god rock. My mom sent it to me last year. I think she thought it would improve the vibe of my apartment.

Elliott Smith





Each time Smith's song "A Passing Feeling" came on while driving:
He would always kind of shush the car… right before this drum fill towards the end… and it just made him laugh every time. And it made me laugh because every time this part would come up, he'd put his hands up, and he'd have this big goofy grin on his face, and then you'd see him air drumming in the car.

Ashley Welch




I began buying records and didn't talk to anyone. I spent all day listening to them in my bedroom. There was a sadness, that made me full of joy. It was like a secret magic. Anyhow, I didn't like to go outside, I wasn't talkative. When I was out there there were always fights.
When my father finished living in California he moved to Portland and I followed him. What immediately struck me there, was that nobody in the street wanted to have a fight with me. That was a big relief after being in Texas.

Elliott Smith



My problem is that I have too much free time. Writing songs isn't a full-time job… so i ruminate. I truly hope the future will give me something to be nostalgic over, because at the moment, there aren't a lot of things i can remember with warmth. To kill worry, I write. I try to maintain my brain activity, constantly thinking about my songs. Because if I worry, I begin to drink… I must always battle against this idleness.

Elliott Smith




The creativity is inevitably the result of a problem. There is certainly a lack in my life. But my songs aren't depressive, that I find all people and life depressing. If my writing is found so sad, it's maybe because, in rock, writers cheat, we feign a bit. When i call myself shit in a song, it's something I regularly tell myself: it's not depressing, just honest. Why forbid the accessibility of these kinds of feelings in songs? I do music, and some other people earn money from it. When the well has dried up, they will throw me in. But i won't cry, I never need compliments. But people aren't ever fair. I've been ill-treated, but I've lived. I've come to the point where I just hang on.

Elliott Smith




"here is the story behind the shirt

once upon a time there was a man who made exceptionally good music. his name was Elliott Smith. in october of 2003, jennifer chiba, his girlfriend at the time, killed him, and then try to sue his family for a million dollars. the motive is unclear.

the purpose of video cameras = to record history.

so we drew a hand that symbolizes the hand of history thats pulling elliott into the history books. he lived a good life, made inspiring music, and can now only be seen in old videos or pictures.

this shirt goes out to all the elliott fans."


CANVAS STUDIOS









if you don’t believe jennifer did it then i think you’re fucking stupid.

www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/esmithaut1.html

there are the actual documents, possible “suicide vs. homicide” is stated clearly and her refusal to speak with police is stated clearly. what’s funny is that in cases like that in most situations they will take the “other person” into custody. jennifer chiba was nothing but a money-hungry bitch and the only mistake she made was not altering his life insurance papers to list her as the benificiary and THEN kill him. that is why she had to sue him posthumously!
the bitch didn’t mourn for anything but her bank account!
i really really believe that LAPD needs to REOPEN THIS CASE AND PROVE THAT HE DID NOT COMMIT SUICIDE. THERE ARE WAYS. look what they have done to other “closed” cases. if the fucking pigs would have done their job in the first place and truly treated the house like a crime scene and really picked through it, they would have found it wasn’t a suicide. believe me i have seen it many times. there is such a thing as luminol and a blacklight to really see where the blood went.

Megan Elizabeth







(Who's Behind the Door) was recorded in Elliott's studio in LA. It was a surreal experience. Long story. Elliott came to our last show in LA and wanted to record, so we schlepped our gear over there, recorded the basics the next day and I hung around for 2 weeks trying to finish one song with him. He wasn't very healthy, but he was trying. It was the last time I saw him. I left before we finished mixing it. His girlfriend gave me the mix about 8 months later at his 'funeral'.

Neil Gust







Then there was the one song... that somehow in a freakish accident got nominated for an Academy Award. I remember my manager calling me up at seven in the morning. I was staying in a hotel in West Hollywood for two months recording. Then my manager called me up at seven in the morning and said, "You've been nominated!" And I said, "For what? It's seven in the morning!" Because they announce it at like 6 in the morning or something ridiculous like that.

Elliott Smith




"...Going out with Elliott sometimes is like taking someone's kid you've only just met to the circus. Then when you get there, you find out that the tigers aren't real, they're robots. So you say, 'Sorry, kid, I'm sorry about that.' And the kid says, 'But I love robots.'"

Mark Flanagan





"When I left for college and started hanging out with him when he was in town, he was totally different than all of my friends and how I'd grown up. He was open-minded and really compassionate. My parents were, my mom was really compassionate and really great...but just the opened-mindedness and the artistic side, his activist mentality, his fairness, he totally turned that on in me..."

Ashley Welch




Sometimes I slip up and read stuff, but in general I had to stop monitoring the little sea of opinions, 'cos it's just not healthy to think about yourself all the time. Especially being on tour, it's so centred on myself. But it's mostly a matter of my attitude, and if I can keep it positive then that's the main battle.
There's a time that I could be talking to my friends about them, and not about me. That's what i have to do. It's only a battle if the world all gets boiled down to me and what I'm doing. That seems to happen to a lot of bands, y'know? Their world gets really small and it all has to centre around them and then they just lose it. No, i've figured out things to do to get around that.

Elliott Smith





The Oscars.....

Everything was in slow motion. And I didn't feel particularly nervous. I just felt like i was in some odd dream that was probably meant for someone else. Everyone was really nice, but the point of the show is the show. It's certainly not me. The point of it is to have a big parade of celebrities.
Then they had another idea for me to sit on the steps of the stage - like a down-home jamboree. 'c'mon people, follow me along in this song. I'm just hunkerin' down on the steps.' That was just ridiculous.

Elliott Smith




So much of our friendship was based on a love of records, and, you know, he made so many mix tapes when he was living with me. He wasn't doing anything during the daytime at all. I tried really hard... I tried to get him to buy a house upstate. I sensed that living in a city where bars were open till four in the morning was not going to be a good thing... I tried to keep him out of the city and keep him from staying out all night, even if he totally wanted to wring my neck for it. I would take him down to the Jersey shore sometimes to Seaside Heights, totally cheesy, where MTV had their totally lame beach house, and the amusement piers. He was really into it. No one recognised him; no one looked twice at him. We went to a lot of carnivals and stuff together. He was totally into going on the most insane rides. I would stand there and be like, "There is no way I'm going on that thing." And he would go on it by himself like five times in a row.

Dorien Garry




Elliott's tattoos....

"The very first one I got was supposed to be a sun. I got it in New Hampshire and it was done by this muscle-man giant: he was like, 'What do you want a sol blade on your arm for?' Later it was incorporated into a map of Texas."

FLIPSIDE and a very jet-lagged Elliott Smith are comparing tattoos over extra-strong coffee and strangely shaped muffins.

"The person who did this one [points to Texas map, left arm] married the person who did that one [points to right arm]. I played at their wedding!"

His quiet, leisurely drawl is broken by a laugh. "The one on this arm is of Ferdinand The Bull, from the children's story." He lifts up the sleeve of his grey sweatshirt and reveals a very complex sketch of a bovine.

Why did you have that? Are you a Taurus or something?

"No, I'm a lion, a performer!" he grins. "I just wanted a bull on my arm - maybe 'cause they're stubborn - and I liked this one. The story's good: it's about someone who lives in his own interior world and doesn't understand what's going on around him, but he's happy in it anyway. I like it."




"That makes me feel like shouting; however, this is a no shouting house."

Elliott Smith




"Some people commit "death by cop." He committed death by Jen Chiba. Whether he did it to himself, in some tortured or vengeful caricature of love... or she did it herself... she was supremely instrumental in the moments leading up to his death."

Phil Padwe




" Elliott was doing so well before he died. It is true that people who opt for suicide are often said to be doing well. The suicides in waiting are happy because they have found the resolve to do what they have wanted to do for a considerable period of time. Even as a counselor, knowing this and knowing that Elliott could be grievously depressed, I do not think he killed himself. I do not rule out that there could have been a fight between the two of them, him and Jennifer. In the end, as I wrote in the article, I do not think it was suicide, but that does not necessarily mean that, without a reasonable question of a doubt, that Jennifer did it. I do think there should be an investigation into the matter, and there is no reason why there has not been."

Nelson Gary



"A group of friends were joking; we had to liven up his show because his songs are so sad, and he just stands there, and we were just picking on him, joking around 'You need some go-go dancers!'. And he was like, 'Okay'. A bunch of people just chickened out, and me and Swannie were just like, 'Let's do it', because it's funny, and his sense of humor was never put into his shows (...) There was this show at Irving Plaza, and so we did it, and it was pretty fun and people loved the dancing. Just me and Swannie on either side of the stage."

E.V. Day


www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmp-D...ext=1&index=71




Actually, Sean (Crogan) and Elliott sang "I'm only Sleeping" at the Satyricon show. They forgot a verse in the middle of it, and Elliott said, "shit, what's the next line??!" Everyone laughed, but they recovered nicely. It was so sweet, how Sean kept kissing the top of Elliott's head. Heh!
Elliott looks like he's gained a few pounds. Good!

Carole


It was sweet, when he was like introducing the band he was like, "here's my big brother, Sam, he's a fabulous person, I love him." Then Sam (Coomes) like did the gagging sign, so Elliott took his guitar off and jokingly like beat it over his head.

Arby -- at the Moore Theatre 11.12.00





"In my most humble opinion, from all that I have read (and I might add that I read it all objectively) I would choose murder.

I am no conspiracy theorist, but the evidence favors involvement of Chiba in Elliott's death.

Especially curious on a psychological level, is her attitude after toward the estate, and the family's attitude toward her.

Forensically, there are just too many unanswered questions, unperformed tests, and ignored evidence for me to conclude with certainty that the death was suicide."

Brenda Reader-Cuson



"He was one of the only guys, in the past decade or two, who was a real force. He's one of the best songwriters to come around in the last century. If music was supposed to be the purest expression of self and experience that was personal and spiritual more than just aural, he was one of the best musicians to ever have existed."

Michael Booher



"This is what happened.... I have friends in LAPD they let me look at the report and all evidence..I even went to the house where it happened.

This is what happened in a simplest way of telling it.

Steven P. Smith Was stab twice, Once in the stomach and once in the heart.

Smith and his Girlfriend got in a fight ( about killing himself, She got mad and then lock herself in the bathroom)...Smith was on Dexedrine with some anti-depression Meds. ( has anyone ever been cured on Dex...I think not) Smith wrote a note...then stab himself in the Stomach and screamed.. Smith Girlfriend came out of the bathroom then found smith with the knife in his Stomach, she pulled it out then stab him in the the chest (but before she did that Smiths tried to stop her... but lost) Smith loved her, so he told her she would be taken care of and to pull out the knife. and she did....

She was never taken care of thats why she sued..."

Grant Waters




"For almost a month, I poured over transcripts of interviews with Smith’s friends and loved ones; I read books and newspaper articles; I tried to interpret lyrics of songs like “Suicide Machine” and “Abused,” which would never be released; I spoke with former band mates, medical professionals, music executives, girlfriends -- even Jennifer Chiba, who was so willing to talk that I found it unnerving. Some people hung up on me. Others choked up, sharing particularly troubling memories. People told me things they shouldn’t have, things I couldn’t repeat. I cried a lot that month. Sometimes it was because of stress, but mostly I was crying for Elliott Smith."

Ellen Carpenter




"No track marks or surgical scars are identified. There are multiple ovoid, linear and angular nonspecific old scars on the dorsal and dorsal-radial left forearm. Ovoid scars have maximal diameters no greater then 3/8 inch. On the dorsal left hand in the web between the thumb and index finger, there is a slightly irregular old scar surrounded by suture marks. Small nonspecific old scars are noted at the left knee and on the right side of the lower jaw. No scars are noted on the volar wrists."

Dr. Lisa Scheinin



I was around Elliott days before his death and he obviously was in great need of help. He had knife marks on his arms that were really deep and fresh."

Nadine



He was certainly not a one-dimensional person! One of my favorite memories is seeing him sitting on a couch with my stepdaughter on her birthday. She was a teen and a big fan of his music and it was so nice of him (at Joanna Bolme's prompting) to come over that day and talk with her.

He could be very funny as well, moonwalking, musical jokes and silly shit. We had a good time building Jackpot! Recording Studio and working on sessions. I miss him still.

Larry Crane



“He had three really tremendous knife wounds on his left arm. They were deep, like he had to go across a couple of times or have the sharpest, biggest knife to do it.”

Robin Peringer September 2003



"No track marks or surgical scars are identified. There are multiple ovoid, linear and angular nonspecific old scars on the dorsal and dorsal-radial left forearm. Ovoid scars have maximal diameters no greater then 3/8 inch. On the dorsal left hand in the web between the thumb and index finger, there is a slightly irregular old scar surrounded by suture marks. Small nonspecific old scars are noted at the left knee and on the right side of the lower jaw. No scars are noted on the volar wrists."

Dr. Lisa Scheinin October 23 2003




“I came home from seeing Lost in Translation and he was lying in the bed with his arm bleeding, he had seven old cigarette burns on his arm. It was evidence of his pain from that heroin and crack period that was just a little too real, so he’d taken a knife to it."

Jennifer Chiba mid September 2003




"No track marks or surgical scars are identified. There are multiple ovoid, linear and angular nonspecific old scars on the dorsal and dorsal-radial left forearm. Ovoid scars have maximal diameters no greater then 3/8 inch. On the dorsal left hand in the web between the thumb and index finger, there is a slightly irregular old scar surrounded by suture marks. Small nonspecific old scars are noted at the left knee and on the right side of the lower jaw. No scars are noted on the volar wrists."

Dr. Lisa Scheinin October 23 2003



where did
the scars go...

solveig



"Most people I know, when they get really mad about something, don't lean out their window and scream about it to people they don't even know. Usually their voice will drop down low and they'll be like (a near whisper): "That fuckin' pisses me off.' There's lots of things I like to sing about, but not many things I can imagine wanting to scream about."

Elliott Smith






"It's become pretty apparent that no matter what I really do or say, there are certain ways that people are going to perceive me. And it's just gotten to the point where I can't do anything about it, so I don't worry about it that much. I just make up songs that to me feel human. And they're bound to be seen by some people as confessional or depressing, some sort of real one-way assessment that is not how they are to me. I don't worry as much as I did before. There's no point in me trying to control stuff like that."

Elliott Smith




"I don't try to shut things out, because I don't think that works very well. I prefer to let things come on in and do whatever its going to do and then leave. If a big wave is coming at you, you're gonna get wet. You can either withdraw into a little shell and pretend that you're not getting wet, or you can just get wet and dry off. That's a corny metaphor, I guess, but that's how I deal with things I don't like. I outlive them."

Elliott Smith






"Somebody That I Used To Know is a pretty straightforward "Fuck off' kind of song - more straightforward than they usually are. Usually they don't turn out that way, probably because I would feel really bored if I had to be in the exact same mood every time I sang the song to stay inside it and play it well. There has to be room for my imagination to kind of run around inside the lyrics, and hopefully inside people who bother to listen to it."

Elliott Smith




"Everybody's an expert when it comes to music. If it was a painting, they'd have to go ask somebody else who knew something about painting. But since it's pop music, everybody feels in a position to criticize people. It really bothers me when I think about it. So I don't think about it very much."

Elliott Smith




love is all around...

www.bellwethergallery.com/art...01.cfm?fid=359



"On several songs there's some imagery that keeps popping up about soldiers, or doing battle with something. On that particular song, "Wouldn't Mama Be Proud", I just thought that it was an interesting question. I don't know what the answer is, to that. Sometimes it seems like "No"... I wanted it to seem equally plausible to answer it "No" or "Yes".You can't answer to some sort of authority that you don't even know who they are, or what it is. That song wasn't meant to be specifically addressed to my parents, it's just an abstract authority that sees you in some mainstream terms. Would they like how your life seems to be? Would they be disappointed? Would they be impressed? Does any of this matter? Or are any of the answers negative, some of them positive?"

Elliott Smith





The band I was in had a member at the time that worked with Mercury Lounge in NYC and I was downstairs at the bar waiting for her to finish up some stuff. It was before doors opened, so it was myself, the bartender and a guy with his head down and engulfed in his beer and own thoughts. I make small chat with the bartender and still sitting quietly right next to this guy and he never says a word the entire time. I look over a few times and think if that's Elliott Smith or not. I didn't want to disturb the guy as he seemed just appreciative to be left alone and enjoying his time. About 15 minutes pass, then without notice, the guy gets up and walks out into the still sunny day. Always weird to be in a club/venue during the day and leave when it's still light out. I ask the bartender if that was Elliott Smith and he goes, "Yeah, he comes in here just to hang all the time." Right as I was about to ask another question, my friend comes down from the office and we were off to flyer or do something, but I will always think of that moment and how many things I wanted to ask him or find out a little more into what he was about. When I heard about his death months later I thought back to that time and how it wasn't much, but it was something... I will never forget that moment.

Tom Mullen (Equal Vision Records)



"The Marble Index is very different from the kind of songs that I seem to make up, and it seems very static in a way. It doesn't move a whole lot, but it's still really great, and I'm intrigued by that. There's something really cool about how static and immovable it is - very stream-of-consciousness-like and harmonically kind of droning. Even though I've been listening to it over and over again, I still can't put my finger on what I like about it. But I really do like it."

Elliott Smith





"Hey, if she gave me a bunch of super-duper-uber rare elliott tracks to hoard for myself, i'd probably kiss her ass and defend her relentlessly too! Maybe even kill a few threads she doesn't like."

The Sidewalk Boss




"The raccoon is gone now, I believe. A small white cat has taken up residence under the bathroom. My elf house is host to many life-forms!"

Elliott Smith


"Elliott Smith serves as Celine Dion's foil in the early part of the book, partly because they met upon the field of not-much-honor at the Oscars in 1998 and Dion roundly trounced my own little indie-songwriting hero. In this song, he provides a vague, menacing narrative that sketches a larger cultural trope - the misunderstood, abused, sensitive kid decides he doesn't need society's approval, muttering basically, "You can't reject me. I'm rejecting you." The dynamic between "alternative culture" and the "mainstream" too often carries that sour defensiveness into so-called adulthood. It's a gorgeous, haunting song, still. The irony is that when Dion and Smith met at the Oscars, she was so unexpectedly sweet to him that he ended up defending her to friends who criticized her, for the rest of his all-too-brief, burnt life."

Carl Wilson





"Self-inflicted stabbing deaths are rare. In 2005, the most recent year for which national statistics are available, 32,637 people committed suicide in the United States. Only 590 did so by cutting or piercing, and of those deaths, most were slashing or cutting to the wrists and, to a lesser degree, the throat. Suicide by stabbing is very rare, and it's particularly rare for someone to stab themselves in the torso"

Lanny Berman, director of the American Association of Suicidology.






"This is where the greatness lies: I think that Elliott Smith just got to the point when he could really hear something. That’s a very fragile and evanescent state, if you’re not a craftsman, which he wasn’t. He was an artist, and that’s why for him almost nothing was ever good enough. The leathery beauty of Smith’s melody is the most beautiful kind of all. Not just Smith but these sympathetic producers-engineers really went for it, and you can hear it plain as day. I only know what’s been reported, that Elliott wanted this to be a double-disc set, à la White Album, warts and all. I do think that whoever made the final choices and sequencing did a good job. I think it’s possible that cuts were necessary to strengthen the impact of the work as a whole, made by someone with better judgment than the artist himself in this case.

This is rock music, undoubtedly, and it bashes its way into your heart the way rock likes to do. But it’s not just your heart it wants. And it’s not like a fuck you, and neither is it a desperate plea to be understood. And as the last song, “A Distorted Reality Is Now a Necessity to Be Free,” makes clear, thank you and good night, From a Basement on the Hill ends just in time, having said everything it needed to. No, he would never have topped it, ever again. Yes, I do think the drugs and liquor helped him get to that rarefied air he needed in order to hear these songs, and to carry them through — to execute them. Because they’re so beautiful, not in a heartbreaking way but in a destiny way, a gauntlet-throwing way. And in a look, man, how’s your petty life? kind of way. Like this: I can see my death, and it’s glowing gold, so close, so far away."

John Payne




video.google.com/videoplay?do...99735593908602



"Departing on the ill-fated tour to support Figure 8, he confided in Chiba, then just a friend. 'He said that he'd wanted to kill himself many times but didn't want his mother to get a phone call one day saying that he'd done it, so he was going to commit 'socially acceptable suicide', the slow one - alcohol and drugs - because he knew that would eventually destroy him."

Spin


(late summer of 1999)

"L.A. is pretentious and lonely."

Elliott Smith






"During the summer of 1999, plaintiff and appellant Jennifer Chiba began a romantic relationship with singer and songwriter Elliot Smith (aka Steven Paul Smith).






"A lot of us who really cared about him had already said our goodbyes. There was an article that came out recently calling him a 'junkie songwriter.' But he was not a junkie songwriter — he became a junkie. He was not prolific because of drugs and alcohol. He was prolific and couldn't help it and made some very self-destructive choices towards the end. He was going through something, but it was a very private war."

Autumn de Wilde




"The one song that he could not listen to all the way through without crying was Phil Collins' 'Against All Odds.' That's what I loved about Elliott. He could be so ridiculous!"


Autumn de Wilde





dorien garry had worked for kim gordon and thurston moore, the married couple at the center of sonic youth, taking care of their new baby, coco. through gordon and moore, she caught wind of a concert taking place in raleigh, n.c.: an anniversary party for tannis root, the company that made sonic youth's t-shirts, with performances by mudhoney and redd kross as well as sonic youth.

"elliott [smith] was kind of in a funk, just sitting around and playing music but not much else, and it was like 'come on, we're all going to drive down to raleigh'," says garry. "and i really figured out that something was wrong when he got on the turnpike and we stopped at a restaurant and he was like, 'is there any place to get alcohol here?' and it's like, 'on the new jersey turnpike? no, you're lucky if you can get a decent cup of coffee. no. not at all. come on, you can make a ten-hour drive without a drink.' he just wanted to be anywhere but in his own skin at that time."

on the first night of the two-night celebration, they were giving a friend a ride home from the party, and smith had been drinking. in the north carolina countryside, they stopped to let garry's friend out of the car.

"it was pitch black and we were in a little cul-de-sac, and [smith] just got out and started running," garry remembers. the first to go after him was tim foljhan, a sometimes back-up musician for cat power who made his own music with the band two dollar guitar. he and smith had hit it off, and by the time garry got to the spot in the darkness where they'd disappeared they were both off a cliff -- smith had run over the edge and foljhan had followed him. "[smith] landed on a tree and the branch went into his back," says garry. "he wouldn't go to the hospital and we took him back to the hotel, and it was like 'what the fuck is going on?' i felt responsible. it was my friend that i bring on this, everybody's fun happy road trip. at the show the next day, he was kind of, said sorry he put everybody through that, and bandaged up his back -- the last thing he really wanted to do was to make a spectacle of himself and have everybody freaking out."



"I like to find pet names sometimes for people I really like. That's why Dorien... is just Dorien."

Elliott Smith




"I lived in a series of suburbs: DeSoto, Duncanville, Cedar Hill. My stepdad was into places with bigger and bigger yards, and we kept moving farther and farther away from people. I remember there were a lot of white folks and there wasn’t much money. I was kind of a violent little person—I was not a very happy kid—and the kids at my school were violent little monsters too. So every couple of weeks there was somebody new to fight. I only won a couple in my whole life, but I was one of those kids who just wouldn’t throw in the towel, no matter how badly I was getting beat. It was like, “Yeah, you’re gonna kick my butt, but I’m gonna try to hurt you before you do.” More than anything, fighting on the school grounds just landed me in the principal’s office, and back then they would spank you with a big wooden paddle that had holes drilled into it. I don’t know if they do that anymore, but it was better when I moved to Portland. Nobody gets into fights in Portland."

Elliott Smith



For MAGNET readers, the most famous person who’s worked at SatellitePark is Elliott Smith. What are your memories of him being there?
My boyfriend at the time, David McConnell, played in the band Goldenboy with Shon Sullivan, who played with Elliott. Elliott came over one day, and he stayed for six weeks. He never left during that time. I was in awe of his talent, so it was a little awkward. He recorded in my bedroom for a while. I’d fall asleep and wake up and there’d be Elliott Smith, singing across my sleeping body. It was an odd situation and terribly upsetting in certain ways. He obviously had a huge substance-abuse situation going on. At various times, I thought he was going to off himself in the house. It was something he talked about a lot, and a lot of it was said because he wanted to hurt DreamWorks.

He was that upset with his DreamWorks contract?
He wanted to make a point to them by [killing himself]. They’d record for days and days without sleeping. David would come up and say, “I feel like an athlete who’s been waiting his whole life to run in the Olympics and I’m being told to slow down.” They’d record these really amazing tracks, and Elliott would say, “It sounds too good. Fuck it up, please.” It’s like slashing a painting a little bit if you’re a producer or engineer. Elliott was convinced the mixes he did here were the ones he wanted, and he’d beg David to destroy the masters because he was afraid someone would put out different mixes of the record—which, in fact, they did. David couldn’t bring himself to destroy the masters. I guess the ultimate irony is that Elliott was completely straight at the end. He was not on any substances.

And just to clarify, the album he recorded at your studio is From A Basement On The Hill.
Yes. I actually have the mixes he wanted. I’ve never done anything with them. I don’t know what to do with them.

Has anyone asked?
No. They went to his previous producer and had him re-do everything. [Smith’s original mixes] are rougher, they’re not as polished. He wanted to go back to a more raw sound. He wanted it desperately—all he really talked about was wanting to go back to before they polished him up.

Josie Cotton




"Don't you worry, Elliott is here."

May Lou Lord

[serendipity]

Mute Memories and Frustrated Fireworks: Why Elliott Smith is My Hero Forever

A few weeks after I started college, one of my new friends (a much, much cooler friend) asked me if I’d ever heard of Elliott Smith. “Uh… yeah…” I mumbled. It wasn’t completely a lie; I knew 'Needle in the Hay' from the soundtrack to The Royal Tenenbaums, but that was the extent of my knowledge. The next day he stopped by my dorm room with a burned copy of XO tucked into a notepaper sleeve.

It was a… difficult experience. I’d been listening to the most disposable sort of punk rock in an attempt to reinvent myself as tough and rebellious, and XO sounded like nothing I’d heard before. But I persevered… and failed. After a week on continuous loop in my CD player I’d progressed to the "this is nice, but..." stage and no further. Still, I wasn’t going down without a fight. I picked up a copy of his eponymous sophomore release in hopes that it would fit in more with my style. And it worked. I spent Thanksgiving break in near isolation, picking those 12 tracks apart. Then on a lonely winter bus ride, reading Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair and 'Needle in the Hay' coming through my headphones, I had a breakthrough. Or… breakdown rather. I managed to get back to my room at least, safely out of sight before the tears just couldn’t stay locked up. I was sold. In less than five months I’d tracked down everything he’d ever put to record, a personal record I believe still remains unbroken. That was the fall of 2004 - a few months earlier and I’d have been able to brag that I got into him while he was still alive, but then again I guess that’s part of the message I’ve always read in his music: never, ever being cool enough to brag.

He was a rare combination - just as much a patient, meticulous craftsman as he was a unique artist. Going back and reading reviews from the release of XO and Figure 8, his first two releases for Dreamworks and the last of his lifetime, I’ve always been amazed at the sense of shock, sometimes almost outrage, that he’d exchange his lo-fi roots for lushly orchestrated compositions. Maybe I’m just gifted with perfect hindsight, but even the most cursory listens to his first three albums seem to suggest a constant fight against the constraints of his equipment, a sound bogged down not by an excess of vision but by simple necessity. Even among the false starts of his uneven (but frequently heartbreaking) debut Roman Candle, you get the feel of a man thinking out every step. By 1997’s Either/Or that attention to detail had paid off, he’d gone from basement troubadour to full one-man band, clearly the only thing holding him back was money. There’s the question, I guess, of what From a Basement on the Hill would have been had he lived to see it finished, that it was to use the painfully limited vernacular of music writing, to be a much rawer album, and certainly, there’s plenty to suggest that was true. Still though the sound may change the idea behind remains constant, and what we have of the album is every bit as layered and attentive as what came before it.
My favorite story about Elliott Smith came from a kid in one of my classes, who described a visit to his sister in New York sometime in 2000. He was 14 years old and neck deep post-grunge and nu-metal, those two embarrassing footnotes in the musical development of almost any boy his age. But his sister absolutely insisted he had to go see this Smith guy, and he caved. I wish I remember his exact words because they were funnier than anything I’m capable of, but it was something to the effect of getting home and throwing every CD he owned in the trash. It’s a story I’ve always liked because it sums up perfectly what’s so charming about Elliott Smith’s approach to music: he didn’t have to blaze trails or break the rules, he was perfectly content to wander down the familiar paths of pop music and just show you. And you’d follow.

It’s easy, though, to talk about life-changing experiences and Elliott Smith, almost to the point of parody. And maybe I’m just being defensive because he’s had such a profound effect on my taste and my life and there’s absolutely no way around that, but I’ve always seen it like this: He wrote about things that are so familiar to so many - loss and frustration and need and not knowing who you are and hating the person you only think you are, and he did it in words that are easy and immediate but whose true power sinks in only with time. I’d be far more surprised if people had difficulty identifying with his lyrics than at commiseration being commonplace.

At some point I got over the hero-worship phase in my music listening, which I guess is healthy and mature and a thousand other terribly boring things. It’s been four-and-a-half years since I was an awkward college freshman and my taste is more informed and varied and intelligent and impressive, but I don’t know how to just gush anymore. Elliott Smith makes me remember how to gush, how to act like listening to music is the most important thing in the world and that’s something I’ll always be thankful for.

Eric Garbe




“I loved reading your article because it was about your experience with Elliott’s music. It passing over you at first, and then coming back and hitting you hard. That’s what happened to me in a way, back then. It makes me happy to hear that his music lives on and grows stronger in its potency instead of being forgotten over time. Your article made my day.” -

Autumn de Wilde



"[My songs] come more from moving out of my Mom's family than anything else. ... There's the part of me that tries to chronicle other people's lives, especially my mom's."

Elliott Smith




"...if enough people keep telling you you’re some way, eventually you kinda wonder they’re right."

Elliott Smith



Have you thought about that, you know, kinda, constantly being described as, you know, depressed and solemn and quiet – can that affect the person?

“Yeah, sure, yeah. Yeah, in fact, recently, it got…it’s been getting to me quite a bit, to the point where I don’t…where I really dread interviews. Even though this one is fine. But yeah, you know, nobody wants somebody telling them over and over again that they’re dark or depressed just because the music they’re playing at the moment is not as… ‘up and at it’ as what’s on the radio.”

Elliott Smith



"I think no one ever lives up to their potential, and that's not a negative thing, though it sounds like that in my songs. I mean it does burn me out sometimes. But it's impossible to live up to your potential in this world because if you can, potential itself is not worth very much. People are infinitely more capable than what they end up showing."

Elliott Smith



"I don't like when people talk about the bad things that have happened to them as if that makes them unique. Because I don't think I've had a harder time than other people."

Elliott Smith



"Metaphors work a lot better when you don't draw attention to the fact that they're metaphors."

Elliott Smith



"If you can't name the big thing, you have to break it apart into small things with names and build it back up using the small things."

Elliott Smith



:

"drugs were on my mind, but they weren't only on my mind because of my involvement with them," he says. "they were partly on my mind because it's a very useful device to talk about other things that are harder to name. if you can't name the big thing, you have to break it apart into small things with names and build it back up using the small things."

In the new book XO
www.magnetmagazine.com/1998/0...on-the-upside/




"In a way it's the last place I'd ever move to - so I thought I'd check it out."

Elliott Smith, on L.A.




"I'm not interested in trying to make depressing music for the sake of it. There's a difference between depressing and real. You're not necessarily depressed just because you don't agree with the contrived happiness of tv culture. I was attracted to the dark side because I didn't hear it on the radio. All I heard was false pop bullshit cult-of-the-winner crap and i reacted to that. But if I could come up with a joyous song like Smokey Robinson or Stevie Wonder, I'd be really happy."

Elliott Smith





"My songs aren't a journal or a diary. They're just moods."

Elliott Smith



"If you call it writing, it sounds like some sort of concentrated effort, calculated and deliberate. Some people can do it like that, but it isn't my way.Ii can't get anything done if I sit down and say I'm going to write a song. Too much concentration makes my imagination shut down. I like distractions - which is why I make things up in bars or on the subway or walking around... All the impressions you get in a minute or an hour are countless. All that stuff people absorb but have no use for because they can't use it to make money or whatever. For me, that comes out in songs."

Elliott Smith





"For me, a good record has as many different feelings at once as possible. You can be worried about something, and happy about something else, and irritated by someone across the room who's talking too loud, and then somebody else you like walks in... There's a convergence of all kinds of different feelings. Maybe the music sounds happier as I was trying to escape the little box I was being put in. But I suspect it's more that I've handled the conflicting elements in the same song better."

Elliott Smith, on 'Figure 8'



I got inspired by what I read in Matt LeMay's book. This is a quote from the same text quoted in the book at one point. I think it fits here.


"we know that to give writing its future, it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author"

Roland Barthes




Left Banke — "Pretty Ballerina"
I've done that one a number of times. Elliott Smith always used to like that stuff, so I remember we'd do any number of those when he was around. There was that common pull of Zombies, Kinks, Left Banke...

Jon Brion



"At 16, second kick in the teeth, or rather in the heart, "Angeles" by Elliott Smith. Didn't recover either and never got used to his absence."

Garciaphone




"Le chanteur-compositeur californien Elliott Smith a été retrouvé mort en octobre 2003, poignardé en pleine poitrine. L'on crut d'abord à un suicide, mais sa famille pense que Jennifer Chiba, la fiancée de Smith, l'a tué. Pas encore inculpée, Chiba n'en est pas moins devenue la suspecte n° 1. Voici pour les circonstances entourant From A Basement On The Hill, première livraison posthume de Smith et successeur de Figure 8, sorti en 2000."

Nick KENT Liberation



Your next film Elliott’s Suicide,focuses on Elliot Smith and the events surrounding his death.How do you feel about the rumours surrounding what happened?

Elliott was a good friend of mine. It’s an open case because her [Smith’s girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba] fingerprints were on the knife and it was considered that she had killed him. I don’t think she had the strength to do it. To take a knife and plant it in someone’s heart is pretty hard. It’s not like a piece of cake. I don’t think she could have done it, but she did cause his death in a technical sense because she pulled out the steak knife, which is a big mistake. If she’d left it in him and called 911, they might have been able to save him. It’s a real shame. At 34, he had so much talent and for him to go and do something so ridiculous…


How did the two of you meet and become such good friends?

Well, we were neighbours in Echo Park, Silverlake [Los Angeles]. He used to play at a place called Sunset Junction and I just swung by one night because there was this music coming out of the place. I just went in and sat down and after about 40 minutes he came over and spoke to me. I feel now that I have an emotional commitment to him.


Given your strong reliance on the visual,how would you describe the design and feeling of the film?

The film is eluded to like a dream, or a nightmare. There are elements like knives, girlfriends and locked doors set against the banal Californian-type kitchen where it’s very sunny. It’s a 1950s-type thing so it’s this cheerful setting, but it’s splattered with blood. I think it’s an interesting project.


Kenneth Anger








«Dès mon arrivée à Paris, je me suis mise à écrire tous les jours. J'ai rempli des tas de cahiers. Ecrire tout comme chanter est pour moi un exercice joyeux. Je ne peux plus me passer de chanter désormais. En France, je donne des cours de chant à des fillettes. Elles adorent des stars comme Christina Aguillera, mais je ne désespère pas de leur faire connaître autre chose, comme Elliott Smith. Pourquoi pas? Le talent de cet artiste est universel. J'adore la fausse simplicité de sa musique. Son point de départ est folk et au final, l'air de rien, il crée un truc fondamentalement différent...»


Melissa Laveaux

www.dailymotion.com/video/x8b...-the-hay_music




The last time I saw him was at his birthday party at the Roost. I sat across from him at the table with a handful of his closest friends, feeling incredibly privileged to share his special day with them. We talked about Dallas, the town we’d both grown up in, about trends in the music industry and about the new double album he was working on. He was shy and soft-spoken as always, but looked healthier and more upbeat than he’d been in years. I had brought a present for him, a pintsize music box. He took my gift with great care and held it to his ear, turning the tiny crank to the tune that carried my unspoken message of love for him: "Hey Jude, don’t make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better." Elliott didn’t say a word. He just looked at me, grinning like a little kid.
You were my hero, Elliott. I’ll miss you.

Liam Gowing



"I can say that this article has hurt my mom more than almost anything. Aside from losing Elliott, that is. Even though she may say she's okay, and she'll get through it, it has really hurt her. Liam's wish to honor Elliott has, in my opinion, simply gone against his biggest wish, not to hurt his mom. And for that I am so sad."

Ashley Welsh





"I get burned out in a way, but anything you're doing - once you're doing it, it seems that maybe something else would be better to do"

Elliott Smith



Carsten: My last question: Who would you invite to an imaginary party, so people you chose can be dead or alive?

Elliott: Wow... Maybe I'd like to invite Dostojevskij, although he might be in a bad mood and scare the other guests. Maybe he'd only come if gambling was involved. I'd also like to invite Chris Bell from Big Star. Not because I like him better than Alex Chilton, but it still would be possible to invite Alex to a party! And I'd also like to invite John Lennon, but he probably wouldn't come, cause he'd get invited to all kinds of parties!





"The mainstream keeps describing me as depressing and I don't need that anymore. I mean, you can go see a sad movie and find beauty in it. You don't walk away depressed, it can be inspiring."

Elliott Smith



"When I do a small thing, a thing to help someone out, and they thank me--quietly, maybe shyly--I feel a sense of gratitude, a sense of quiet peace that I’ve made a small difference, even if just for a moment. And I think, Did Elliott Smith ever feel like this?

Did anyone ever thank him for songs--not the loud, often fake cheering that goes on at a concert, or the scary stalking letter of devotion and “you see my soul.” No, I wonder if ever that shy person, overwhelmed by the world and alone, listening to his songs and getting through one more day despite the world’s best effort to break him or her, did Elliott ever hear thanks from them? Did he know what his songs meant? Did he hear from the ones with no voice, too alone to talk, the ones who felt it inside? The ones for whom his songs were the one thing that made some kind of sense, that gave them a gift of beauty?

I didn’t. I never said anything.

I look inside tonight and wonder, how often have I helped someone? Have I done everything for my own benefit, because that’s what we are taught from the cradle to the grave, or did I ever help someone out that needed it, and if so, have I done such acts often enough? I find myself thinking tonight that all I really want to do is help someone realize their potential or give them a moment to make their day better. What better use of time on this planet can there be? Yet I fear my eye, even when turned outward, looking at the details, is really turned inward, relating those details to me and my perception alone. That I naturally fall into my perception, just as we all do, and that when I’m stripped down I’m found wanting, not measuring up to my potential nor helping anyone realize theirs.

Did Elliott Smith ever think about these things? Did he know when he was carving those songs out of his very core, the meaning they’d have? Or did he just figure it didn’t matter, that nothing matters, that everything dies and everyone leaves?

Almost all of the sentences in this entry are questions. Because I have no answers, not when it really matters. I can bullshit with the best of them but I don’t know anything, anything at all. When I feel the sun come through the window and warm my back, I think only of how cold my feet are. When I complete a task, I think only that I should have done it better and rail at myself for not being smart enough or dedicated enough to do it better. I think of how one smile changed my day and how my face hurts when I force it to grin, like something ugly and tossed off. You can’t force grins. Earn the smiles. I might forget how.

Maybe I would have written Elliott a letter or cornered him after a show and fumbled, trying to explain something that I’ve just spent 497 words trying to explain and failing. Maybe he would have gotten the “Oh, shit” look in his eyes, or tossed the letter in the garbage. Maybe he would have understood, for a moment. But I didn’t make that gesture. He’s long gone, and I’m still here, with his music. Once in awhile I do something good. But not often enough, not often enough at all."

trailofstars





"Elliott Smith in New York. What his experience reveals about the life and death of a gifted yet troubled musician."

Aaron Kinney, advisor Kevin Buckley




www.whereitsat.com/#/music/mu...ott-Smith-Wall




"Ah, 'angeles' by Elliott Smith. I remember hearing that song for the first time, years ago in times when my life was total turmoil, and putting it on endless repeat until months later. "i can make you satisfied with everything you do..." and i believed him and held onto him. Elliott Smith. Truly a great lost soul."

Lieven, Singer of Songs











Elliott Smith

Liam Boyle

www.myspace.com/sonicsoundsystem



"No one can deny Elliott Smith was a tortured soul, but some would argue his dysfunctional relationship with girlfriend Jennifer Chiba was the nail in his coffin. There's really no one song that stands out in particular because Smith's entire songbook seems to be a heartbroken trail of tears, like "Miss Misery" off the "Good Will Hunting" soundtrack. But despite their rocky relationship, Smith was at her beck and call until he committed suicide in 2003."

SIMCHA




"I'm not happy lately, which makes me uncommunicative (...) Maybe the new anti-depressant I'm taking will help, and I'll write pages upon pages, but for now I can't even write songs."

Elliott Smith







"I have a little bit of an older-brother feeling about [Smith] because I got to know him years and years ago when he still lived in Portland," Doe admits. "I always felt kind of protective -- I think everybody did about him. And in the last year, I would hear all this bad shit and try to call him and say, 'You okay?' Of course, he would just pass it off. I mean, you knew it was all fucked up. A sad end -- but he sure talked the talk and walked the walk."

John Doe




“There will be people who will check him out because of his death, but I think it will plateau after awhile, and in the future, there’s going to be some kind of revival,” says Krebs, measuring his words carefully. “I think that his music will come into its own even more. And at that point, his work will overshadow his death, but there is also the unfortunate point of his death becoming mythologized and adding to what I’d term a negative appreciation, to have someone lionize him as a troubled, drug-addict genius. There’s nobody around here [in Portland] who has that point of view, but we don’t really have control over his legacy, either.”

Pete Krebs



"There's a difference between 'real' and 'depressing', and if real equals depressing to somebody then that's too bad.

Elliott Smith





"Some of the songs seem to be about describing someone who just really doesn't know what they're gonna do with themselves. Certain things make them happy, but sometimes the same things that make them happy make them just want to be gone. Most of the songs on the record are about somebody who's trying to be happy but isn't, and they can't decide whether to stick around or not."

Elliott Smith, on 'XO'




You toured with Elliott Smith. What did you learn from him?

He had a really good sense of humor. Elliott was a really funny guy, which a lot people don’t know. He kind of had that thing I was just talking about—reserving your strength. At some point, you realize you’re just giving it out, giving it out, giving it out. Then, when it comes time to drive home and get through a hard day, you got 20 minutes left in the show and it’s not going the right way and you have to pull out the stops, and you dip into those reserves, I picked up a bit from him. Other than that, I’ve had a few friends that took this tragic route. He did. I realized that I don’t want to be like that. I love being alive and I love having these moments of beauty and experiencing things. It really sucks when you have friends that have died and you realize every time you’re having a happy moment—it just makes me wonder why they ended up taking such a tragic route.

Jason Lytle


"OK here's the story. I used to work for Guitar Center in Roseville MN. (suburb of Minneapolis) I Worked in the guitar dept. I can't remember the day of the week it was off the top of my head (Oct 2004), all I remember was we were tidying up the store because we were getting ready to close. I was in the acoustic room on top of a latter hanging guitars on the wall when two of my co-workers burst in and said "Aaron, Dude, Elliott Smith is in the accessory department!" They knew I was a HUGE fan. I immediately jumped off the latter and ran out there hoping to at least catch a glimpse of him. Lucky for me he was still there.
At GC they have someone stationed at the door to check receipts as people leave to make sure they're not stealing. I asked the person at the door if I could check "that dudes" receipt when he leaves. He said sure. (I later explained why) He came up to the podium I took his receipt, and checked his bag. He bought a Shubb Capo, and a set of Elixir acoustic guitar strings. My heart was pounding when I simply asked him "Are you playing in town tonight?" He said "Yeah at the 400 Bar, it's a last minute thing." I didn't say the typical "you're Elliott Smith!" I heard he had a reputation of giving people the boot if they freaked out on him.

I got on the phone immediately after he left and called some friends to let them know he was playing a surprise show at the 400 that night. I have a lot of friends that are hardcore Elliott fans. Once a year the 400 Bar had a surprise "fly in" show, and that year it was Elliott Smith. Others include Bright Eyes etc. I'm not sure if they still do that. Anyway..... I headed down there with my group of friends and we managed to be some of the first people in line! The doors opened and we were in! I planted myself firmly in front of the stage. Dead center. I didn't move for the rest of the night. A horrid college band played before him. I remember turning around and suddenly the place was packed to absolute capacity. Remember this was an unannounced surprise show. People were yelling at the band saying things like "please get off the stage" "hurry up!". People were just so excited to see Elliott in such an intimate environment. They finished and tore their equipment down. And about 15 minutes later Elliott Smith came out with his acoustic guitar freshly restrung with the strings he bought earlier at my work place! He played for what seemed like hours, I wanna say at least two. He seemed really happy. The crowed was absolutely enthused and acted like they were at a Metallica concert! We cheered after every song and he had a smile the size of Texas on his face. Which was strange for a lot of people because in most pictures of him he just has a blank expression. There's a lot of funny moments I remember from the show. Someone hollered out "play this song, or that song" I remember Elliott saying "I need a pick for that one" "does anybody have a pick?" My friend Joe was standing next to me and reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter and handed it to him. Elliott said "No that's too English." To this day I have no idea what that meant, but that was Elliott. He had a bunch of full Budweiser bottles sitting in front of him, as well as double shots of Jameson Irish whiskey. Towards the end of the set I took one of his beers and drank it. He didn't seem to mind. My friend actually tried to buy him a shot of Jameson, but was refused. The bartender said the only bottle they had left was reserved for Elliott. Which I thought was kind of funny because while he was onstage he asked the bartender if there was a way he could get another double. The place was so packed that the bartender could barely make his way up there. His girlfriend was there too. He asked if there were any songs we'd like to hear. I said "play everything reminds me of her", and his girlfriend was standing on the side of the stage and said "No don't play that one!" Ever since then I assumed that song was obviously written for or about someone else, and she couldn't handle that. he finished his set and came back and did two encores. Right when he came out for the first one I snatched his set list! He had written what he was going to play for the encore on the list and looked perplexed when he noticed that it was no longer on the stage. I felt bad and put it back up there for a little while. He ended up doing requests, so I just took it back. I've had it in my fire safe ever since.

I'll never forget the night. It was a life changing event seeing him in rare form. He seemed happy....... RIP Elliott Smith."

Aaron Dubs


"I'm not always trying to get shows. If somebody calls me and says, 'Do you want to play this show?' I usually go 'Great' and play the show. I'm going on Wednesday to this kid's house, to play for a few of his friends. He just wanted me to play there."

Elliott Smith




"who would like to join me in my little plan of marching up and down the square"

Elliott Smith






Elliott Smith may be the ultimate troubadour for late '90's L.A. and the re-invention of Silver Lake. His shiftless existence was codified in his trembling vocals--stranded somewhere between laughter and tears--and guitar driven melancholy pop. His songs captured the feeling of Los Angeles, filling in the emotional negative space that photographs omit. On "Alameda," from 1997's Either/Or, Smith sings about taking a walk in L.A.:

You walk down Alameda shuffling your deck of trick cards over everyone
Like some precious only son
Face down, bow to the champion
You walk down Alameda looking at the cracks in the sidewalk,
thinking about your friends
How you maintain all them in a constant state of suspense


In a few short lines, Smith addresses the paradox of city life, especially in Easterly bohemian enclaves Silver Lake and Echo Park, where intense community spirit can also hold hands with isolation. The visual of pavement cracks and the sun-bleached streets of Alameda immediately evokes the feeling of walking in L.A., where people on foot are veritable pariahs in a city tangled with freeways. He astutely depicts L.A.'s social network too, where artists and dreamers always wait for the next step. Smith was adept translator of emotion into images, and, until he succumbed to emotional fatigue, he effectively converted raw feelings into art, like coal into diamonds.

Drew Tewksbury





"I just try and make connections between things. I'm not so interested in telling complete stories anymore - now I like it better if the songs are like abstract movies... The song won't complete itself without someone activating their imagination. The music is supposed to do that. A lot of my favourite songs are ones that aren't complete without me finishing them in my head."

Elliott Smith




"Thanks for coming around, you know, for a couple of years, I dropped out of just about everything. But I feel better today. I think it'll be a good record."


Elliott Smith (Mar 20, 2003)



"When Eddie Vedder performed a monumental version of "Can't Keep" at their 2003 Benaroya Hall show in Seattle, Washington, the singer introduced the song by simply stating, "This is for Elliott." Singer-songwriter Elliott Smith had passed away the day before the performance, and Vedder sent him off with his ukulele and the lines, "I've lived all this life like an ocean in disguise/ I don't live forever - you can't keep me here." This live recording trumps the studio version magnificently, outweighing its passion, emotional mood and listener response. The opening cut from 2002's Riot Act is still a marvelous one, however, and rests its head between two classic Pearl Jam cuts on this countdown."

Charles Peelle



"I love you too. I love all of you. I mean it. There's a distinct lack of love in the world..... and I love you too."

Elliott Smith (2/1/03 at henry fonda after playing "Angeles")



"It's a funny thing, y'know, Elliott Smith and I used to tour back in the day. The buzz was all about me for some reason. So I'd say to the big A&R executive guys: 'Make sure you get there early to see Elliott Smith!' and they wouldn't get it, they were like: 'He's miserable'. It was always like [adopts a voice that would fit very well with a guy in a suit]: 'And does your little friend Elliott want a drink, too?' And I thought: 'That's the way Joan Baez might have felt in 1963... "And does your little friends Bob want a drink, too?"' - Idiots!"

Mary Lou Lord

[Local Stigmatic]

He loves to hear music through headphones. It lets him listen to each pan and every whisper. Late-night beer and bourbon continues on its solemn march toward looser tongues. Smith leans over and whispers, neither entirely straight-faced nor ironical, "This is the time of night I feel most alive and sensual."

* * *

"As soon as I started hearing different records, I wanted to be in a band. 'Helter Skelter.' Stevie Wonder records. It was totally fascinating to me immediately. I didn't know how to do it, so it just seemed like magic. And when you're a kid and you're into some record or some person or a band or a DJ or whatever, at first it's all just one thing -- the music part of it and the way they look, the way they talk and whatever you think their lifestyle might be. But by the time I was in junior high or high school, it was pretty easy to see it's actually a bunch of separate things, some of which actually don't seem very desirable. So it became more and more about recording songs."

LA Weekly May 5-11, 2000

[serendipity]

"The decedent was standing up, conscious, and gasping for breath. Jennifer pulled the knife out of the decedent's chest and saw "two cuts" on his chest. At this time the decedent walked away and Jennifer followed him to where he collapsed"

County of Los Angeles, Department of Coroner Investigator's Narrative, Witness Statements




"I think he wanted to live. I think he wanted to leave."

Guest





"Sound engineer Fritz Michaud addressed the clothing anomaly, saying that “Elliott literally wouldn’t of been caught dead with his shirt off”











Chris Haberman

[solveig7]

"For years to come, we will ponder our romantic notion of the depressed, the sidelined, the afflicted, the maimed, the shy. We will wonder about suffering and whether it is truly necessary for good art. We will play the last track off his last release because it's called "Bye". And we will wonder if we ever knew Elliott Smith at all."

Laura Cassidy

"It was [originally] "Celia said to Amanda" not one name "Cecelia-Amanda" [but] actually he did change it to "Cecelia/Amanda," which is funny because I remember that Elliott was joking with me that Celia is not really a woman's name but is the stuff in your lungs and then I told him that the song is really about the microscopic parts of the lungs trying to sort out their problems. We'd joke around a lot like this. He had a wonderful sense of humor."

Garrick Duckler

Pamela Chelin: "I’ve been reading the postings from your fans on internet message boards. You’ve been called everything from a “supergod” to a “supergenius” to a “fucking cutie.” In fact, and I am quoting here, one person wrote, “If it were not for Elliott’s records, I most likely would have died a long time ago.”"

Elliott Smith: "Wow. Yeah. I don’t know about all that stuff. I don’t really read much of my press and I don’t know...all that stuff is in other people’s minds. I mean, I’m just human. If they knew me, they’d realize I’m very much like them."

PC: "I guess some people would like to also believe that you are the superhuman version of them."

Elliott: "Yeah, that’s what people want of famous people, but it’s not very comfortable. It’s insane to think that you could be that."

PC: "There are a lot of rock stars who do start to believe that they are superversions of themselves. They become their own caricatures."

Elliott: "Some people can’t wait to be it, ‘cause they don’t like who they are and they’d rather be a caricature of themselves. There are still plenty of ways in which I don’t know myself that well, but I know myself well enough to not trade in my actual life for an imaginary one."


[on naming his record Either/Or]

“I wasn’t trying to be pretentious. It was on my mind for the whole year I was writing the record, the idea about the responsible person versus the beautiful person.”

Elliott Smith

Flavorpill: Looking at all of these cases, even the ones you included in the “Mysteries” section of the book, did you come to any conclusions for yourself ? Are you convinced any unsolved cases or murders were actually suicides, or vice versa?

Alix Strauss: I was shocked at some of the mishaps in terms of forensics, autopsies, police reporting — so many mistakes. Mark Rothko’s and Elliott Smith’s names were misspelled on police reports. And there were no hesitation marks on Elliott Smith’s chest when he stabbed himself. He didn’t pull his clothing away, as the norm would be if you were going to stab yourself. The Post-It his girlfriend found seemed like an afterthought. I didn’t read anything that said that they had the handwriting analyzed, as they did with Kurt Cobain. Look at DJ AM, which could be a clear accidental overdose, but you never really know. I think sometimes we’re very quick, because we’re such a celebrity-culture, whoreish nation. We’re very quick to make these assumptions.

Flavorpill: Were there any trends you saw emerge when you looked at your research at the end of the day? Any commonalities?

Alix Strauss: The writers were the most cerebral in some sense. The artists all were self-mutilating and blood was a very big aspect for all three of them. [Mark] Rothko slit his arms, Diane Arbus slit her wrist, and Van Gogh cut off his ear, and a few months later shot himself. All of the artists were very visual killings, which I guess is not surprising. The musicians were the murkiest. I don’t know if we’ll ever know the full story about Kurt Cobain or Elliott Smith.

"I then saw him again on Halloween about 3 years later at CMU. It was after his release “Figure 8″ came out. The band and him were in Halloween costumes. Elliott was wearing a monk outfit, but with his thin frame, and long brown hair, someone mistook him for the lord almighty and shouted, “Jesus!!” in between the first and second song. He was obviously bummed out by this. In his soft voice he said, “Awww, no. It’s just a monk outfit. It’s not Jesus… I mean… I don’t think I’m Jesus.” The tenderness with which he said it made it rather funny to me.

He is still missed."

source: musicblog.wyep.org/author/andy-c/

"It was recorded in Elliott [Smith]'s studio in LA. It was a surreal experience. Long story. Elliott came to our last show in LA and wanted to record, so we schlepped our gear over there, recorded the basics the next day and I hung around for 2 weeks trying to finish 1 song with him. He wasn't very healthy, but he was trying. It was the last time I saw him. I left before we finished mixing it. His girlfriend [Jennifer Chiba] gave me the mix about 8 months later at his 'funeral'."

Neil Gust

Elliott used to say that when he wrote songs that criticized the music industry, it meant he was out of ideas. But on „Rose Parade," i thought he captured, with an offhanded grace, the absurdity of the celebrity circus and his indifference to the hype that was building around him. I love how the song sounds so light, and yet moves with the wide swing and settled groove of a long walk, like he's leaving the weight of his ideas for you to pick up if you want to. And i love the cinematic survey of the parade marching out of step with itself: „Throwing out candy that looks like money,“ the drunk trumpet player, the healf-hearted victory song, the wind-up performer marching along.
When we were working on his record cover, I pointed out that there was no Duracell bunny, it's the Energizer bunny. There was a moment of surprise that no one had pointed this out before, then he laughed and added exclamation points around the word „Duracell“ on the lyric sheet. He said, „That's even better.“

Neil Gust

[solveig7]

I'm an MD from PDX and have been thinking about this for years. He may have been a cutter. But the pattern of knife wounds on both palms and his upper R arm writes itself as "defensive". Two smooth penetrations of the chest wall in the absence of hesitation marks is suspicious if not damning. If this was a suicide, it was a technical first. It broke my heart. What a fragile china doll.

Mark
Oct 30, 2009

"It's harder to be around other people and it's harder for people to be around you. Being able to be in love with someone is a lot harder. All the things that, to me, make life worthwhile are infinitely harder."

Elliott Smith

Ah, over the course of the last week or more, I've read this entire thread. Thanks to everyone who's contributed - it's seriously a beautiful thread.

I'd like to add this because I love it:

The logistics of the award-show performance proved puzzling for Smith, a decidedly do-it-yourself kind of guy. He stumped the show’s producers by asking for a chair (as sitting down is a more comfortable position for playing acoustic guitar) to use during his song. Initially denying Smith the simple prop, creative showbiz types came up with a couple of ill-fated solutions. “I would have to sit behind this moving panel during the Trisha Yearwood song,” he says, “and then it would dramatically raise up to reveal that I’d been sitting there all that time.” Smith politely declined. “And then they had another idea for me to sit on the steps of the stage—like a down-home jamboree. ‘C’mon people, follow me along in this song. I’m just hunkerin’ down on the steps.’ That was just ridiculous.”

I wish I knew Elliott Smith better. I was sad. I think everyone's sad when they lose somebody. But, you know, it's sort of selfish. And who's to say which is better – to live a long life and have to suffer all of the indignities that brings with it, of no longer being young and fierce. We'd see each other now and then... maybe two or three times a year. He isolated himself pretty much, at least the last couple of years. Elliott was, as far as I knew him, not as depressed as his music would lead you to believe. But I find that most people – me included – write things when they are at a point of crisis. When they're not, you don't feel the need to write about 'em, which is probably the sign of not being the greatest writer. People like William Carlos Williams or e.e. cummings, they wrote about everything. A true poet writes about the beauty of the simplest thing. But it doesn't seem to translate to modern-day pop or alternative music. Darby Crash [of the Germs] and Jeffrey Lee Pierce [of Gun Club] were both pretty self-centered in a way, which I guess goes right along with taking your own life. They all had a way with creating something new – a way with words. Wanting to die and being ready to die are two different things. Not to split hairs or anything. I think that all of those people had done something they had set out to do so their passing wasn't that important to themselves.

John Doe




Who was your favorite band to play on tour with?

We’ve been lucky to play with a lot of great bands. One of my favorite memories was when we were asked to open for Elliott Smith at the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa, CA. At the end of his set, he invited us on stage with him to play, “Can’t Make A Sound” which was a dream come true.
He had a big smile on his face when we were playing that I will always remember.

the 88

"I'm sorry that this investigation was not properly handled, and after so many years, it's unlikely that it will ever be solved. I knew Elliot pretty well, and met the girl in question only once. When I met her, she made up a false story concerning an old girlfriend of his, that happened to be at one of his Brooklyn shows a few months before he died. I attended the show with the old girlfriend, and afterward Miss Chiba refused to allow her backstage, accusing her of violently hitting her for no reason. This blatantly false story spurned an insane scene, and I felt terrible for Elliot for being caught in the middle of such nonsense. If she could lie about something so seemingly insignificant, there is good cause to believe that she lied regarding the circumstances of his death. There are just too many holes in her story. Her brazen attempt to sue his family for a portion of his estate only supports her questionable motives. It's pretty difficult to stab yourself in the heart. It's not a normal way to kill oneself. He wasn't on any illegal drugs at the time, and I knew him to be pretty sane and rational when he wasn't using. I only met Jennifer the one time, and she proved to be untrustworthy immediately. I will assert that I am certain that she was capable of lying, and I wish that she had been questioned more thoroughly. It seems to me that she got away with murder. Elliot was not always stable, he certainly did not seem suicidal the last time I saw him, only months before his untimely demise. If she didn't do it, she knows what did happen (the shower story just doesn't add up), and she is hiding something significant. I would attest to this at any time, as would the people who were present during her false allegations toward the girl that seemingly threatened her alpha position."

old friend



"After reading through some more of these comments, I would like to add a few afterthoughts on the subject. When I say I knew Elliot, I am not tossing the word "knew" around lightly. I knew him before he became famous, but only saw him about once every year or two after 1998. He was an intensely private person, and I think that most of his friends have guarded and respected his privacy to the extant that it's no longer helpful to him in wake of this dysfunctional investigation. If more people had come forward after his death with public statements negating claims of suicide, perhaps the police would have had a little more to work with than the seemingly scant information they seem to have gathered from the few people in his inner circle. Elliot had burned a few bridges with some of his best friends, others didn't know what to think, or what to do, and nobody was really prepared to go out on a limb to fight the reports. I think we were primarily too hurt and confused. He wasn't close to his family, who ironically became his main beneficiaries, and they certainly didn't have a clue as to what was really going on in his life.

When I spoke to him shortly before his death, he was doing really well, and was happier than I'd seen him in years, and exhibited absolutely no signs that he was on the verge of killing himself. His history may have been rife with depression and drug use, yet we talked about the prescription drugs he was taking, comparing notes as I am no stranger to anti-depressants myself, and he proudly related to me that he was doing better than ever. He claimed to have found prescriptions that were working well for him, and he was happy with his decision to sober up. Aside from illegal drugs, he also shunned alcohol, and was staying away from spirits and beer. From all appearances, he was striving to maintain a substance free lifestyle, in order to work diligently on new music. It is my opinion that he would not have offed himself in the middle of an upcoming project unless he'd magically morphed into an entirely different person from the one I had ever known.

I think anybody that was in touch with him around this time would say the same thing. His fame had naturally distanced a lot of people from him; at times he may have seemed inaccurately unapproachable, but in reality, he was always obliging to people from his past, while being quite shy and even uncomfortable with his elevated status. His friends were scattered around the country, and he didn't have a large support network in LA, so there weren't enough people to speak out against the claims of suicide when it happened so unexpectedly that October. Everyone was too stunned to act. I hope it's not too late, should the investigation ever be opened up and pursued in the future.

He was an amazing artist. There is no question about that, but I remember him mostly as an amazing friend, full of compassion, love, and as gentle as a any of his ballads. He is greatly missed."

old friend

"he was a wonderful, nice, caring, funny guy. He had some rough patches, which are well-documented, but I thought he was a total sweetheart that just felt things a bit too much, y'know?"

Kliph

The first song of Elliott's own I ever heard was „Speed Trials.“ I still remember the otherworldly, angelic siren song of his voice enveloped by the lo-fi but canny and self-assuredly produced sound environment. That was the record that hooked me completely; I listened to nothing but Elliott's music from that moment, through the present day. The contradictions inherent in his music, the irony and depth of his lyrics, the idiosyncratic guitar musings that were the instinctual, experimental drive that helped him discover those indelible hooks to his songs (even while strumming and picking idly while watching daytime soaps). Having come to know virtually every scrap of Elliott's recorded material, I believe that when Elliott died, America lost her most important songwriter since Cole Porter or George Gershwin.

Christopher O'Riley

[on Say Yes]

Overall, it's just a great song; the lyrics, melody, style and vibe all come together in classic form. But the thing that captivates me the most is the concept. „The morning after“ is used as more than just a reference to a 24-hour timeframe, [it's] a metaphor for a reckoning after an intense time in your life. This joint has a certain pain to it, but it still manages to be funny because it's so candid and real.

Vursatyl (Lifesavas)

[on Between The Bars]

[It's] a song that I defy any songwriter to listen to and not ache, wishing that they had written it. Or maybe it's a song that makes one ache, period. Two minutes and 21 seconds of eloquent melody interplaying between the voice and guitar; an arrangement that builds without a seam; and a story that exists somewhere within a lovers' tour of modern day Brooklyn saloons or some Wild West-styled prison where the inmates are allowed to share whiskey with their visitor/lovers ... My favorite lines, in the chorus, are where the singer tells his lover how he'll be able to silence the unwanted voices from the past, suggesting multiple personalities or just bad times. Telling a lover that you'll make them a better person is a wish and promise we all make, in one way or another, to those we care for the most. For me, this is a song that stops time, stops me from doing whatever I'm doing, and transports me into Elliott's world from the moment it begins to play.

John Doe



We (Oranger) had the good fortune of getting a strange phone call from a booking agent saying that Elliott had heard our most recent record and wanted us to open for his '99 European tour. Our guitarist, Mike Drake, and I kept wondering WHY Elliott would want this raucous, neopsych freakout band opening for, of all people, Elliott Smith?! Well, when we arrived in Amsterdam, still convinced someone slipped him the wrong record and we were surely to be sent home with our tail between our legs ("Sorry boys, you weren't the band we thought you were..."), after the first show, Elliott asked us in and really took us in that tour as a friend and an exceptional musician. I remember the fateful day when I got the phone call from Mike at wee hours of the morning... a friend of Elliott's had called Mike and said he was gone. A sad day for the world...While on that tour Mike and I would get up on stage and sing a couple numbers with him and vice versa. Sooo cool that he loved to do that! Well by the time we had reached London we had worked out some harmonies and vocals with him on the bus for a new song he had, "Twilight." That song really moved me and always does every time I hear it now.... extremely special.

Matt Harris (Oranger / The Posies)

I still remember the way my mother sang along lyric-for-lyric with utter conviction to Bob Dylan's "Positively 4th Street" when I was a child. I was confused as to why she felt so passionate about such a seemingly angry song, but as year passed and life's ugly uncertainties became familiar to me, I found myself mirroring my mother's reaction to the tune of Elliott Smith's "Pictures Of Me." Growing up in Southern California, I was all too familiar with Smith and his typically, though passionate, pacifist songs, but "Pictures Of Me" was different. Like Dylan on "Positively 4th Street," Smith sounds completely fed-up as he eloquently expresses sheer exasperation, rendering anyone to sympathetic surrender. But every time I hear the progression of this track, from the under-control beginning to the climactic proclamation, "Here comes another guy/jailer who sells personal hells/who'd like to see me down on my fucking knees," I can't help but silently applaud. It's like standing up for yourself in a schoolyard; it may have taken some courage, but when you finally got the gumption, damn it felt good. "Pictures Of Me" is my "Positively 4th Street," an anthem articulating all the things I should have said to all the people who wore me so thin. Everybody eventually takes a stand, this was Elliott's.

Taylor Mason



The TV keeps flashing a list of the biggest blizzards in New York history, and one date sticks out for me: January 8, 1996. I remember the day because I left Brooklyn to go and buy my first Magnetic Fields and Elliott Smith CDs. I saw them both, amazingly on the same bill, at a tiny club a few days beforehand. So January 8, 1996 is pretty much the day my music took a sharp left turn towards Skittish.

Mike Doughty



not sure if this is a proper thread to post this, i just found it somewhere on my hard drive & thought some might be interested. from a thread soon after elliott's death:

from demo

Los Angeles Memorial...
i went at around 11-ish. on the way i decided to stop
at the roost and pick up a shot glass and bring it
over. unfortunately i put candles in it and it broke
but it's still there.

i ran into jennifer and robin and a couple of their
friends.

i asked jennifer if it was ok that i posted that she
was there and she said it was.

the memorial is beautiful. lots of candles, flowers,
lyrics, letters, candy, photos.

when i first arrived there were a bunch of people
sitting in a circle playing guitar and singing.

i was sort of off to the side trying to past together
a collage that i wanted to make so i really wasn't
apying attention. as far as i remember, i heard them
play one elliott smith song. they may have play more
earlier in the evening.

robin wanted me to let you know that they had been
practicing every day for 7 (?) i think he said 7 hours
a day, preparing for the iggy and the stooges, ATP
show here in l.a. which was supposed to happen on
november 8th.

he also wanted me to let you know that elliott was
very happy. always laughing, very upbeat, cracking
jokes all of the time. there was no sign, what-so-ever
of anything like this happening.

he said, two days before it happened they were sitting
on elliott's portch talking about growing a garden.
making plans for the records. turns out they were
going to release one and then another one instead of a
double record and then they were going to continue
releaseing two records a year like the beatles did.

i was sort of shocked to hear his (robin's) voice come
up from behind me and ask me how i was doing,
considering he was very good friends with elliott and
i had only spoken to him a couple of times.

oh yeah and they always read the baord too!!!

or atleast jennifer does. i don't want to screw this
up and misquote her.

everyone seems to feel the same exact way. shock.
confusion. is this real? i guess it is but i feel
overwhelmingly sick when i think about it and i really
need to sleep tonight.

i'm sorry. i know there are ons of pos going on it's
just so hard to get onto or into the board that i
figured i'd start a new thread.

pm me please if you wanna talk or if you don't wanna
talk.

jean luc thanks for calling me from paris. you didn't
leave me your number, please pm it to me and i will
buy a calling card this weekend and try and give you a
call back. kuta!!!!

Debbi

He wasn't that well-known then, he was on a small independent label out of Portland. I got in touch and – it was one of the only easy films I've ever done. No interference from record labels, no crew, no concept, no grand intention. It was just "What's it like when this guy makes music? Let's capture that.“ And then a little bit of "Hey, what places are important to you? Let's just walk around and get a few shots of those places.“ I called it Lucky Three because it was. I think he was at his peak. He hadn't fallen down that dark rabbit hole of celebrity and drugs and all that. The sad, horrible thing was I used to show that piece and say, "This is what we ought to be doing with musicians that we care about, because the bullshit lip-sync music videos aren't gonna tell us much, particularly when they're gone.“

Jem Cohen

"I can't do the strings in London now because I can't seem to do anything now."

Elliott Smith

"isn't that funny? i always thought it ironic that he got the rep for being really open and honest about his feelings when in actuality his interviews were so vague and guarded. he contradicted himself constantly as if he didn't want to say anything for sure. mainly the same stories over and over again. "

Pdxgrl

"I'm a puppet, basically"

Elliott Smith

" Il me demandait toujours de lui faire ses setlists, car il ne voulait pas avoir à choisir quels titres jouer. Je mettais toujours un morceau d’Heatmiser parce que j’étais une grande fan et qu’il avait des sentiments complexes sur cette époque ."



"he would always ask me to write his setlists, because he didn't want to have to choose what to play. I would always choose a Heatmiser song because i was a big fan and he had complex feelings about that time."

Jennifer Chiba


"I'm the wrong kind of person to be really big and famous"

Elliott Smith



"I had seen ''Will Hunting'' and loved the music. I'll never forget his performance at the Oscars that i watched with my friend Ileen. After the song, i asked '"WHO is that guy?" . I was thrilled and real happy that someone so nice and beautiful had been nominated for an Oscar.We briefly met at the Rockfest festival, but it's only later, after he moved to L.A., that i asked my friend Steve to introduce me."

Jennifer Chiba



"I discovered Elliott Smith a few years before he became famous. He had just released his second album. He was performing in a small club in Austin, Texas. I went there with my wife to drink beers and meet cool people. This guy had me hypnotized during his whole set. So much so that i wasn't even taking notice of my wife who kept complaining: 'how can you enjoy such a clown? He just stole everything from you, even your drums sound!' Well, i didn't really care. He had much better songs!"

Lou Barlow


"Started with me thinking if I could I’d beat myself up. Why, Valerie? I don’t know. “Ya don’t believe in violence.” Yes I do in some situations. I’d want to kick my own ass for treating me so badly. Must never buy coke again (only Pepsi). Understood last night’s dream to mean if I didn’t have a clear mind, I’ll be put into a decision I won’t know how to make between drives, drugs, music and connection to people, love, or only recreational use, but probably can’t use recreationally any more. Must separate drug use from escaping my past and/or stupid “I don’t remember what happened” saddened self.

In the dream a big Titanic-type ship, painted sky blue everywhere, was stretching, pulling apart, seemingly pulling itself apart, without tearing, just kept stretching, 3 smokestacks, movie-like edit to me scraping the black, moldy, fungus-infected, ruined, burned parts of my own brain with a table fork. Horrendous! This is easy to read, but it’s been a long time, maybe years, since I’ve thought of and lived over and over, all day, a nightmare."

Elliott Smith

"I saw Loudon Wainwright last night. Do you know who is son is? That's right: RUFUS!"

Elliott Smith

"He could be really nice when he was…you know, okay…But sometimes he was also an asshole.”

Lou Barlow

"He had a really good sense of humor. Elliott was a really funny guy, which a lot people don’t know. He kind of had that thing I was just talking about—reserving your strength. At some point, you realize you’re just giving it out, giving it out, giving it out. Then, when it comes time to drive home and get through a hard day, you got 20 minutes left in the show and it’s not going the right way and you have to pull out the stops, and you dip into those reserves, I picked up a bit from him. Other than that, I’ve had a few friends that took this tragic route. He did. I realized that I don’t want to be like that. I love being alive and I love having these moments of beauty and experiencing things. It really sucks when you have friends that have died and you realize every time you’re having a happy moment—it just makes me wonder why they ended up taking such a tragic route."

Jason Lytle

[solveig7]

Miles Kilpatrick



Steve Powers

[solveig7]

"I remember it was a couple of years ago now we were on tour and Elliott Smith died. Elliott Smith wasn't a great friend of ours but we knew him enough to know of his plight. He struggled with drugs; he struggled with depression. He struggled with what you'd think from the outside was a great life. As an artist and a song writer, he got to do exactly what he wanted to do- but he struggled with it and could never just be satisfied by what his life was. He seemed to hint that he kept waiting for happiness to finally come along.

INDIEPIXIE: Hinting in his music?

WAYNE: Yes but also even when we were around him. Even through the drugs that he would take- he sought some kind of escape other than the world that he really inhabited. And for whatever the calamity was that ended up with his death, I think what we took from it is that we can't wait. We have to save ourselves. We're the ones that have to make ourselves happy. We're the ones that know what we want. We're the ones are the ones that know what we don't want. We are the ones that have to be responsible for our own happiness. No one else is- whether it's our wife or our parents or anybody. We should say, you know, 'I can make myself happy.' Because we don't know what's gonna happen to us."

Wayne Coyne

"Sometimes people have interpretations that I think are kind of odd.I mean, they're songs; they're not a diary. But there is a real emotional element to them, and sometimes I like their interpretation better than my own. Other times I don't -- but at any rate, I think the possibility of multiple interpretations is potentially something that can make songs interesting, rather than having every song have to be a nice, neat little package with a bow on the top and a nametag telling you what kind of song it is."

Elliott Smith

"I don't know that there were a whole lot of preppy's who knew about Elliott when this was recorded.  Elliott had actually got me into the show that night, as I was a broke ass musician, who had hung out with him a few times, and done sound for him..So, although I totally understand your suspicions, they are unfounded.


Also, I had no idea that he would end up taking his own life, or that there would be YouTube, or that this would leak out unedited. It was intended to be used for a print article. All the same, I sure am glad that I did it, and that people have had the opportunity to hear him talk in a very unguarded and casual manner. I asked the question about his sexuality because I was curious, just like many people would probably be. He didn't seem to mind the "interview" at all.


I was an early fan and acquaintance. Hardly a preppy. I had met ES in Phoenix through mutual friends from PDX, then had hung out with him at a party in Portland, did sound for him (and recorded) his first solo performance in Phoenix (available as a bootleg 'live at the Congo'), and recorded a set he did in Portland for the 7" release party for the Pete Krebs split (also available as a boot). You try interviewing someone..It's hard to maintain cool. It was from the heart."

Shane Kennedy

"In '93, I think, my friend Andre J. Stone had just moved back from Portland, where he had lived for a few years, and we went to see a couple bands that he knew from there who were touring through town, playing at the Mason Jar. It was Pond (then signed to Sub Pop) & openers Heatmieser (touring behind "Cop & Speeder", I think. The guys in the bands knew Andrew fairly well & he introduced me to them all & mentioned to them that I was possibly moving up there. They were all super friendly & cordial & told me that I should "look them up. Elliott was just 'one the guys' and other than me really liking his voice & preferring his songs, I didn't think anything of it. I took some pictures of them outside, under the Mason Jar marquee, of them clowning around..These pics have been lost to time, sadly.

A few months later, after my band broke up, I did indeed move to Portland, with the intention of living with and playing music with my friend Jonathan Richardson, who now plays with the Early Day Miners & formerly worked for Secretly Canadian records, a really great small record label. When I arrived, he had no empty room at his house for me, so I ended up sleeping in a tent in his backyard, until we made a make-shit bedroom/studio in his basement.

I ended up working at a coffee shop & hanging around downtown, spending a lot of time at Ozone records on Burnside, going to shows at La Luna, drinking at Space Room, eating at Dot's, Montage, & Paradox...It was amazing...I saw Gwar, Cracker, Heatmiser, Sebadoh, the Folk Implosion, Pond, Hazel, Giant Sand, Grant Lee Buffalo...

One day at the house I overheard Jonathan playing some CD and it sounded amazing, really beautiful, and I asked him who it was, and he said it was "Elliott Smith, that guy from Heatmiser." The CD, Elliott's first, had just been released that week by a local label. I was blown away, it was really amazing.

A few days later a girl from Ozone, who knew that I was new in town, invited me to a party...It was a great house, some photographer owned it, I think. The first person I recognized was "that guy from Heatmiser," Elliott. He remembered me from Arizona and was very friendly. I mentioned I had heard the solo release and shared my feelings about it, he was very humble and gracious.

I was this super enthusiastic 24-year-old and was just soaking it all in. Everything was amazing! Everyone was really nice, the music was great, the clubs were great, everybody looked cool... everyone dressed like what eventually became the standard "Indie Rock" look that kind of became today's standard fashion. It was subtle, though, not too "fashion-y."

I brought a little hand held cassette recorder with me that night and recorded both Elliott's and Pete's set [at one of the shows I saw]. One of the highlights was Elliott's partial performance of Hank Williams "Crazy Heart," which because of hearing it that night, became my favorite Hank Williams song. I believe that I, or my friend Jim Miles, may have digitized that show, and it may have been uploaded to a share site, I dunno. The master tape was lost a couple years ago. (I ended up listening to, and sharing, that tape with soooo many people -- it was a great performance.)

I continued to see Elliott around town, here and there, and eventually bought a copy of his first CD, Roman Candle. I listened to it religiously. A few months later, after my Phoenix band wrote me a letter stating that they wanted to get back together and that "there is no one else other than you that we would want to play drums", I moved back to Phoenix. Sigh...

I shared Elliotts first CD with everyone, making tape after tape. It didn't have national distribution at the time and you couldn't get it at Stinkweeds...

Eventually I saw that he was coming out with a new record. Again it was amazing. It seemed to be all we listened to those days. It made you feel like it was a rainy day even when it was 115 out.

It was announced the was touring and coming through town to play at this Coffee House/Bar/Club called the Congo, off Scottsdale road, in South Scottsdale. I told everyone. I even called Kimber (she didn't go, as I still don't think his records had made it down to Phoenix, I got mine through mail order, as i did with a lot of music back then).

I arrived early and brought my trusty 4 track recorder and a few mics. Elliott seemed happy to see a familiar face, and although he was feeling a lil' sick, he was silly and friendly. I ended up doing sound for him and recording the show. All my friends who came were blown away... again, he was amazing.

We said our goodbyes and he went on his way...

It was a great night, Elliott was great, and I sat, along with Debbie and my four-track, rolling cigarettes, on the side of the stage.

Years later, I lent the cassette of the interview view to my friend Jim Miles, I don't remember if it was before or after Elliott passed. The other day, I pulled out the old Yamaha MT120 Four Track, a the tape of that performance of that evening was in it...

Elliott was nice, funny, sad, generous with his time, and not one bit pretentious.

I would not want to give one the impression that he and I were "buddies," that's just not the case. We were acquaintances, and that's really it. That night backstage at Gibsons was the last night I really hung out with him in an intimate setting... he kinda blew up after that, and I let it go."

Shane Kennedy

"The next time, and pretty much the last time I saw him was when he came back a few months later, touring to support his second record again, and opening for a favorite of mine, who I had dinner with in Portland, Sebadoh. I showed up to Gibsons (it was in Tempe, off Hayden Square) a bit early and we hung out back stage, again I had a tape recorder with me, actually two, a handheld, and my four-track. As I had worked radio years earlier and still had a few contacts at labels, and had access to some, what I thought to be, up-and-coming artists, it seemed like a good idea to me to start interviewing these people, so when I ended up back stage with Elliott, I turned on the recorder. I was sitting opposite him, next to Sebadohs tour manager, drinking, talking, and laughing, as Sebadoh's tour manager, Debbie, snapped pictures. One of them ended up on the cover for his following record, Either/Or."

Shane Kennedy



"Elliott Smith only ever made me uncomfortable once. It was in 1998, and we were sitting in a small group over coffee at the Pink Pony on Ludlow Street. In the way that coffee-shop conversations inevitably do, this one evolved into a roundtable dynamic: we began trading childhood war stories. Where are you from? was the first question. What was that like? was the next.
“I grew up in Texas,” Elliott answered.
And what was that like? His expression turned blank, his body tense. “I don’t wanna talk about that today.”
From A Basement on the Hill was released almost exactly one year after Elliott Smith was found dead in his Los Angeles home, having allegedly stabbed himself in the chest on October 21, 2003. Courtney Love callously called it “the best suicide I ever heard of,” which was probably the most banal thing Kurt Cobain’s widow could have said, while most of the music blogs of the era played some version of the we-saw-it-coming card — an indicator that, on some level, many believed that Elliott was a hopeless depressive, a junkie, an inexorable tragedy. People wanted to believe that he had been living out his metaphors all along.

We all experience that disconnect at one point or another — the scuffle between the person we are and the person people believe we are — and the majority of that conflict gets played out through a third component: the person we project into the world. That third person is the most complex and also the least authentic; it is neither the true self nor the perceived self, but a calculated and reactionary self. For his part, Elliott was conscious of this trichotomy, and he spent the better part of his career trying to integrate these pieces into one cohesive whole: His songs were dark, but his personal demeanor was relatively upbeat — and he often used the media to split the difference. “I’m just as happy as all the other people I know,” he told me in an interview for Alternative Press in 1998. And over the next couple of years, as we became regular acquaintances in New York City, it occurred to me that he was right. Everyone I knew in the city back then was eating ramen and losing faith while Elliott was singing lines like, “I’m doing just fine hour to hour, note to note.” He was writing these lyrics inside of a bar — in the middle of the day — but still.

The last time I saw Elliott Smith, at the Metro in Chicago in 2000, he seemed as happy as all the other people I knew.

"We never talked about it, but that day at the Pink Pony, when Elliott shut down, I recognized that wounded look. He made vague references to his childhood all the time, and in the only interview I ever did with him, he made it clear that this was something he didn’t find relevant to discuss. “I don’t want to draw people in with my sad story of this or that,” he said. “It doesn’t make it a better or worse song if someone had a really bad time growing up.” This is, of course, true. But in Elliott’s case, it wasn’t the “sad story” itself that had become germane to his work, but the coded expression of unresolved heartache. The projected person and the authentic self were colliding, perhaps inevitably. This happened to me, too.

On November 1, 2003, about a week after Elliott died, I crossed the street. I woke up three days later — just in time, they said, to avoid an emergency surgical procedure in which a hole would have been drilled into my skull. This is what we talk about when we talk about traumatic brain injuries.

Most people don’t live to talk about what it feels like to get hit by a tow truck, and those of us who do are not likely to remember much. There are so many immediate concerns to deal with when you regain consciousness — a six-month headache, multiple rib fractures, a broken pelvis that makes your right leg feel as if it were disconnected from the rest of your body — that the actual event becomes insignificant; it is, for many of us, the first time we realize that our entire lives could be spent trying to repair the outcome of past events. Having the next two months confined to a hospital bed, I had a lot of time to think about what I’d spent the first thirty years of my life trying to fix. All roads led back to my childhood.
And what was that like?
Up until the point where my mother finally decided to stop speaking to me altogether rather than confront her violent past, I usually wouldn’t bring this up over coffee, either.
I left San Francisco in the summer of 2004, six months after being discharged from the hospital. I had decided to move back to New York City, to fold my record label, to quit playing music, and to start over completely. At the heart of this resolve was a somewhat simple truism: If you want something you’ve never had, you need to do something you’ve never done. Some people figure this out on their own, but some of us need a tow truck to help push us along.

A review copy of From A Basement on the Hill was delivered to me on the morning I set out for my cross-country move. My friend Trevor and I listened silently as we pulled out onto the highway. “Coast to Coast” felt like an appropriate song to begin this trip, but the longer I listened, the more I realized that this song was not so much the suggestion of a departure, but the announcement of an arrival — the “last stop for a resolution.” It was neither pretty nor ugly, neither harsh nor tender; its flaws were not only to be exposed but celebrated. The projected self was merging with the authentic self in a way that Elliott had never before chosen to display. But if it grew difficult to listen to, it was only because we knew the end of this story.

It might seem bizarre that I’d choose this as my album of the decade — an album in which the original artist never approved the final mixes or tracklisting or artwork. But I’d argue that these circumstances only sustain the idea that Elliott’s vision for this album was so strong that it was almost impossible to fuck up. Indeed, the only blemish on its execution is not on what became the final product, but what had been dubiously omitted: Three songs were removed from the final version of From a Basement on the Hill at the behest of Elliott’s family. Among them was a song called “Abused,” in which Elliott finally gave a name to that thing he didn’t want to talk about. It demanded that he abandon all metaphor and just say it. We are only as sick as our secrets.

We didn’t know that at the time he was addicted to heroin and crack, smoking up to $1,500 worth a day. We didn’t know that he had actually tried to OD but failed, on more than one occasion. We didn’t know that he believed he was sexually abused by his stepfather as a child. We didn’t know that three months later, he’d check himself into rehab, get clean, and finally face the pain he’d spent years trying to numb. We didn’t know any of this.

This is the album of the decade because the gloves — and the masks — all finally came off."

Norman Brannon


"I first met Elliott right before the start of his Fig 8 tour. He was doing solo shows prior to the release of Fig 8. I think I was 19 years old, and I drove from Knoxville to D.C. to see him at a club called the Black Cat. I had arrived probably two hours early and met a guy from France named François who mentioned that he was a friend of Elliotts. After the show François asked me if I would like to go backstage to talk with Elliott.
Elliott was the kindest person I have ever met. He took about 20 mins of his time to sign all my album covers and even take a pic with me.
I later met him on three other dates on the Fig 8 tour! So François, if you are out there, thank you for giving me the chance to meet someone who meant the world to me! "

Andy S.

"We wanted to make it move and change as much as possible without becoming kind of difficult to listen to or bothersome in its changefulness. There were more songs recorded for it than wound up on it. At one point Figure 8 was maybe going to be a double album, but then it seemed better to have it be a single and make it change and move as much as possible, like a boxer trying to move around so he doesn't get knocked out. I think this record's pushing things with how long it is, but every time we tried to take something out it seemed to upset the little constellation of songs and make it work not quite as well."

Elliott Smith

"I have [heard his version of Bottle Up & Explode]. It blew me away; I couldn't believe it. I've seen him play once or twice. It was extremely flattering that he found my song interesting enough to play in his show. He heard things in it, some of which I could hear in it but didn't feel I could do any more than imply because, after all, it's supposed to be a rock song. He brought out a lot of the implied harmonic things in it, and then added a bunch of stuff that I would have never thought of. And, of course, his technique is a million miles beyond mine. It was incredible. He's amazing."

Elliott Smith



Sky turning grey

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUx4abENA-Q

Brad Mehldau

"Sometimes I think it's nice if a song can ramp up and take some twists and turns, like someone walking through a neighborhood and taking a turn into a more industrial area and then winding up in a beautiful park."

Elliott Smith

"But anyways,I dug my own trap there."

Elliott Smith

"Maybe it’s incongruous but what it brings to mind: You brought Elliott Smith along w/ you on tour. September ‘96 you came through town and played the Roxy and everybody in the back sat there and yammered through his set and it got to the point where he-- who’s a quiet guy-- was saying, “Could you guys shut the fuck up please?”
- Right.
- And you came on and you had the rapt attention, ‘cause that was when “Ocean” was pretty much breaking, and you said something along the lines of, “I know he’s not on KROQ, but you could at least show him some respect.” It’ll be interesting now that he’s starting to get that play b/c of the movie song. But ultimately it can’t hurt for even the people you dislike, in terms of just a complete clash of values, it can’t hurt if the mainstream picks up on something really great, ‘cause it’ll only raise the bar for everything else."

M. Bates - Lou Barlow

"On the addiction issues, I think he'd really gotten the upper hand on them. I can say in all honesty, the last few months Elliott has been sober and was focused. Sobriety was a major thing for him, because it was the path to how he was going to close out his record.

For him, life was an ongoing struggle to find a way to deal with the beauty of life and also the brutality he saw. He felt those things very seriously."

Luke Wood

"Anyway. So elliott smith got a lot of ink for killing himself. he was almost finished, allegedly, with a new album. there was a tribute concert at the henry fonda theater last monday, and another one last night at the second/closing day of all tomorrow's parties. i didn't see either one. But his name was in the air for a while, which was just sort of ethereally weird. like, i'd be talking about elliott smith in an interview with matt groening, who curated all tomorrow's parties. editing steve's review of the tribute. Talking about him with sara scribner before stew played at largo last week. which reminded me of seeing elliott at the echo with Daniel Lanois on the bill. The show was so packed. i do remember wondering when it was going to end, that time. Oh well. sorry, elliott.(...)
Iggy dedicated an incredibly soulful and smoldering take on Dirt to elliott smith, neatly bringing us full-circle. was it a sardonic comment? I suppose, but something about the song, the performance, and elliott smith fit together quite neatly."

Natalie Nichols

"I guess being in the music....um, business.... or something is like being in high school where everybody is trying to be cool and you wish that you could just graduate from high school and not have to deal with all the little put-downs that people give each other and everybody trying to be the most popular guy in the school."

Elliott Smith

"The book Martin Eden by Jack London inspired me to write the song because it reminded me of Elliott Smith: it’s a story about a writer who becomes famous and disenchanted at the same time. It’s part of me, too: I had begun to draw the line. When we bought the Short Stop, I was one of the bartenders for the first year; I worked Monday nights, and Elliott lived up the street. It became a thing: Elliott and I would hang when no one was there, so Elliott could be in peace. I spent a lot of Mondays with Elliott – I’d close the bar, and we’d stay and listen to the jukebox and just kick it; at one point, we had five Beatles records in the jukebox, and I give him full credit for that. He certainly loved the Beatles, and knew a lot about them: he was fun to talk music with – just a really kind, intelligent, beautiful cat. I knew him for only a short time, but he was one of the most interesting people I’d ever met. I’d met him years before for the first time at Satyricon in Portland, when he was in Heatmiser. I lost touch with him; honestly, his stardom kinda crept up on me. I wasn’t really paying attention, but when I peeked back out, Elliott was already a star – he was on the Oscars! I had stopped playing music and he was a big reason why I started playing again: I had receded, and he was very encouraging."

Greg Dulli

"It was sort of a risk for us because we hadn’t heard the album when we agreed to put him on the cover. But both Mark and I were like “doesn’t matter, trust me, it will be beautiful, it will be perfect! That experience was like an eight hour day. It was all day at his house and at his studio, and photographing all day. And he gave us an extremely personal interview. And the fact that it was the last interview he did before he passed… So that to me, to date, is the best and most important photo shoot I ever did. It means the most to me."

Wendy Lynch-Redfern

"I should clarify that as the archivist, it’s not my decision to release or not release anything. But it is my job to inform the estate - his surviving family - of what they have. A little part of me understands the hardcore fan. I’m a major fan of, say, Velvet Underground or Pink Floyd, and I would buy anything that had one new song that had been dug up. I’d be in the store the day it came out. So I understand that mentality. But on the other hand, if you do have all the outtakes of the Velvet Underground, it’s still White Light, White Heat that’s really fucking good and revolutionary. You don’t want to dilute that album by making a version with 400 bonus tracks so it’s an unlistenable experience.
There’s some trepidation to put everything out. I worry about New Moon, even. Say somebody buys this as their first Elliott Smith record; it’s really good, the songs are very good, but it’s not a record that Elliott crafted in his lifetime, and I think those records are stronger. Now say there are 20 different CDs of his high school band and mumblings into a cassette when he’s 14 and… I don’t know. It starts to dilute things to a certain degree, and people might also start to say “Oh, is the family looking for money?” And that’s so far from the way things are proceeding with the estate. They would be horrified to be thought of that way. Nobody wants the money from this - that’s why portions go to charities and things like that. It’s not the reason anyone would ever do it.
Elliott’s father is fairly involved and had gone to see him play live quite a bit. But his father and his mother and half-sisters, they’re not involved in the music industry, and there are certain traps; I feel like a little bit of my job is that they understand scenarios better and can make informed decisions. They have a really great lawyer, too, who helps with decisions."

Larry Crane

"The first time I heard Roman Candle, I said, “Wow, that sounds like Nick Drake.” I remember mentioning Nick Drake to him once and getting kind of a “Huh, oh yeah, he’s okay” response. I don’t think if you looked at his record collection - well, he really didn’t have one. He was really transitory. I wound up with a bunch of his vinyl because he left it at the studio. The things he had were like Dylan and The Band and some flamenco guitar stuff. I remember hanging out with him in Los Angeles and he had Left Bank and the Zombies box set - orchestral pop stuff that he was curious about. He didn’t so much listen to music for the whole of the song; he was really focused on certain little parts of the song. He didn’t actually like the song as much as he liked one crazy little transition or fill or line somewhere. There were little moments that he’d hold out for. He liked Chicago and The Scorpions.
He wasn’t the kind of guy to obsessively analyze other people’s work. I don’t know that he even owned a Nick Drake record. He wasn’t an obsessive record collector; he seemed to just leave a trail of records with his friends."

Larry Crane

"It's difficult to grow up in Texas. I never had that fighting spirit, and it was unforgivable in such a macho town. They have a weird sense of honor there. No one's going to help you if you have a problem, it's a very hostile place. If you're fragile, you're necessarily a fairy. Weird mentality. My guideline in life is to avoid to get bitter. Life often leads people to drown into bitterness. They always get disappointed and they're not going to fight. My mother is haunted by such bitterness. Things happened in her life that deeply wounded her and she's been bitter ever since, she can't get over it. I never want to end up like that."

Elliott Smith

"I remember him coming off a tour with some rental car and just stuffed all the stuff that had been in the car under some work benches under our back room. Years and years go by, and I was like, “Damn, Elliott left all his junk here.” I pull all his stuff out, and it’s like a ten dollar bill, guitar picks, a road map, a Hank Williams, Jr. cassette, and then letters from fans and their albums. He must have picked up a batch of fan mail somewhere. It wasn’t ever going to register.
Even as his friend, my band at the time was Elephant Factory, and I remember pressing our CD and handing it to him. He’d come to our shows and be supportive, but I remember giving him the CD and going “He’s never gonna listen to this.” I would have other people I knew telling me “Can you give Elliott a copy of my record?” And I’d say “You don’t even want me to do that.”

Larry Crane

"I can read one note at a time. I have to count up the lines, so I can't do a George Martin thing and read a score. I play it on the piano or something and give it to an orchestrator. I was happy when it turned out like I pictured. I'm not too shy about asserting myself, though. String sessions are really short and very expensive. If I hear something that's not right, I get on the talkback right away and tell the conductor. Those players are used to last-minute changes. It's their job. So I don't think they sit there resenting some little smart-ass rock and roller."

Elliott Smith

"In my opinion, Elliott Smith left us a legacy of too many talentless people making music with no backbone. My favorite song? He wrote so many... But i can't listen to his records anymore."

Sam Coomes

"I don't really do anything that brings on trouble from the authorities! And I do that on purpose because I don't want trouble from the authorities!"

Elliott Smith

"In the summer of 2002, I’d just returned to L.A. from Eastern Europe -- Belgrade -- where I could live cheaply and so work full-time on a novel. To my frustration, the novel still required extensive surgery, and one night, in lieu of taking an axe to my computer, I drove to Ralph’s Supermarket on Glendale Boulevard. It was three in the morning, but there was a longish line at the cash register, and the customer immediately behind me was Elliott Smith. The checker wandered off, and I wondered if I should say anything to Elliott.

Elliott and I were strangers, but I’d once given his girlfriend -- let’s call her Kate -- a ride home from a Trail of Dead show, where she’d been accosted by a deranged groupie type who’d been stalking Elliott. Kate was Scottish; gregarious but fiery -- a friend of my friends in Trail of Dead. At the time she and Elliott were living in a bungalow complex in Los Feliz. The bungalows looked like Tudor dioramas at a history-themed amusement park. (I would later recognize them as a key location in David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive.") We sat in my car for close to an hour while Kate cried and talked about Elliott’s problems, hinting at his fondness for heroin, which hardly came as a shock, considering the many allusions to heroin in his songs: “The White Lady Loves You More,” “Needle in the Hay,” and so on. She thought L.A. was bad for him, and she was trying to get him to move with her to Scotland, where in theory he’d be safe from pernicious influences.

It was a curious exchange -- the sudden intimacy of it all -- and now, almost a year later, here was Elliott, standing behind me at Ralph's with a carton of ice cream in either hand -- in fact, I think he was holding three. Funny that I remember what he was buying, when I don’t remember what I was buying myself. It couldn't have been liquor -- not at that hour.

The checker kept us waiting. Finally I turned to Elliott and mentioned the ride I’d once given Kate. They'd had a fight, he volunteered -- that's why he'd gone to the store. To me it explained the ice cream: sugary compensation for a bitter spat. He was obviously troubled, but, then again, he was Elliott Smith -- what did I expect? At one point he said something about getting into therapy, and I said, "Well, therapy's so pat, you know. I'm not sure it'll work if you happen to be a genius."

"I'm not a genius," he half-laughed, adding that his father was a therapist. One of us -- it was probably him -- raised the subject of heroin. I told him I used to fool around with heroin, and I liked it, but not enough to form a dependence.

"Oh, I loved it," he said. "Right from the start." I thought, "Jesus Christ, I'm standing here talking about doing heroin with Elliott Smith at Ralph's Supermarket!" The checker returned, and after paying for our various items, Elliott and I walked outside to the parking lot, where I expected him to quickly get in his car and drive away. Instead, we continued talking for another fifteen minutes, mostly about his spiritual malaise. I tried to advise him, but I wasn’t at my best, because I still couldn’t get over the fact that I was talking to Elliott Smith. Then, after I returned home, I did something that now makes me wince: I posted a message on a music-oriented Yahoo group to which I belonged to brag about having bumped into Elliott. How about that, people? Ain’t I kewl?
"I never saw him again, though shortly after that encounter, he broke up with Kate and moved to an apartment a few blocks from mine in Echo Park. That’s where he was living when he killed himself with a stab to the heart in the fall of 2003. I thought of Kate when the news broke: her saying that L.A was bad for him; her wish that they could live together in Scotland. I thought of the way he looked that night at Ralph's -- bad skin, witchy features, scraggly hair -- yet there was something so instantly likable about him. I read somewhere that he took umbrage at hearing his music described as “fragile,” but it was fragile, and so was he.

A friend of mine regularly meets with a psychic, and he told me that during one of their sessions, Elliott came though. They'd never met, but my friend is a musician, so they'd traveled common ground. Through the psychic, Elliott said that he only wished he'd known how much his music meant to people while he was alive. Still, he was doing well on the other side. My friend asked about Kurt Cobain. "Kurt's divided," my friend reported Elliott as saying, explaining that in the afterlife souls can sometimes be spread apart.

Unlike my friend, I don’t place much stock in the metaphysical, though I try to keep an open mind. I don't pretend to understand the mysteries of life. I have my guesses, but I know that's all they are. Still, I've never quite shaken the notion that I squandered the chance that night to say something that might've kept Elliott from killing himself. Yes, we were strangers, and it was only a brief exchange, but I once saved myself from getting mauled by an attacking pit bull by freezing rather than fleeing -- a tactic I’d picked up years before while channel-surfing. Sometimes something as random as that can make for a world of difference. And now I'm writing about a talk at Ralph's Supermarket at three in the morning, and that by itself tells me that every moment counts, or it can potentially, if you haven't given up on the world altogether."

D.R. Haney

"If you type 'Echo Park' in wikipedia, Elliott is the first person mentioned on the famous residents list. There's 'dead in Echo Park' next to his name. But he lived there too! I have to edit that! After all, isn't it the beauty of wikipedia?"

Jennifer Chiba

Interesting. I did and found Elliott way back in the famous list with nothing like that after his name. The footnote to his having lived there came from this article:
. Ascribe it to the wishes of his family; the cliquish, protective, and intimate nature of the Northwest music scene; or the rumors of failed interventions, snubs, and severed ties once Smith moved to NYC and finally L.A., but a reporter is hard-pressed to gather comments – positive or negative – from old bandmates and cohorts.
One exception is Earlimart leader Aaron Espinoza, a drinking buddy who played on a few Basement sessions. He was so stunned by his onetime idol's death that his group, which includes Smith's live drummer Scott McPherson, halted their tour after hearing the news. "It was huge, totally," Espinoza says, reluctant to exploit his association with his friend. "It completely affected everybody. We pretty much stopped touring for the most part because of that. We just went back home because it didn't seem like there was any point at the time."
Nugent chalks up the almost overwhelming silence to a quasi-investigative story on Smith that came out shortly after he began working on the book in January. "His family felt pretty burned by the Blender article [in January 2004], and there was sort of an agreement throughout his friends not to talk to anybody after that," he says. "It was like a curtain that went down."
In the six months he spent writing the book, Nugent said he was shocked by a few testimonials he gleaned from Smith's friends, including the assertion by Bill Santen that Smith had been far from a junkie when he wrote his so-called 1995 heroin album, Elliott Smith.

But was Smith's painful and violent death purely of his making? It was an end eerily reminiscent of the finale of Michael Haneke's film The Piano Teacher, based on a novel by Elfriede Jelinek, who received a Nobel this year. According to the police, Chiba said the couple were in the middle of a heated argument Oct. 21, when she locked herself in the bathroom. After she heard Smith scream, she emerged to find him standing, gasping, with a knife protruding from his chest. After pulling the blade from his body, she said she tried to apply CPR and first aid, assisted by a 911 operator, but neither her efforts nor those of emergency room surgeons saved Smith's life.
At the very least, Basement turns out to be a beautifully evocative disc, if less chaotic than some might have hoped. From the opening "Coast to Coast," Smith's sampling experiments, here of evangelistic radio transmissions, surge to the fore, threatening to overwhelm the close of the song. Tracks such as "Shooting Star" and "Strung Out Again" give off glammy, jagged reflections, pierced through with boozy, coming-down-fast guitar. Like any good album, the more you listen, the more pleasures you find, and like those '60s and '70s rock albums Smith loved, the louder you play some songs, the better, and more complex, they become.
"The new record is probably the most sad because it doesn't sound like a man at the end of his rope," says O'Riley, who is preparing for next year's tour playing Smith's songs. "It's just a very, very bright light. It's an amazing record! In terms of development over the course of several records, it's sort of his Abbey Road."
One wonders if matters might have escalated to White Album proportions if, as Nugent says, Smith's loved ones had worked out their differences and wiped away the lingering mysteries. Yet, he muses, "I think it's an impossible task to figure out what Elliott wanted because he said x and y at a particular time, but then he went into a very different phase of his life. But since Jennifer Chiba doesn't get along with most of his family, there hasn't been a lot of communication between the people he was with toward the end of his life and the people who were actually responsible for finishing the album." At press time representatives of the family hadn't responded to requests for an interview.
Back at Smith's last home, an extremely pregnant young Polynesian woman meets you by the mailboxes above the steep driveway and leads you to the apartment door amid a cluster of featureless stucco buildings. The gravel crunches as you shift your weight between your feet and summon the courage to ring the bell. The number is scratched in ink on the door. A lamp beams behind the blinds.
"Who's there? What do you want?" comes a woman's voice, wary and spooked.

Then nothing. The bright light goes on abruptly overhead, as if now on guard.

An art therapist and once a member of a band called Happy Ending, which Smith was said to be recording before his death, Chiba still lives in the apartment she shared with her late boyfriend, and why not? She lived there for years before he moved in. Still, you shiver under the watchful gaze of the neighbors – or something. Did Smith want to be here? And now does he have any choice?

[solveig7]

Albracht says one of his biggest songwriting influences is Elliott Smith, but unlike most Smith-heads, Albracht doesn’t start quoting lyrics when the songwriter’s genius comes into question. When an acquaintance dismissed Smith’s often-depressing verses (“Needle in the Hay” has soundtracked both Frank Black’s therapeutic crying sessions and Richie Tenenbaum’s suicide attempt) as “too emo,” Albracht says he became angry. “Do you know anything about chord progression or music or anything?” he replied.

Albracht, dressed for his sandwich-delivery job in black-framed hipster glasses and a Quasi T-shirt, looks every bit the kind of guy who would say this. Quasi is a three-piece featuring Sam Coomes, formerly bassist for Smith’s Heatmiser, on guitar and keyboard, and Jonna Bolme, Smith’s former girlfriend, on bass. Albracht says he once met Smith’s sister, Ashley Welch, at the merch table after a Quasi gig — when he was trying to pass along the cupcakes he’d baked for the band. He’s so inspired by Smith, Albracht says, he’s constantly afraid of the influence becoming too prevalent in Cartographers songs.
“Whenever anybody tells us we sound like somebody, and it’s not Elliott Smith,” Albracht says, “I’m really relieved.”

"I think that quality of songwriting, especially in that era, was really strong. One of the things that people don’t know is that this was someone who was recording on four-track cassettes when he was like 14, and probably writing since he was 10 - just constantly, constantly improving his craft. I think there are people who hear music like this and think “Oh, a guy playing an acoustic guitar - that’s simple.” But this is someone who had been in all sorts of rock bands and was really pushing himself for years to hone his craft. When you think about it, when you listen to the music, the intricacy of some of the guitar playing, the arrangement of how he’s playing his guitar, is miles beyond someone who’s trying to imitate it. It’s very well thought out and arranged, and there are lots of melodic parts and dissonant chords - it’s not just slapped together.
If you go through his lyrics - I found tapes from really early on, like high school lyrics, and they’re bad. There are a couple glimpses of certain themes he used later, but in general they’re just not very good. But you get into the early years of his solo career and they’re really good. He’d done a lot of reading of classic philosophy books and all kinds of crazy stuff. There’s a misimpression of him that he was pulling stuff from his diary, and the songs are certainly invested with his life and personality, but there was a lot of investigation of other people’s work that went into them."

Larry Crane

"Elliott Smith…man. I’m so bummed I’ll never hear any new music from him. I remember the first CD I stole from my brother was Figure 8. I loved everything about that album. I loved how gut-wrenching everything he wrote felt — even in the simplest words — it was something deeper than just the lyrics or the accompaniment, it was how deeply connected he was to what he was singing about. It’s hard to pick one song of his, but I love “Somebody that I Used to Know” and “Everything Means Nothing to Me.”

I think Elliott influenced me because he made me realize that songs didn’t have to be these concise, palatable little nuggets of verse-chorus-bridge-chorus — that as an artist you could experiment with different sounds, but that sometimes it was still the simplest songs that touched people. I guess just that to embrace the cathartic, emotional side of song-writing wasn’t maudlin…it was okay as long as it was genuine."

Annie Bethancourt

"With a very simple change of device, I’m two opposite things to people. I mean, you can’t even understand your neighbor much less someone you saw on a television program. And I’m not necessarily talking about myself, but people form such strong and narrow opinions of people, and they’re going on such little information. The thing that’s fun for me is to make parallels between things. That’s more interesting to me, at the moment anyway, than writing really straight songs about a particular person or event. Metaphors work a lot better when you don’t draw attention to the fact that they’re metaphors. Talking about drugs—and why people do drugs and how they feel about it—just leads you to the same things as talking about relationships and people in love. It’s a very useful device to talk about other things that are harder to name. If you can’t name the big thing, you have to break it apart into small things with names and build it back up using the small things."

Elliott Smith

"Friends & Enemies: My controversial documentary "SEARCHING FOR ELLIOTT SMITH" will screen in Downtown LA on May 7 & 8. It's part of the LOS ANGELES NEW WAVE INT'L FILM FESTIVAL. Tix on sale now for $11. It's about a gracious, funny, super-talented, Oscar-nominated singer-songwriter who many idiots believe was murdered in Echo Park 8 yrs ago. Please come by to cheer or boo. Thanks!"

Gil Reyes

"I think his musical legacy is that, not only are a lot of artists influenced by Elliott, but a lot of people also seem to really connect with Elliott’s lyrics. Besides that Elliott had some great guitar and melody-making skills, his lyrics seem to have a significant impact on a lot of his listeners. As far as a personal legacy… unfortunately, we as a society like to take people’s lives and sum them up as simply as possible, and I think his legacy among people who aren’t hardcore fans tends to be that he was a quiet but very talented singer/songwriter who battled depression and drugs and allegedly committed suicide. I really enjoyed Autumn de Wilde’s book on Elliott, as I think it kinda portrays what Elliott was like on a day-to-day basis… I’d hope that something like that grows to define his personal legacy."

Matthew Solberg



"In 1995 I made a video with Elliott Smith. We had a fucking great time."

Ross Harris

vimeo.com/17747336

"I can not describe how much elliott's music meant to me, and even that is an understatement. i wanted to let you know i heard the band brickfoot do a cover of cupid's trick...in kuwait. i am a soldier who was deployed to iraq and at a morale event, the band gave a great little tribute to elliott, recommended everyone there explore his music, and then played the song. i talked with them after the show and they said they usually also play "everybody cares, everybody understands." i wrote a short review of the show on my blog, and thanked the band for making me feel closer to home than any singular action that could have happened here in the war."

Sgt Chris Missick



Daniel Robert Epstein: I know you were friends with Elliott. So what made you decide to work on this album?
Sean Croghan: For a while I didn't want to do it because I was friends with Elliott and it seemed like a weird thing to do. Then I found out about the money going to the Smith Foundation so I felt that was alright. Also I found the song on a tape and that changed things too because I really liked the song.
DRE:
Since the track you cover, High Times, was previously unreleased, when did you first hear the song?
SC:
The first time I heard it was when we were living together and he played it at a few shows. He just felt that wasnt such an important song anymore and he was writing new stuff. Then after he died I was listening to all these tapes that he had given me and that song was on one of them.
DRE:
What struck you about hearing it again?
SC:
It was just so different. From the time he was recording his last album he had changed so much from when he first started. This song was like super discord. All his songs are dark but this song was dark more in a Portland way. It was just something different and it was something I forgot that he had done. It really reminded me of him and it reminded me of our time in Portland.
DRE:
How was the actual recording?
SC:
It was really cool because I got to work with a new band in Portland that I think is really amazing. We decided to approach the song in a totally different way than Elliott would because trying to cover Elliotts method is so hard just because his recording is almost perfect. S I got together with a band called Worms and it was fun. We just made it more of a noise, gospel song.
DRE:
How did you first meet Elliott back in the day?
SC:
We were both in bands. I was in Crackerbash and he was in Heatmiser. Our bands were playing shows together. We had mutual friends and Portland was a small city. If you were playing a certain type of music then you knew everyone else who was playing that type of music. Over time we got to be closer friends.
DRE:
Were you surprised when he got so popular?
SC:
Oh no because as soon as we toured together it became pretty obvious that there was something special about Elliott's music.
DRE:
How much do you think about him today?
SC:
All the time. We were really tight friends. It was this really intense time in both of our lives and so we went through a lot of shit together. I miss him all the time.
DRE:
What are you working on now?
SC:
Im thinking about going in and recording another solo record. Ill probably do that with those same guys I did the Elliott song with because I like their style and I want to try some different stuff. Also I like to do a lot of painting. My muse is someplace else other than music lately. We do lots of music at my house all the time. We have regular nights where tons of people come over and just play music together but as far as shows and stuff right now Im stepping away.
DRE:
Did working with Elliott make you realize you sucked at doing solo music?
SC:
Yes it did because Elliott would always try to get me to do these shows after hit his stride and I'd get up there and be so nervous. I'm not half the guitar player Elliott was so I'm just kind of banging away at my wooden box. It wasn't pretty sometimes.
DRE:
What are your paintings like?
SC:
It's really folk art style, primitive. Its not in any gallery so far, I've only shown them at restaurants. I like to dig around by the train station and see what weird junk I could find and then I make something.
DRE:
How has Portland changed since you started out in music?
SC:
It was a good place to be an artist but things are a lot more expensive now. You used to be able to work 20 hours a week and have an apartment for $125 and spend the rest of your time being in a band or painting or whatever you were you were out here to do. Its becoming harder because it is a much bigger city than it was 15 years ago.

"I loved Elliott Smith. He was so talented.

And just the other day, I had on Pandora Radio on the Conor Oberst channel, and I heard "Miss Misery," and I was listening to it in the background as I was cleaning up my house. And all of a sudden I started realizing that the lyrics were different. So I went down and sat in front of my radio and looked at it and saw that it was part of the New Moon album, which they released posthumously, and I guess he re-recorded it. And then my boyfriend came in and found me sitting on the floor in tears because I had never heard those lyrics before. It was a totally different version, and it was so powerful. Just completely overwhelming. It's a really cool recording. "

Troian Bellisario

"hello everybody...
I've been a long time fan of his voice, songwriting skills and overall ear for what i would call beautiful music. It was with great grief that I learned that Mr Elliott Smith had passed away.. The reason that I write this journal is to tell you a nice story about me and Mr Smith.
It took place on the 18th september 2001 in Los Angeles, USA. Me and my boys were going to LA to start the recording of Frengers and had just arrived at our hotel.It was night, not late but still dark, and we were sharing a beer on the balcony, trying to cope with our jetlag. Our producer Rich Costey was supposed to come by and say hello and so he did. We talked a bit and after a while he said that he had to go to a studio somewhere in Hollywood to help out this guy record 'Hey Jude'. I think I asked who it was and Rich told me he was called Elliott Smith. "ELLIOTT SMITH?! Hold on, the Elliott Smith??!! I'm coming with you!! So here I was on my first night in fantastic LA, a little bit drunk and soooo jetlagged... On my way to meet Mr Smith, one of my few idols!!! Bloody God!!
We arrived at the studio (that turned out to be the place where Prince did Purple Rain) and found Elliott, a gloomy looking guy with long greasy hair, bad skin and a knitted beanie on his head. Along with himwas his Dad, his band and a bunch of hangarounds. Everybody seemed very down to say the least. Elliott just sat there and then said 'Hello, I'm Elliott'. He spoke in the exact same soft, gentle voice that I knew and loved from his records. I must say that it hurt me to see him in such a depressed stage and without ever knowing him as a person, I could tell he was a very troubled soul. The session seemed to be stuck and nobody really knew what to do about it...So like the typical optimist I am, I tried to take charge of the session together with Rich (I'd like to add that I would probably haven't done this had I not been slightly under the influence of the King of Beers) but nevertheless it almost worked. At least, we got Elliott motivated to recording the piano again, Rich fixed the drums and the spirit was higher all together at this point. Hours had passed and I was almost falling asleep on the couch. But then happened, what I would call the climax of my night... Elliott asked all of us, and I mean everybody in the studio, including Rich and me, to do the 'Na na na na na na naaaa, na na na naaaaa Hey Jude' outro vocalpart together with him... It was pretty fucking weird standing there, even more drunk and sleepy, screaming Paul's ode to John's son in the middle of the night, in a room full of people I had never met before and I realized that I would probably remember this the rest of my life...
I think they eventually got the track finished without me and Rich, but I don't think the track ever made it on to the soundtrack. My fascination of Elliott Smith's talent grew even bigger after that wonderful, weird evening, in a time when the world was threatening to fall apart.
You will be missed, Mr Smith"

Johan Wohlert

"To the casual fan, Smith’s death was hardly a surprise. They’re the ones who enjoy citing song titles like “Miss Misery,” and his alleged heroin addiction during the Self Titled era (when actually, the heroin “act” was, at that point, part of a persona) as proof that it was only a matter of time until he committed suicide. The casual fans were bemused when the hardcore fans spent the day of his death crying, and they asked us how we could have missed all of the obvious signs.
We hate the casual fans.
Because for those of us who really loved him, we felt contentment in knowing that, despite everything — the alcoholism, the whispered rumors of childhood abuse, the drug addictions and other self-destructive behaviors – he was surviving. The fact that the songs even existed seemed like his way of reporting back to earth after a long excursion to the underworld. His albums were documents, proving that something fragile and beautiful could be woven out of pain; we heard hope where others, who didn’t take the time to understand him or his music, heard only “that depressing shit.”

Zombette

“It ups the ante for the rest of us, too. It’s really inspiring, like, ‘Wow, look what Elliott’s doing! We gotta try harder.’”

Janet Weiss

"I was going to tour with Quasi, but Janet kicked me off the tour for some reason I don't quite understand. Sam doesn't get it either."

Elliott Smith



"Yesterday would have been the 40st birthday of Elliott Smith, perhaps the finest songwriter of my generation, and a musician who killed himself six years ago. My wife -- a longtime music journalist who considers him the deepest artist she's ever interviewed -- and i remember that dark day well.
Smith, of course, came up through the Portland band Heatmiser, and released some powerful and very spare solo records up there before moving to LA... He came to the southland a few years after I did, and I was lucky enough to see him perform several times, as well as to sit next to him at the bar at the troubadour, where he was nursing a guinness and clearly did not want to be disturbed. (I also recall, maybe a year before he died, Smith waiting in line behind me in line at amoeba music, with a basket full of vinyl. his girlfriend had to lead him to the register like he was an overmedicated old man.)"

Scott Timberg

"I spent two weeks in Silver Lake [in Los Angeles] in August or September of 2002 finishing up [the Postal Service's Give Up] with Jimmy Tamborello and hanging out with Jenny Lewis, who I had invited to be part of the record. We were hanging out and recording, and we went to get food at this little burrito joint in Los Feliz, one of those places where you can't sit inside and there are three tables out front. I remember going in and ordering some food, and there was this little jar where every week you could put your name in, and if your name got picked, you could get a free burrito. There was a sign behind the jar that said BURRITO OF THE WEEK, it said, ELLIOTT SMITH. I remember looking up there and being amused for a couple of reasons. Number one, that this seminal, brilliant singer/songwriter would do something that anybody off the street would do, like, you'd see this jar and think, "I'm going to write my name on this card like everybody else and win a free burrito." I just had this kind of funny image in my head of him going into this burrito joint, thinking if he's going to go there and put his name into a hat to win a free burrito, he probably goes here fairly frequently, you know? I just wanted to be there so badly. I wanted to see him see his name on the board, that he'd won a free burrito, and just knowing that even though he was in a bad way, he'd be happy that he won a free burrito. Everybody likes to win stuff."
- the guy from death cab for cutie

"When I first heard Either/Or, I felt like I was in on a really cool secret, like I was given access to an archive of a great but profoundly and permanently unknown artist’s private moments of casual brilliance. Rather than trying to directly emulate anything concrete in Smith’s music, I tried to be like him in that I wanted to convey to listeners that same intense, almost uncomfortable intimacy. Smith wasn’t the first person to hit on this quality–it’s something shared by many great recordings before and since Either/Or’s release–but on that record he was a master at overwhelming us with it."

Chad Matheny - Emperor X

"I had told a friend in America that i was a big Nick Drake fan and she said 'oh if you like Nick Drake, you'll love this guy Elliott Smith' and it was around the time, he had a new album out, which was Either/Or, which is a great album, it's his third album, and i got into that and then a lot of people hadn't heard of him, especially in Britain, so i remember telling friends about him and sort of trying to get people into him and somehow that got to Select magazine and they said 'well he's coming over', to promote his then new album, which was called Figure 8, and 'why don't you do a piece with him?' and we ended up doing an 'in conversation' type piece. We met up at a pub, in West London, in Kensal Rise, and he was a very approachable, sort of softly spoken, quite shy young man and the conversation, we had a beer and just chatted, and he, very gratifyingly, had seen some of my programmes, so it was one of those things where it was a little bit of a mutual appreciation society meeting, which was all very good, and i remember the only awkward spot, it wasn't even big enough to be awkward, but, they said 'why don't you ask him something about his music and what it means to you?' and i was sort of wittering on about how much i liked it and then i said 'you know one thing i'm puzzled by, Elliott, is it seems like there's a lot of veiled drugs references', or not so veiled, you know,...I took it for granted that he had a history of some drug use but i didn't assume that he had a huge problem, that it was damaging his life, and i said, you know, a lot of talk about oh, needles and this and that, and he sort of mumbled and kind of evasively looked away and his body language changed a bit and i sort of thought 'okay, maybe that's a bit more of a sensitive subject than i realised', but so talented, and this track, "Independence Day", is probably my favourite one..."

Louis Theroux

"He would talk about dying. But it was never about suicide - it was about drugs. He always said he could never kill himself. For a lot of people, it wasn't a surprise. But for me, it didn't make sense at all. I saw him the night before he died; he seemed fine."

Aaron Espinoza

"People have been saying, 'Yeah, man, it sucks, but I guess we all saw it coming'. And I'm like, 'Fuck you!' How is it ever inevitable that someone's gonna stab himself in the fucking heart? He's not another sad junkie that someone found three weeks later in his apartment. It was an incredible shock."

Ted Leo

"Elliott Smith is great. If I hadn’t heard Elliott’s music, I wouldn’t have met Tom Rothrock, and if I hadn’t met Tom Rothrock, then you and I wouldn’t be talking right now."

James Blunt

"We always made mix tapes for each other. He and I and two friends were going to this party, and we made this pact to make mix tapes. We realized that we'd all put 'Rocks Off' by the Rolling Stones on all four tapes. So Elliott invented this game where evry time that song came on, we had to yell 'Rocks Off!' and name the city we were driving through - 'Rocks Off, Delaware!', 'Rocks Off, Newark!'"

Dorien Garry

"When I first met him it was magical. He just had that thing you're attracted to. Magnetic. There was sides of him that were very reclusive, but if he let you in, it was a pretty good feeling."

Aaron Espinoza

"There's too much life in his music to think of him as gone."

Elliott Smith on John Lennon

"People always end up being mad at me..."

Elliott Smith

"We have been very careful in terms of the amount of records we put out and the amount of people we sign. We still have a very small roster. Elliott is clearly an artist that we not only love but we are proud of, and he represents something that is really important to us, and that's great songwriting and a unique, singular approach."

Lenny Waronker

"I was supposed to work with Elliott on a record that never happened. We had a meeting at Inner Ear with Elliott, Don Z., Ian MacKaye, Elliott's girlfriend and myself. Ian and Elliott were close friends and Elliott was a huge Fugazi fan. Ian had recommended me as a collaborator/producer figure, Don as an engineer. I greatly appreciated the recommendation.
There was a lot of love between Ian and Elliott. Ian cared deeply for Elliott and though he did not say it explicitly, I could tell he was worried about him.
I think Ian was hoping to encourage Elliott to make a simpler, more stripped down, organic (Ian's words, not mine) record than Figure 8, which was his previous recording. Figure 8 (which I love) had a very far-reaching, ornate, psychedelic presentation. The idea was to try something maybe the opposite of that.
He played us some demos that were stunning. (A couple of the songs I have never heard since. Which haunts me. The tapes have to be out there somewhere...)
It was towards the tail end of his souring relationship with Dreamworks and there was a lot of tension.
This is to say nothing of his physical state, which was quite frail. He spoke very slowly and simply. He seemed to be struggling just to exist. There was a slightly floating quality about him.
The songs were exquisite and smart and sharply honed. Authoritative. Dark and stunning. The man himself, sitting in the control room chair... was significantly more blurred, fragile, faint. There was a marked contrast between the strength and authority and craft of the demos coming out of the studio speakers and the person who made them.
It made me sad.
There was no question he was the real thing. I've had the opportunity to be in the room with genius (of varying types) a few times in my life. You can feel it. You try to absorb it if you can, but it doesn't work that way.
Plans were laid out to do some sessions, but I never expected the record to get made. There were too many forces against it. Dreamworks, for example, was terrified of Elliott going off and making a record in the place most famous for Fugazi --- a stridently anti-commercial/anti-mainstream band.
He flew off to Scotland with his girlfriend to try to recover and get away from the things and people that were dragging him down.
I never saw him again.
I think about him all the time, even though we only spent one day together.

I was hoping that some of the songs I heard in that meeting would have made it to the posthumous ANTI release, but they did not.

I still keep hoping they'll surface."

Chad Clark

Thanksgiving (for Elliott Smith):

what are you doing?
i'm writing a song
she says "i'm going to a movie, do you want to come?"
it's not that easy you are far from me
should i go to you
should you come to me?
then the sun goes down on the williamsburg bridge
and if i''m lonesome then it's nothing that nobody ever did
a girl walks home with her grocery bags
like the weight that is inside them is too much for her to bear
and a family struggles to a photograph
like they need something to prove that they were really there
and the cars pass me by on bedford avenue and
i'm wondering how i'm supposed to do what elliott smith couldn't do
'cause the cars all sleep in the parking lot
with a blanket of snow and their motors off
and it takes courage that i haven't got
and iI hope some day i'll have a lot
a kid comes home from college on thanksgiving break
where families fit inside picture frames
that hangs next to mirrors in front entryways
so when they leave they always, always will remain
so when they leave they always will remain
what are you doing?
i'm writing a song
she says "i'm going to a movie, do you want to come?"
it's not that easy you are far from me
should I go to you
should you come to me?
then the sun goes down on the williamsburg bridge
and if i'm lonesome then it's nothing that nobody ever did
a girl walks home with her grocery bags
like the weight that is inside them is too much for her to bear
and a family struggles to a photograph
like they need something to prove that they were really there
and the cars pass me by on bedford avenue and
i'm wondering how i'm supposed to do what elliott smith couldn't do
'cause the cars all sleep in the parking lot
with a blanket of snow and their motors off
and it takes courage that i haven't got
and i hope some day i'll have a lot
a kid comes home from college on thanksgiving break
where families fit inside picture frames
that hangs next to mirrors in front entryways
so when they leave they always, always will remain
so when they leave they always will remain


The Boy Bathing

"I liked Elliott and his music; XO, Figure 8. We hung out a couple of times. Sadly missed. He was great."

Johnny Marr

"Track 5 is dedicated to Elliott Smith more than it is stylistically influenced by him. I lived in Williamsburg for a long time and heard a lot of stories from people who knew Elliott when he lived there. None of them very exciting. Mostly, people saw him in a restaurant, in a bar or eating ice cream. But the thought of Elliott going through daily motions similar to my own like taking the L train or walking down Bedford Avenue was enough to humble me in the immensity of living. Shortly after his death I wrote “The cars pass me by on Bedford Avenue and I’m wondering how I’m supposed to do what Elliott Smith couldn’t do.”"

David Huritz

Your lyrics have come under a lot of scrutiny. An example would be Poisoned Well with its supposedly Elliott Smith inspired line “You won’t live long, but you may write the perfect song.” It struck me that it’s just as likely to be about you.

"Or anybody really who’s a troubled musician, you know what I mean? It’s not limited to Elliott or me. I don’t mind that people scrutinise the words. I wrote them on the inside of the record. I’m also a listener of music and I read the lyrics and I think ‘that’s probably about this’. And I might be right and I might be wrong, that’s the interesting thing about it. It’s not like a philosophical tract or a mathematical formula; it’s open to all kinds of interpretation. It’s not in my interest to pin it down and print my own definition on it."

Sam Coomes

"I came to Elliott Smith late — in 1998, a few years after his second album (from which this song comes) — but that same character, Dave most definitely did not: He basically wants to be Elliott Smith; to make music so innovative, so moving, that it changes listeners’ lives in some fundamental way, music that manages to be both melancholic and brimming with life, makes one see the world anew. When writing the Dave sections of the novel, I had this song — and, honestly, all of Elliott Smith — on repeat. “High on amphetamines / the moon is lightbulb breaking.” Even without amphetamines, it is indeed."

Joanna Smith Rakoff

"Kurt Cobain wasn't ours, in Portland. As suburban middle-schoolers who mass-transited it into town every weekend to pick up our copies of The Rocket, we loved Nirvana, naturally. But after the suicide, my punk-rock songwriting pal and I felt a little bit angry—left behind. And so we were excited about the beginnings of Candy Ass Records, each of us devoting hard looks to each new CD from the label that showed up at Ozone on Burnside, across from Powell's. We didn't need it to become as big a deal as Sub Pop; we just wanted something we could get next to from the start.
Elliott Smith's breakaway from PDX grunge outfit Heatmiser was exciting. He went acoustic and played all-ages closets. When Roman Candle came out on Candy Ass the summer before we were sent up to high school, it seemed like the beginning of something. We spent the Oregon summer evenings in my friend's backyard tent—sufficiently far away from the parents who barely tolerated our garage compositions—and played the CD on a battery-powered boombox. 'Your tears are cheap / Wet hot red swollen cheeks' and 'I want to hurt him / I want to give him pain' felt like expressions of angst that also served as ballasts against their way of enabling self-destruction. It seemed like this singer with a head 'full of flames' wouldn't let them burn him down from the inside. It didn't work out that way. Final cause-of-death mysteries aside, it became clear that Smith was not immunized against mutilation.
Neither was my friend, who died a few falls ago. We had grown apart, and I was living abroad when it happened. Was not invited to the funeral. Whenever I want to feel close to him—which is to say, often—I play several records from that time and place, though most often it is this one. No, it's not a comfort per se. But before all the strands of indie had been mapped out as scientifically as they have in the interim, Smith's move from played-out grunge to a personal language of folk still suggests to me something like a chance to build a stronger vessel in which to meet the world."


Seth Colter Walls

"I like it when songs can kind of turn around on themselves in a way. I mean, people have similar moods or they may be thinking about certain things during the day, and it will feel different to them if they're talking to someone else or not. It's sort of like that inside the song, where there might be a temporary theme, or something that's really not meant to carry the whole song, and might disappear and come back in a changed way. So, the mood of the lyrics has to change with it in a way. Sometimes I think of it like part of the lyrics. I might think of an instrument sort of like a person who, maybe they're talking in the first verse, then in the second verse a new instrument comes in, and they're kind of surprised by that and they have to wait until they've readjusted to this new setting. Then the same type of lines will come back later in the song once they've adjusted, like they're going and then they're sort of, 'Uh... wait, I lost my train of thought.' Then they come back later like, 'Ok, now, I feel comfortable again in the song.' It's fun to think of different aspects of the song as people, and whether they're going to involve themselves in this situation or not."

Elliott Smith

" Music was my favorite thing and being a cub scout was my least favorite thing! I played soccer for a few years when I was really little, and then I got pulled out of that to be a cub scout, you know, it's a real drag... It was my stepdad, you know? Even back then, tv would do these bogus programs, just alarmist programs that scared people, like 'Salt is gonna kill you!' or 'Sports are bad for young children!', so I think they saw some program that said it was bad for bones of children, just total garbage, so... I don't know what their reasons really were, but that's what they said :'Oh, it's not good for you, dear'... but it's good for you to be a cub scout and wear a uniform and march around!"

Elliott Smith

"Today would have been Elliott Smith’s 41st birthday. I’ve written about him extensively before so I won’t go much further than that. But I just moved into a new apartment and I have yet to find a place to hang this portrait, which I love, so I figured I’d write something about the day it was taken.
Joshua Kessler took this photo at Elliott’s apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, right off Fifth Avenue, as part of a feature story I was writing for Alternative Press. I showed up at his place right when they began to shoot, and I remember being greeted as if I were an old friend — which was bizarre because Elliott and I had only met once before, in a dark nightclub, two years prior to that.
When we finally sat down to do the interview, it was almost effortless. He asked as much about me as I did about him, and I felt like it was only fair that I answer him. I wish I still had that tape.
Later that night, we both went to see Pulp — separately. But after running into each other at the show, Elliott insisted that I take his phone number and call him so we could hang out. I always think about this night because I never actually used that scrap of paper. On some level, I respected Elliott too much to be his “friend”; the scale was tipped, and I didn’t mind not being much more than an occasionally friendly face.
But I’ve questioned that so-called wisdom since he died. We got to know each other a little bit over the next couple of years, and I really can’t stress enough how much fun he was to be around. Elliott Smith wasn’t this maudlin character with sad violins following his every move. He was brilliant and funny and kind and ridiculously smart, and I still regret never having called him — the night he tried to be my friend, on the day he sat for this portrait."

Norman Brannon

[solveig7]

"Well, Kurt Cobain and Elliott Smith shared this very shy quiet introverted exterior, and underneath they were each goofballs in their own right. I felt my own shyness kept us from becoming closer friends but I respected their works so much and feel luck to have played music alongside both of them. Elliott used to eat at the restaurant I worked at, and he was very shy. I loved Heatmiser and was surprised when Elliott gave me a copy of 'Roman Candle', at how quietly gorgeous it sounded. Nobody was going in that direction at the time. It was like a whisper of things to come. We played some shows together doing the solo thing, and it was apparent that he was really amazing. Later, when I was touring with N°.2 and Elliott, I discovered how hilarious Elliott was. He and Neil Gust were like a comedy team. I laughed so much on that tour that my cheeks hurt most of the time. It is really hard to choose a favorite. His songs are incredibly crafted, each part so well thought-out and polished to this thing of perfection, the lyrics poetic and profane at the same time. I can narrow it down to "Son of Sam" and "Needle in the hay"."

Gilly Ann Hanner

"I’m pretty sure they were taken sometime after I saw him perform in 2000 at the Palace in Los Angeles. With him are Joanna Bolme and Sam Coomes of Quasi. I’ve been told Joanna and Elliott were dating at the time.
Joanna and The Minders were opening that night, and I distinctly remember her wearing the Portland Blazers #8 Steve Smith jersey-shirt during that set. Elliott came out and played with them on their last song…wearing his Willie Nelson shirt.
Later that night, when Elliott came on to play his set - they had switched shirts - Elliott in the Blazers shirt ironically bearing his name on the back, and Joanna emerging wearing Elliott’s Willie Nelson shirt.
I thought it was a pretty sweet gesture at the time, and looking at these pictures now only makes me smile."

Aaron Sonnenberg

"If you play acoustic, no matter what you do, you're just gonna be seen as 'folksinger'. It gets kind of annoying. It kinds of picks you up from wherever you are and drop you off in this little ghetto of rampant sentimentality that's associated with a certain kind of singers songwriters. It's like... I don't live here, I don't wanna be here. I'm not coming from that Simon & Garfunkel place, I'm coming more from like a Shane McGowan kind of place, for example, a certain energy that's in punk, or pop. It's different. Or it is to me. This is a type of... like singers songwriters, you know, that whole thing is sort of like... it bothers some people because it's just too crafty. And I'm not trying to be crafty. I'm just trying to be real. I'm not trying to make up that superpolished song where everything is in its place and it all sounds very sweet and contrived. I'd rather more make up a song that's more ... it's more a pop that's coming from a punk place, if that makes any sense."


Elliott Smith

"I recently transferred the raw footage that I shot with Elliott 15 years ago for his first album. Kill Rock Stars just released a compilation of his work from that time. I decided to put together a little mini doc about the making of the video and just some remembrances from that time. He came to live with me for a couple weeks and we just hung out and shot stuff on Super 8 and 16mm—just had a real cool time. He’s become this legendary doomed poet and it is so much in contrast with the Elliott that I knew. He was really a fun dude. Great sense of humor and compassion. Anything I can do to get the message out about his true nature, I want to do."

Ross Harris

"I like music that evokes a color and an emotion and a visual and a taste and smell if possible? I like it to attack me. Like, Elliot Smith music attacks me. It doesn’t have to be hard to do that. I like something that’s really proactive, that comes at me."

Josh Homme



"Part of me wanted to get guns and put them in the rack, but I don't think I would have gone that far. I don't like guns and I think I wouldn't want to own one. It seems like a magnet for trouble. As I've become an adult, I've slowly tried to reduce my anger at people who seem like they're being stupid, like tough guys at a bar. I think if I had a gun, it wouldn't encourage me to stay calm and just let it pass. It's better get better at letting that pass than to buy a weapon."

Elliott Smith

"This next song is a song that we normally would not play at a festival because it reminds us too much of sadness. But sometimes my singing about it, hum… we get to where we understand a different dimension of our unbearable sadness ok? hum
We were on tour, I forget it has been a few years now, we were on tour when we heard the news that our friend Elliott Smith had died.
And I don’t think we will ever really know if he took his own life or whatever the actual circumstances were. But there were plenty of time when we were around him when we felt as though he was waiting for an answer, and he was waiting for something that was gonna come along and may be make everything bearable for him. And we can’t wait, we have to try to make right now, bearable enough, that’s all we can do, we don’t know what the fuck we’re gonna do so this song is about everybody who has ever felt like this moment is too much and hope that you can get to the next one."

Wayne Coyne

Asked you a question
I didn't need you to reply
Is it gettin' heavy?
But they'll realize
Is it gettin' heavy?
Well I thought it was already as heavy
As can be

Is it overwhelming
To use a crane to crush a fly?
It's a good time for Superman
To lift the sun into the sky

'Cause it's gettin' heavy
Well I thought it was already as heavy
As can be

Tell everybody
Waitin' for Superman
That they should try to hold on
Best they can
He hasn't dropped them
Forgot them
Or anything
It's just too heavy for Superman to lift

Is it gettin' heavy?
Well I thought it was already as heavy as can be.

Tell everybody
Waitin' for Superman
That they should try to hold on
Best they can
He hasn't dropped them
Forgot them
Or anything
It's just too heavy for Superman to lift

"I was actually thinking about someone in particular on that one [Independence Day], which is really... I almost never do. Just a friend of mine from New York named Josh. It was kind of an optimistic song, sort of being like 'Just relax! You have everything you need to be happy but you just got to wait a little bit.' I was thinking of him when I made it up."

Elliott Smith



"He would come to our shows and he'd always pay - never allowed himself to be put on the guest list. And he would stand right in fucking front! He would say, 'that's where I like it, that's where I want to watch the show'. Even though we were really good friends, he would make me really nervous!"

Aaron Espinoza

"The drive is there because he has so many songs he has to get out.His drive isn't obvious and he doesn't talk about it every day. He's not overly ambitious. But he's ambitious enough."

Margaret Mittleman

"I'm starting to like LA better, but for a while I really didn't like it much here because - not because of the people that I actually meet. All the people that I meet are really nice, but they're all people that I think would be happier in New York. I mean, in LA, I see like an elderly black man washing hubcaps in the Capitol Records parking lot, you know? Or, like all these falsely tan people with great abs, that wear impossible clothes, and I'm always the scrappiest-looking person walking down the street, and it makes me uncomfortable. And I'm sure LA is a great place once you get used to it, but I feel a lot more comfortable elsewhere. I'm not trying to dis LA. I just, I don't feel quite right there."

Elliott Smith

"There's already one real stalker right here in LA. He's totally insane and he wants to kill me. He thinks that he's me sometimes, and he's suicidal, but he gets really weird, and he thinks that I'm him and he's me... I haven't come here in a long time, because I really believe that he was gonna try and shoot me. I know it sounds totally preposterous, but it's for real. It's not just me that thinks it. It's just , you know, he's not taking his medicine, and I could probably be some guy in a car commercial, and he might think that he was me. I think that it's just that if enough people come across a particular person, there's bound to be someone who's in the process of losing their mind. And God only knows how they're going to react to that. I'm sure there's somebody who wants to kill the guy in the Chevy commercials, I just don't happen to know who he is, but I bet the guy in the Chevy commercials knows who he is. "

Elliott Smith

"Martian Saints was really fun because I got to do some in studio recording with Nic Saloman. There are a couple of songs on that that are mine-which is good. Then of course there’s the stuff that Elliott Smith wrote but he never recorded. But on the CD he’s playing everything. The memories of being in the studio with him and watching how he went about with things. He produced and played everything on it-drums, bass and guitar. This was like his “baby” that he gave me. Also we had done a little bit of writing together at that time-he helped me finish the songs. It was a very enjoyable time for me to hang out in Portland and hang out with Elliott. It was very different then being on tour."

Mary Lou Lord

"In fact last night when I had the after-show pass, I didn't want to go because I met him in LA - he was at one of my shows, I was opening for Jon Brion and he arrived just before Jon's set - I ran into him backstage and I told him he'd been an influence on me and I gave him the CD and we wound up hanging out and talking. I saw him carrying the CD around and so I kind of assumed that he'd listen to it. Plus all those people are my friends, Jon Brion, Ethan Johns and the whole LA crew that he'd been hanging out with. So last night I realised that maybe he's heard the album, heard Look Like Shit and he hates me! And so I didn't wanna go and talk to him, just in case this guy that I idolise so much was gonna have this attitude cause I said he looked like shit - that I can totally understand, even though it's meant to be...
I have to be honest and, you know, a lot of times people give me CDs and I don't get around to listening to them. He didn't even see my set or have any reason to. I wasn't like 'See this song, Look Like Shit? It's about you!'
I did come at Either/Or though before the whole Good Will Hunting thing. Actually Heatmiser was on Virgin, so I saw Heatmiser's last show in LA and it was a weird night because my boyfriend had broken up with me on the phone earlier in the day, so I wasn't really in the mood. And soon after that I got an advance for Either/Or and I'd been hearing about it forever, 'cause Jon and Ethan had been like obsessed for a couple of months, it was their newest obsession. So I kept hearing about it and we were in the middle of my record and I didn't want to fucking hear about it, I was like 'What about me?!' But then when I heard it and I heard Say Yes and... Between The Bars was probably the first thing for me that was just amazing. Oh, and then I went to New York and I was staying in someone's apartment and he had a copy of Roman Candle and I thought that was great. The first three are definitely my favourites so far. I mean I like XO but there's something really endearing about the quality of the first three, the home-made sound and the tape noise between the songs, I dunno I just love that shit. That had a big influence on From the Blue House I mean hearing him and seeing him, listening to what he's done and how he's persevered. I mean the guy obviously has problems but he's doing what he wants to do and what he set out to do and it just gave me hope to say to myself 'I can do this anyway I want to.' "

Lauren Hoffman
hunched over a microphone,
you're whispering and i moan,
hardly moving, one toe tapping.
in a hushed tone and eyes turned low,
while the space you take up grows,
i grow weak and my heart's collapsing.
yeah i look at you, you look like shit,
but that's got nothing to do with it,
you open your mouth and a god comes out.
i look at you, you look like shit,
but that's got nothing to do with it,
you open your mouth and a god comes out.
it's two forty-five in the morning,
being lonely just gets boring,
it's too late now to get wasted.
yeah It's two forty-five in the morning,
being lonely just gets boring,
it's too late now to get wasted.
i look at you, you look like shit,
but that's got nothing to do with it,
you open your mouth and a god comes out.
i look at you, you look like shit,
but that's got nothing to do with it,
you open your mouth and a god comes out.
i'm in my room and all alone
you're turned up loud there's no-one home,
you're faceless and my eyes are closed.
i'm in my room and all alone
you're turned up loud there's no-one home,
you're faceless and my eyes are closed.
i look at you, you look like shit,
but that's got nothing to do with it,
you open your mouth and a god comes out.
yeah i look at you, you look like shit,
but that's got nothing to do with it,
you open your mouth and a god comes out

"I quit the program a long time ago, so I've already accepted my fate. Whenever it wants to show up, I'll be ready for it."

Elliott Smith

"Elliott Smith may have overtaken Liz Phair for the top spot among writers who have emerged this decade. He seems to have a very keen eye for the bad machinery, yet he always maintains a warm heart. I know I’m forgetting a lot of people, but it’s probably safe to say the currently emerging lyricist to be aware of is Elliott."

Scott Miller

"I'm going to hit a period pretty soon where I don't talk about that song and let it explain itself. I've always had an allergy to someone who goes, 'Oh, I don't want to explain my songs,' but in this case, he's got friends and family, and I don't need to be the multimedia spokesman for the death of someone I knew for a couple of weeks. I really loved his music and I thought he was a great guy. And I was moved to write a song for him."

Ben Folds

"It was embarassing to stand there with friends at the show and exchange looks of “Oh No, not again” each and every time E.Smith would stop playing . This is similar to the same horror I feel watching a good friend all f**ed up but still trying to find some feeble excuses for their behavior. Jake, you have amazing powers of lipreading -how could you even understand all the mumbles about his fingers and not knowing how to play his old songs, and then a mumble about not knowing how to play his new songs? The thing that bothered me the most was when someone threw something at the stage and hit him towards the end of his set. He just hung his head and said “I deserve that”. Whole thing was just sad.But Wilco was amazing afterwards."

Amy Halloran

"Last time I saw Elliott was at the Northsix show in Brooklyn, June 09, 2003. It was his third show in as many days, and the second time I’d gotten to see him play two nights in a row. He looked frail, but he played as beautifully as ever.

The previous winter, I’d tried - desperately, foolishly - to convince Elliott to let me make a music video for Bled White. A friend and I had stayed up til dawn two nights in a row, ignoring our mounting piles of homework to make a stack of storyboards for the video. I gave the stack to Elliott’s sister backstage at Bowery; she promised me she’d hand them right to Elliott and no one else.

I didn’t have a chance to see Elliott play until 2003, but I saw him 5 times that year: two nights in a row at the Bowery Ballroom, one night later at the Lit Lounge, then in June at the Knitting Factory - and finally, at his last NYC show ever, at Northsix. We spoke first at Bowery; our conversation at Lit Lounge is preserved on a bootleg. Those nights, I went home and couldn’t sleep. I was too giddy for what I thought could be, for the prospect of the video.

Months passed between Bowery/Lit and Knitting Factory/Northsix. I got over the collapse - if we’d even gotten far enough for a collapse - of the music video. It didn’t matter that his sister had lost the storyboards. After Northsix, I went home feeling peaceful. Happy. There’d be more shows. More opportunities."

Rebecca Lando

"My wife and I went to our first date in London to see him play. Everybody was sitting down. My wife is a rock 'n' roll chick from Ohio. She got fed up halfway through, stood up and danced and waved her arms in the air and yelled at all the British audience members to get off their asses. It's when I knew I loved her"

Rhett Miller about "I better be quiet"

"Happiness is my favorite song of all time. Ever. I can probably recollect precisely, off the top of my head, at least fifty moments of experiencing this song. Tell you exactly what the air felt like. Name the folks I was with. Or without. Feel the intensity between my eyes and my nose letting me know I oughtta be ready to start crying soon. Every memory unique. And each just as hazy. To me, this vague, explosive feeling best encapsulates Elliott's music. You could be nowhere or everywhere or anywhere. And it just doesn't matter, because the song becomes your location and your destination. Most of his songs do this to me. This one most completely."

Jim Fairchild

"There's a space within a song. That Big Star song has a lot of absence of things going on in it, so there's a lot of room for someone's imagination to walk around inside that song, because there's very little going on. I like what you were saying about going somewhere. I know one Baudelaire poem, and its English translation is something like, "Get Drunk." It's not necessarily about alcohol, just sort of like "become intoxicated with something, whatever you do be sure you're intoxicated all the time with something." If there's any point to any of this, it's something like that, I mean, any point to doing something creative whose destination is kind of unimportant. The process and the act of going somewhere with it is pretty much the whole thing."

Elliott Smith

ENIVREZ-VOUS

Il faut être toujours ivre, tout est là ; c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.

Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie, ou de vertu à votre guise, mais enivrez-vous!

Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé, vous vous réveillez, l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l'étoile, à l'oiseau, à l'horloge; à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est. Et le vent, la vague, l'étoile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vous répondront, il est l'heure de s'enivrer ; pour ne pas être les esclaves martyrisés du temps, enivrez-vous, enivrez-vous sans cesse de vin, de poésie, de vertu, à votre guise.



Get drunk

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters;
that's our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time's
horrible burden one which breaks your shoulders and bows
you down, you must get drunk without cease.

But with what?
With wine, poetry, or virtue
as you choose.
But get drunk.

And if, at some time, on steps of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the bleak solitude of your room,
you are waking and the drunkenness has already abated,
ask the wind, the wave, the stars, the clock,
all that which flees,
all that which groans,
all that which rolls,
all that which sings,
all that which speaks,
ask them, what time it is;
and the wind, the wave, the stars, the birds, and the clock,
they will all reply:

"It is time to get drunk!

So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time,
get drunk, get drunk,
and never pause for rest!
With wine, poetry, or virtue,
as you choose!"

"One of the magazines I was writing for at the time asked me if I wanted to write a piece on Elliott and, of course, I obliged.
We reconnected at his apartment in Park Slope, conducted a formal interview and photo shoot, and then hung out for a while — talking about the Beatles, Ry Cooder and Paris, Texas, Portland, and his new life in New York. I met him later that night at a Pulp show, where he gave me his phone number. I never really had to call him, though. At that time, in 1998, I was living on the Lower East Side — right around the corner from Max Fish and the Pink Pony Cafe. Elliott was always in the neighborhood.
I remember running into him one night at the Pink Pony. I mentioned that I saw him walking up First Avenue a few days earlier, but that I didn’t say anything. Elliott looked confused.
“I tend to just look at my feet when I’m walking,” he said. ”Why didn’t you stop me?”
“Because I tend to look at my feet when I’m walking, too,” I replied, somewhat sheepishly.
Elliott arched his brows. “So how did you see me?”
“I saw your shoes. By the time I figured out they were yours, you were already halfway down the block.”
He shook his head, softly, in the manner that Elliott did practically everything.
“You know what?” he said, leaning in as if he wasn’t sure anyone else but us might understand. “I do that a lot.”"

Norman Brannon

"I didn't like Hampshire College at all, but I did like the professor I had that was the main guy. I graduated from there. It was a place with no grades and no majors. It was like make your own program, and it was pretty hippie in a good way. But the people going to school there were a real problem to me. I didn't like it. I moved off campus as soon as I could, second year. So, I tried not to really get caught up in all the crap going on with people coming out of high school who are like, "I wasn't cool in high school, so now I'm gonna be really cool." I just did my work. I liked what I studied, and I liked the classes that I took, but I couldn't stand the atmosphere. So I lived in Northampton. I liked it there better. I mean, it was still just a total college town until the summer. I spent the summers there because I had to work. I was going there on a grant and a lot of loans, and I had to work all the time, like full-time. And I stayed there over the summer, and over the summer all the rednecks would come out, you know? Like the townie guys would come out and drive down the street calling me a faggot? And the rest of the year it was this college town with a bunch of people running around talking about post-structuralism. So it was like a total hot-and-cold, both extremes, both bad extremes. It was just kind of a bummer all the time, but it wasn't as bad as actually being on the college campus."

Elliott Smith

"It's tough for me to fully articulate what Elliott Smith's music did for me and continues to mean to me; it's equally difficult to pick my favorite of his records. I go with 'Either/Or' for the context and personal identification as much as for its haunting and definitive brilliance. I first saw Elliott Smith play at Tramps in New York in March 1998, right before the. Oscars the year 'Good Will Hunting' broke, and he was so special, so overwhelming. Commanded the room entirely just by himself, that ghost's voice and those tough songs, that effortless and singular glide on guitar. It was literally a life-changing experience and one of the few moments for which I'd reserve the word 'inspiring.'. This whole record is a blessing, as is all the music he made, especially from 1995-1999 where he was basically as on fire as any songwriter's ever been. The total package."

Kevin Devine

"I take a lot of cues from books because sometimes it seems hard to find records that I really, really like, and actually books have sparked my imagination more than the music you hear on the radio or television. For some reason it seems like authors take more chances than people playing pop music, you know? Beckett put out a whole book of stories that weren't really stories, that were really just descriptions of nothing, you know, Stories and Texts for Nothing, trying to describe an absence of something, which is really interesting. It's hard to describe an absence. Language seems better at describing things that are there than things that aren't there."

Elliott Smith

"I make up most stuff when I'm walking around. I wrote a lot in bars. I usually hear it in my head-- I think of it first, and then I play it. Or sometimes my hands just make it up without me even being involved in it, because I play guitar a lot during the day. I watch TV and play guitar at the same time. So my fingers just do whatever they're doing while I'm watching General Hospital. Sometimes I go, "Oh, good job, fingers! I liked that."

Elliott Smith

"Well, it's a little bit of a long story with Elliott Smith's side and then the Tim DeLaughter—Tim DeLaughter is in the Spree—he's the leader of the Spree. Elliott was going to do all the music, and it was going to be all covers. And he did "Trouble" for us, the cover. And it was very inspired by Harold and Maude and the Cat Stevens kind of singer-songwriter score. And Elliott's always been just an art hero of mine and like an emotional hero—the generosity he had in showing so much of himself. So he started and then he passed away. And he was in our edit just like a week before he died, so that's why we have the Elliott songs."

Mike Mills

"The original art of the Solutions wall represents the Figure S, not an 8 .. Essentially, I intended the "S"olutions logo as a energetic splay of the five music lines typical of music song paper, so the S encompasses the whole building. It expands and flops downward into a colorful swirl to splatter onto the concrete sidewalk-to embrace all musicians and to invite them to let me solve some of their problems with their broken instruments, drums, guitar, amplifiers, stereos, and speakers - even some of Elliot's equipment. In the original form, the Wall somehow allowed anyone to take in its energy-givingness and become inspired - and only someone as artistic as Elliott could think of it being related to an 8, I guess - .the other Chinese- lucky number is 6. That's in Solutions' phone number of almost 70 years! In any case, I am happy that Elliott , who had lived in the neighborhood, embraced the design and its energy. I intended the art on the wall for all musicians and all their fans, ....for everyone."


Stephon Lew

"I think the first time I ever heard someone do like that folk, alternating thumb bass note thing, the “bum-bum, bum-bum,” the first time I heard it and I was like, “oh wow, that’s how I can use that,” was Elliott Smith’s ‘The Biggest Lie.’ And I think it was maybe the merging of that stuff from my childhood mixed with this awesome dude from Portland who was playing the saddest music I had ever heard when I was like, “oh wow, that’s pretty awesome.” I think there’s some Rilo Kiley stuff that’s real strummy, you know, and that probably calls for that folk early stuff, and then there’s stuff like ‘Go Ahead,’ for instance, which is using that same style. So I would say it’s sort of a mix, but that Elliott was sort the Rubicon for me. He was a sick fingerstyle guitar player, but he had no fingernails! He had them but he chewed them off, he was a chronic fingernail biter; a lot of these fingerpickers have long fingernails, I mean I have fingernails, but he didn’t. When I saw him play I asked him about it and I was like “wow.” And that’s kind of his sound too, isn’t it? If you listen, it’s real soft you know? Precise but soft. And I think it’s something that differentiates him from other folk pickers, is that he didn’t have the nails man!"
Blake Sennett - Rilo Kiley/The Elected
and a clip of him covering "The Biggest Lie" soundcloud.com/martin-guitar/...he-biggest-lie

"Elliott Smith always makes me think about walking around in Portland at night. I’d be wandering through these neighborhoods wondering, ‘How do you get to the point where you have kids, a boat, you love your wife, you have this really nice house? Well, how does a guy get there?’ And I’d walk down the street drunk, jealous and envious of this guy, his wife and kids, his beautiful house, his vacations. Elliott was a heavy dude. You knew he was writing in blood, that it was sucking the life out of him. He lived hard; his heart was there, all the time, it lived where he was singing. You can tell the difference when a guy really feels it, and when he doesn’t."

Willy Vlautin

"It is no secret that I am a big Elliott Smith fan. Frankly, I find it hard to believe whenever someone tells me they are not that into him. Each to their own, but for me it was love at first listen and to this day, and forever more I imagine, it still is a love I have for the man’s music.
Even though it was his third album ‘Either/Or’ which I first heard and from where my love initially grew, it still felt like I had discovered him early in his career because it was before the hype pretty much (at least in Australia), and before the Academy Awards etc. Young Alice bought the album and we’d listen to it over and over and over. We bought his self titled album from before, and some Heatmiser too. It was the songwriting, the hushed tones and the beautiful melodies. It was his look, his punk rock attitude and the mystery surrounding the man. From there, it was ‘on’. I remember punishing Frank at Waterfront every week asking him to order in ‘Roman Candle’, Elliott’s first album. It was hard as it was through a small American indie label. Calls were made. Requests were granted and I remember at the time feeling responsible for Sydneysiders being able to buy that album. It was an important first piece of the puzzle.
I remember in 1998 when Alice called in an excited spin, telling me to turn onto the Academy Awards. There he was, My Little Elliott (as I would affectionately call him). He was in a white suit, with a guitar almost as big as him playing ‘Miss Misery’ in his shy but determined way. He shared the stage with Celine Dion, and then had the honesty to tell all of the indie rock fraternity (when they’d ask) that hey, she was actually pretty nice and he wasn’t going to diss her.
And then the tour was announced. Two shows at the Annandale. Keep in mind back then not every single act were touring Australia, as they do these days His own band and the main support band would be (the excellent in their own right) Quasi. At the time, I was kicking around playing my first ever solo shows. I wasn’t that busy in all honesty but I remember wanting to play on that bill so so much it hurt. Turned out some mutual pals in Youth Group and Golden Rough played (Jason Walker played in both bands the lucky bastard!). It didn’t’ matter eh. We were just psyched to see Elliott. And he didn’t disappoint. Both shows sold out, mainly due to the fact that as he was in the country literally, the main ‘alternative’ station started to play ‘Waltz No.2’. So there were some newbies there mixed in with the hardcore but yeah, the irony was that as he left and in the weeks following he actually ‘broke’ in Australia. He wouldn’t tour again, despite the rumours and actual bookings of several tours. He was a classy act too. He did different sets over the two nights. The first night I melted when he played ‘Ballad Of Big Nothing’ and some solo songs in ‘I Didn’t Understand’ and ‘Say Yes’. The second night I lost it when they opened with ‘Christian Brothers’. And Quasi were great too. Definitely made some fans here. I remember after he finished, as he walked offstage he shook someone’s hand who had reached out to shake his.
Years came and went. He released things. He didn’t release things. Negative and positive rumours spread round the world to those who cared about him. And that’s the thing, to those who loved his music, they kept an optimistic feeling towards the man and his future. Because as much as people want to say he made miserable music, the fact is there is also a lot of hope in his songs too. Determined hope. You would kind of shrug off drug and death rumours regarding him because you just wanted the man to be happy. He gave us wonderful songs and in return, you wanted him to be ok. Sadly, in October 2003, he wasn’t ok.
"My pal Bruno called me on that early afternoon when the news broke, and said he had received a weird email saying that Elliott had committed suicide. I told him it was probably another hoax but something kind of rang true that day. I made some calls to some people in the know and they hadn’t heard, when really they should have as they had contacts with people who knew him etc etc. My computer was busted; I rang my brother who checked some news headlines and there was nothing. He then asked me what his website address was, so he punched in www.sweetadeline.net and there it was. Confirmation of the tragic news. I was so shocked and sad, but it was just so surreal as well.
In 2003/4 I went through the worst time in my life, and I remember on that very day before I had heard anything at all about Elliott … I had, shall we say, some very selfish things going on in my head. And you would think news like that would exacerbate those feelings but it actually numbed them for a while. I just thought of him. I forgot about me.
I dedicated my second album ‘Stories You Wouldn’t Believe’ to Elliott Smith. It seemed like the most obvious thing to do. I think though, I was naïve about it. I didn’t realise doing such a thing would mean that reviewers, interviewers and the like would always draw on the fact that I did dedicate it to him. I mean he was a musical influence yes, but the truth is I had already written a heap of songs (some good, some not good) before I had heard Elliott, and in that sense, was on my way to getting what I hope is my own sound now. In that way, I don’t list him as an influence as such. I loved what he did and if anything, I felt a musical connection rather than finding someone I could go and rip off. Sure, I had the same hair as him for a while which was a coincidence, we were both a lil shy and at the time I was playing very quiet music. It’s not an issue at all though.
One review almost made me cry, stating:
“The record is dedicated to the late, great Elliott Smith. Surely there can be no better compliment than to say the great tunesmith would have found something to like in Stories You Wouldn't Believe - something in the melodies, the sincerity and the sympathy for the underdog found here”.
As much as it was a public statement from me saying thank you for the music, it was also I guess me saying to anyone who had my album in their collection that maybe, just maybe…if they didn’t have any Elliott albums … they would pretty much love what he did.
When people ask was he an influence on me, I am much more inclined to sprout on about how much I admired the man’s morals and ethics when it came to the music business. He signed with a major not to be famous, but to be able to record in real studios to match his fondness for the Beatles. To get the sound in his head, onto tape. He was a multi-instrumentalist. A producer. A co-songwriter. Things I could, or in some cases would want to, relate to. He would go back to indie labels and record vinyl only singles. Yet he would also play the Academy Awards. He worked several average jobs to fund his early recordings and musical equipment. He laboured and was proud of it.
I played a tribute night in Sydney at the Hopetoun Hotel one year after his death in 2004. I was flattered that I was the headliner of sorts. It was such a special night. Not every act had their songs down but it didn’t matter … every act was there as a fan celebrating his music. It wasn’t one of those dodgy tribute nights where people hear songs for a first time and then learn them so as to say they can play a show. It wasn’t a money spinner.
For whatever reason, I went down really well with everyone. I played my own kind of version of ‘Angeles’, ‘Between the Bars’, ‘Christian Brothers’, ‘I Figured You Out’ (a song he wrote for Mary Lou Lord) and ‘The Biggest Lie’. There was so much meaning in that short set for me. ‘The Biggest Lie’ was the first song I ever played in public as a solo act. I think I both freaked out the crowd and won them over with some crazy Elliott stories. I told people how I knew exactly when ‘Christian Brothers’ was played in Sydney by Elliott (it was a joke but kind of crazy) and then I told a story how when MLL was having a baby, we hoped it was Elliott’s. Again, a crazy random but true story. Maybe I had a wild look in my eye, who knows?! But like I said before, it wasn’t the easiest of times for me yet there I was, onstage singing Elliott’s songs and just feeling every word. I remember Graeme and Millie-O were my dates, and they gave me this cool lil ES badge which I wore. And right after I played, a pretty dame hugged me and I had some whisky and we talked about Elliott. As much as I love the quote above about me, him and my album … I can’t really respond to that. But if he could have seen me chatting to a lass, drinking some liquor I get the feeling he would have been proud of me."

Sam Shinazzi

"I know I won't win. Nobody knows who the hell I am."

Elliott Smith

"The name Division Day comes from the Elliott Smith song. It’s not like a tribute, he was very much still alive when the band was named. The band was named in 1998, before Ryan was even involved. We needed a name, and there have been a few bands that have cool names from song titles of other bands. It’s kind of a dorky name, but I kinda like having that connection."

Rohner Segnitz



Nightingale

Song for Elliott Smith from unreleased EP 2010

www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2zfCGYnFpY

Grey Reverend

"The one and only time I ever saw Elliott Smith now holds a sad and poignant place in my consciousness. It was during Grandaddy’s set at Benaroya Hall in Seattle June of 01, when a scraggly, rail-thin unwashed little guy with a torn and dirty white t-shirt wandered onto the stage during “He’s simple, he’s dumb, he’s the pilot,” and took to Jason’s mic, singing the plaintive, yet soaring refrain:
did you love this world?
did this world not love you?
did you love this world?
did this world not love you?
I remember thinking: “Wow, this guy looks like he’s livin on the streets, but WHAT A VOICE. It’s pretty cool of Grandaddy to pick some random guy off the streets to sing with them.”
A while later I read in the Stranger that it was Elliott Smith. And I was scared for him. A lot of the time, you love the world and it loves you back, but for whatever reason (drugs, depression) you’re unable to be open to the love and absorb it.
For all the times that Elliott’s lyrics perfectly summed up the moments of my life (“I was bad news for you just because/I never meant to hurt you” stands right out) that moment during “he’s simple, he’s dumb” kind of sums it up for me. Peace out, Elliott."

Hector

" I wrote The Believer in New York City the day he died. It really hit home for me. I met him and spent some time with him during his last years. My first date with my wife was seeing Elliott play at the Royal Albert Hall, and his drummer Scott McPherson ended up playing with me on the tour for The Instigator. I had a pretty serious suicide attempt when I was 14 years old, and I've always wrestled with that impulse, as do a lot of people in my line of work. I don't know if the song is all about Elliott maybe it's about me at 14, I'm not exactly sure. But the song's kind of saying thanks for doing the good work you did, and I understand that you were doing your best.”

Rhett Miller

"I like Dylan. But Dylan got out of the box. I like the records where he was more impressionistic rather than when he's there pointing the finger. A lot of people get hung up on this tradition of singer-songwriters and think that there is some grandness in pointing out things that are wrong with the world."

Elliott Smith

"The words are just part of the ingredients. They don’t fall out of the sky easily for me, I must say. They’re a real pain in the arse for me. If I were a lyric writer, like Elliott Smith, fuck me, I’d have had 28 albums out by now. I can write music and melody and arrangements for fun, but the words always slow everything down."

Noel Gallagher

"I walked away [from our first meeting] thinking that he was incredibly shy and also that there was a sense of power that was underneath it all. That probably had to do with his enormous talent and his ability to take chances. It's courageous stuff."

Lenny Waronker

"Some of you may know…I’ve recorded many Elliott Smith covers…it’s something I enjoy in between writing and recording my own songs. Some people don’t quite understand why people record versions of other songwriters songs…for me, it’s an escape from my own stuff and it helps me find other ways of doing things…to get away from my normal patterns and routine. Elliott Smith was such an important songwriter to me…working on his songs is always interesting to me. "

eric Metronome / Nathan Westwood



This Is How Elliott Smith Felt

Emperor Norton & the Orange Lazarus

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtQvHT8ZTAo

“The fact that it seems like a lot of my songs are… what’s the word, ‘dark’? – is definitely a problem to me. It’s not like I want to carve out a little corner and stay there. Happy songs are great when they come along. I mean, they haven’t come along a lot. Now I’m glad. I’m just happy right now. Drinking too much will really depress anybody. But sometimes people drink too much because they’re really depressed. It’s hard to say what the cause is.”

Elliott Smith

"May 19, 2000. Myself along with the other regulars from the original core were waiting for hours outside of Irving Plaza. Whiskey Biscuit was opening, and I had just seen them open for Elliott elsewhere, so of course they were recognizable from the start. Elliott hopped out of the trailer/ bus and was helping them carry equipment out. I said to Krista, and the others around me, "Hey! There he is! Let's go over there!" Krista had a momentary lapse of shyness, so I went over to Elliott alone. "Hey, Elliott" I said, and he stopped. "Hey, how's it going?" he said in his rather shy but friendly voice. "So... um... (I rummaged my guitar strap out of my bag), I brought this, hoping you could sign it?" and then I continued, almost apologetically (as I sorta felt like an icky groupie), "See... on a sad day, I know that if I can just look at this, it'll make me smile, and maybe I'll pick up the guitar and feel a bit better." Elliott leaned in super close to me, and asked earnestly, "Are you having a sad day?!?" He was so concerned, so serious... "No, no! I'm having a happy, happy day! Are you kidding? Tonight's gonna be great!" Elliott smiled, signed my guitar strap, and I wished him a fantastic show. But his absolute concern for my well being resonated so profoundly. He was truly a very special heart, and it lives on in his music, always did and always will."

Courtney Bess Klapper


"My own story of asking songs ...
I saw Elliott in an acoustic solo at La Boule Noire, Paris a few weeks ago, with Christophe and a few friends. Christophe and I are really huge fans, and we use to try to play his songs one after one (we both play guitar and sing). I can tell you we were really excited !!!! It was a small concert room (less than 200 people), and we were really close to him.
Most people were big fans and asked for old songs (i heard some one ask for "painclothes man "). Others didn't understand why someone aked for "some song", which i found pretty funny.
I had the feeling that people were "snobs" as we say in french, in the way that they tried to ask the most unknown song, (so as to be the biggest fan and say to Elliott, you see ? I want this mysterious song everybody but I probably forgot).
I had also the feeling, that Elliott didn't listen to people who yelled at him. I remember every body shouting, and a very calm voice asked for "Angeles". And i saw him put his capo on the 7# fret and started it... It happened several time during the show that he did the song asked by the most little voice...
As far as I am concerned, I wanted Clementine, 'cause it's one of my favourites, and nobody else asked for it, and above all, i thought there was very little chance Elliott did on his own, 'cause it doesn't seem to be used. I cried it in a weird and stupid voice (CLEMENTIIIIINE) in a moment nobody else was shouting. And just after me Christophe cried in a VERY weird and VERY stupid voice '' CLEMENTIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE'".
And it made Elliott laugh, and then everybody.
Wow ! we had made Elliott laugh.
The end of the story is : he didn't made Clementine. "

Philippe Vité

"I had to play sports in Junior High in Texas because everybody in Texas has to. I played football. I played defensive guard of all things. I was not any bigger and I was always very average. I was always a little on the small side in height and weight.
First I was a wide receiver which is great in junior high when nobody can throw the football. So every play you'd run out ten yards and then bump up against the guy. You hit kind of hard for about the first ten plays then the rest of the game you're just kind of running out there and bumping up against the guy. He doesn't want to hit you very hard either. You're both in kind of a bad situation because he's a corner back and you're a wide receiver in Junior High. Then nobody would pass to me. I was even on the starting team because I could catch with my hands instead of letting the ball bounce against my chest first. Or you can catch it by letting it bounce off your shoulder pads...or your face.
Then they moved me into the defensive line because...I just became aggravated by people who were bigger than me and threatening me and saying some of the things that junior high kids say. You know, when you're down there like inches away from somebody's head and some guy is going, "I'm going to fuck you up!" So the play starts and I'd just sort of dart out and cut him off at the knees and that was that. They'd always put the big guys by me because I was the small guy on the defensive line but I got my guy every time because I was smaller and quicker and I guess angrier in general or something. Yeah, it's not too hard to trip somebody up. I just can't believe I played so much sports. I can tell you it doesn't build character by itself. Except maybe building the character to not play sports because you were forced to."

Elliott Smith

"He was extremely restrained; he didn't make the kind of brash, anthemic statements rock musicians are often given to. In a way he was an anti-Dylan. He loved Dylan's music and covered 'Ballad of a Thin Man' in concert, but he took it away from strident stances and into a personal, ironic place. And he was different from Kurt Cobain because he was not into youth slogans or grandiose statements.
His songs provided at least the illusion of great intimacy with the artist. I think people make the mistake of thinking they afford more intimacy than they do. The real Elliott Smith is a lot more hidden.

Benjamin Nugent

"Nobody wants to be pinned down and commit to somebody's interpretation of them. Oftentimes people are doing lyrics, but there is so much irony involved that it makes the whole thing so slippery I can't really feel anything in connection to it. There's certainly a place for irony, but it seems like it's really moved up the priority list for a lot of people and it's not one of my favorite parts of music. I'm not really into seeing a jokey band or a particularly ironic one. Just because something is witty and ironic doesn't mean it's necessarily good any more than something being a sickly sweet confessional makes it any good either. That sort of contrived personality doesn't work either way."

Elliott Smith

"Mostly it's just Elliott in his room, playing his songs into one microphone. Kill Rock Stars was using it as a promotional film, and it wasn't earth-shattering...but it was very beautiful. After Elliott died, I rewatched it. What really struck me was the directness of the performance...watching someone present his craft into one microphone and realizing that you were witnessing the pure source. There's no trickery here—nothing but a man and a microphone."

Brendan Canty


"I met Elliot when he still lived here in Portland, and he was a very nice guy. Kind. Unassuming. Quiet.

Several months after we first met I remember running into him at the bar at one of his shows and he nodded as I walked by–acknowledging our acquaintance. That brief encounter has always stuck with me. Devoid of pretention. Open.

His show was incredible that night–probably late 96′–early 97′–before the spotty performances became the norm. It was a packed house, and he sat on a stool with just his guitar, keeping the entire crowd fixed. You could hear a mouse pee on a cotton ball it was so quiet.

Except for Elliot.

That was the power of his music.

It wasn’t made for background noise or parties, but for intent listening and relating. For whispering along to. For loves long lost.

He may be gone, but he’ll never be forgotten."

Heizer

"I first met Elliott Smith in an empty dive bar in San Francisco, where he was reigning over the jukebox and had just put on Stevie Wonder's Say Yes. When I asked Elliott if Stevie wrote that song, he assured me he had and raved about the singer until he had to put more quarters in. It surprised me a bit then, but less so as I saw Elliott around the neighborhood in L.A. over the next few years, drinking, laughing and rocking out to local bands like Wiskey Biscuit, that he was friends with. There was a wider range of emotion in his taste, personality and music, than most people realize. That's why I have always loved Say Yes which, to me, is like a ray of sunshine in a dark room. It is a breakup song, but the message, as expressed in the wonderful, Ono-esque title-line, is positive and hopeful. Thanks to the intimacy of the writing and recording, I can listen to it now, and feel like I am there with him for the happy moment in his life when he wrote it. He clears his throat and begins: "I'm in love with the world."

Carrick Moore Gerety

"Loose Caboose- West Monroe, L.A - spring 1996. My debut on drums. Elliott and I explored an abandoned houseboat ont he shore of the Ouachita River once the tour van got towed into town. I seriously doubt he would remember me now."

Ross Beach

"To: Los Angeles Mayor and City Council

Whereas, Elliott Smith, a songwriter, singer and accomplished musician living and working in the Echo Park section of the City of Los Angeles, died tragically on October 21, 2003 at the age of 34;

Whereas, Elliott Smith, an Academy Award nominee for best song, was a tremendous influence on thousands of talented and notable musicians, both nationally and internationally;

Whereas, Elliott Smith contributed back to the community through his many charitable works, including his participation in numerous benefit concerts, his policy of keeping ticket prices low so as to allow all his fans to enjoy his music, and his efforts to benefit abused children;

Whereas Elliott Smith endeared himself to his fans and supporters through his modesty, passion and honesty, writing songs that touched the hearts and souls of those who heard them;

Whereas, it is appropriate and fitting that his name be forever memorialized so that future generations will learn of his exceptional musical influence, generosity, and strength in the face of enormous obstacles; therefore,

We the undersigned hereby petition the Mayor of Los Angeles and all members of the Los Angeles City Council to honor the memory of Elliott Smith by way of the following:

1. Renaming and the setting aside of a section of Echo Park in his honor, with appropriate funding to maintain and develop said section to properly memorialize and pay tribute to him.
2. Renaming a thoroughfare in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles in his honor, with funding sufficient to create appropriate signage changes, where needed.
3. Any other fitting tributes to his name, where appropriate.

Sincerely,

the undersigned"

Rick Fein

www.petitiononline.com/Elliott1/petition.html

"As we sat in the nondescript environs of the Beverly Six on 2 February 1998, I was enjoying the film well enough - though by now my scores of films a year was down to two or three - and then a moment I will never forget, as a song called "No Name N° 3" began to track, with an aching, whispering refrain: "everyone is gone/ home to oblivion."

"Who in God's name is this?" I thought. How can this artist exist and I don't know him? Not possible. This is everything I believe in. He sounded like Nick Drake, but wasn't; like Leonard Cohen, but wasn't; and yet again, a pure and perfect aesthetic. I listened with all my might, and as much as I felt, I knew him, I knew I simply did not.

More songs came into that theater like exotic, intoxicating, familiar strangers: a devastatingly understated and incisive tune, ostensibly about the music business, with the prodigal title of "Angeles", a wonderfully optimistic love song, "Say Yes", and a song that has come to define the pathos of love affairs for an entire generation, much as "Suzanne" did for the one before: "Between the Bars", a song for beautiful losers now and forever. This song hits a perfect pitch and embodies the tone of the darkest yet redemptive night or thousand we have all somehow survived.

There was yet another unforgettable piece, "Miss Misery", an original for the film that was even nominated for an Oscar by the Academy dweebs in the height of '90s pop diva idiocy. Such is the sheer grace of Elliott Smith, and his appearance is now the stuff of legend.

Next day I scored his available recordings and marveled at the greatest singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist of my generation. Someone who'd grown up on punk and indie records and yet wrote actual melodies, had the unmistakable pen of a poet, and sang with soft care, tenderness, intensity, and a huge range of genuine feelings: I had truly hated what had been happening in music and, even as I listened, could hardly believe this guy. He had obtained the ring."

John Feins

“I don’t think that I’d be doing what I’m doing without Elliott Smith. In college, I got sick of guitar rock, and sort of felt spent on angst and contortion and the testosterone bullshit of rock. I went into listening to all electronica music like Portishead and Björk and stuff. Then Elliott Smith came along with the song “Needle In The Hay” and I don’t remember where I first heard it, but I immediately went and got the record. It’s sort of like reliving the Beatles. His melodic and harmonic senses were so incredibly Beatles weighted, but he updated it in this way that made it speak directly to me as a 19-year-old. I can’t think of a single song of his that I don’t like. He was just a genius.”

Damian Kulash

[solveig7]

"You’ve heard of artists and athletes who are so cool and powerful they’re described as “lights out.” And you’ve heard of “unplugged” concerts. Well, the all-time coolest Elliott Smith show in Nashville, which took place the night of May 9, 2000, was LITERALLY “lights out” and LITERALLY “unplugged.”

Here’s what happened: Elliott was touring with an L.A.-based stoner band called Whiskey Biscuit. At 8 or 9 p.m. that night, Whiskey Biscuit opened the show, performing their entire set perfectly normally, although their lead singer looked like he was going to nod off at any moment.

Then, just moments before Elliott Smith was to hit the stage, a mini-disaster struck. The entire venue (the now-defunct 328 Performance Hall) went absolutely PITCH BLACK…as in, absolutely no lights whatsoever. Then, as hundreds of us stood in utter darkness, we suddenly saw a candle being lighted on stage….then another…then another. In the next moment, the short, thin, fragile-looking silhouette—then body—of Elliott Smith could be seen, and he was suddenly talking to us.

“Everyone,” he said, “please move as close to the stage as you can, and I’ll sing as loud as I can for you.” We were about to see an Elliott Smith concert as Elliott might have presented it in your living room—with only his guitar, and without any amplification whatsoever. And the crowd didn’t mind in the least. As a matter of fact, it was as if the crowd enjoyed it MORE, because most of us were standing so close to Elliott, and because he was performing with such a gentle, generous spirit.

He went on to present everything from older classics like “Waltz #2” to new (then) songs such as “Everything Means Nothing to Me” . . . which resulted in the concert’s most touching moment, as dozens of girls spontaneously broke out singing the tune’s beautiful, ascending chorus.

The lights never came back on…and Elliott Smith never played Nashville again. (He died just three years later, at the age of 34.) It was, for me and many others I’m sure, far and away the most memorable and poignant concert we’ve ever witnessed.

May you rest in peace, Elliott."

David Carew

"In the last year, Elliott has gotten so much more comfortable with who he is and what he is doing. It was tough in the beginning. The records weren't available, and people were unsure about the music because it was so quiet. He's definitely much happier, though there's an element of sadness to him, in general, which you can hear in the songwriting."

Margaret Mittleman

"I will admit that I was a little late to warm up to him, though not as late as I was to warm up to Jeff Buckley, to name another now dead icon whose music I was reluctant to appreciate. I had first heard of Elliott Smith as a member of Heatmiser, whose final record, Mic City Sons, I had gotten a promo copy of at Tower Records right before it was released in 1995 or 96, and I thought it was limp-wristed, wanna-be-grunge-but-not-manly-enough crap. I'm kind of stubborn that way, sometimes. So if any of you are confident that I might like it better now, go ahead and burn me a copy or something. Heatmiser had broken up after recording the record, prompting Virgin to release it via it's independent arm, Caroline. After that, Elliott had struck out solo full-time, having already released some solo material on the side during the Heatmiser years. I had heard from Lou Barlow's then-girlfriend, now-wife, Kathleen Billus, that he was kind of a Lou Barlow wannabe. Remembering the mediocrity of the Heatmiser record, I figured this was probably true. Then one day, Kathleen recanted these initial opinions and called Smith a genius. I still was not swayed. Even hearing the lovely songs in "Good WIll Hunting" couldn't get me to buy a Smith record, even when I was living in the Pacific Northwest, where he was obviously quite large at the time (I lived there from 96-99). I guess one day, something changed my mind. I'm not exactly sure what, but last year I broke down and bought a used copy of Figure 8 and immediately loved it. The song "Happiness" is on a mix cd I made earlier this year. "Waltz #2" is a recent favorite of mine, and I'm truly sorry I didn't get to appreciate him sooner and see him play live. The music world really did lose someone truly gifted and I wish that I could have given a shit when it mattered."

Jake Roren

"The talent show was in a big church filled with people and there were all these different acts, and one of them was a tap dancer, tap-dancing to 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' all dressed in red, white and blue. And Elliott played 'Blackbird' and I was stunned, and I thought maybe it was just me, but after he finished playing there was a hush, and then this warm applause filled the hall. It was the first time I knew, whoa, this is where he's going. The end of the story is, they chose somebody to go on a national talent show, and the person they chose was the tap dancer, tap-dancing to 'Yankee Doddle Dandy'."

Gary Smith

"I played an Elliott Smith song in the school talent show that year… and lost to the sexy dancers. When he died, I printed out “Elliott Smith R.I.P.” and handed it to everyone at school to have them put it in their yearbook or on the cover of their binders."

Robin Pecknold

"What was [my] best performance ever? Umm...I don't know. I played in a talent show when I was 12. I lost to a star-spangled Hula Hooper tap dancer kind of girl who was doing this tap dance to an American patriotic song. I don't know what my best performance ever is, but it reminded me of that."

Elliott Smith

"We had a lot of mutual friends. We both had home studios that were similarly set up back in '96. I was recording a band called Junior High, featuring Sean Croghan, Joanna Bolme and Janet Weiss, and Joanna was dating Elliott at the time. I remember her bringing him over to the house for a party, and he asked to see my home studio.
He was very quiet. If you bumped into him somewhere, you probably wouldn't get much out of him until he knew you better. Initially, I knew him through Joanna and lots of other mutual friends, and I didn't know much about his music at all. I just kind of knew him as a person. I bought his records after we started working together.
I wasn't that big of fan of the earlier Heatmiser, the first two records. It was more of a rockin' thing, and that's not really my style. But then I heard Roman Candle at work one time, and I thought that was pretty interesting. When you're sitting there recording people all the time, you hear pretty mediocre stuff in the majority of the sessions. He just had really great arrangments and structure, and he played a lot of instruments really well. It was a treat.
He had a lot of things that he just left around the studio.
He'd just record as much as he could and filter it out. I think he agonized over it. It's funny, there are people on Elliott Smith message boards saying, "I can't believe this wasn't on there, or that wasn't on there." But that was how he felt at the time. With artists, newer material usually gets preference. Even if you've got five really great songs, you might not use them because you've also just written five new songs. People will push aside something that's better quality. "

Larry Crane

« Elliott used to say that when he wrote songs that criticized the music industry, it meant he was out of ideas. But on “Rose Parade”, I think he captured, with an offhanded grace, the absurdity of the celebrity circus and his indifference to the hype that was building around him. I love how the song sounds so light, and yet moves with the wide swing and settled groove of a long walk, like he’s leaving the weight of his ideas for you to pick up if you want to. And I love the cinematic survey of the parade marching out of step with itself: “Throwing out candy that looks like money”, the drunk trumpet player, the half-hearted victory song, the wind-up performer marching along. When we were working on his record cover, I pointed out that there was no Duracell bunny, it’s the Energizer bunny. There was a moment of surprise that no one had pointed this out before, then he laughed and added exclamation points around the word “Duracell” on the lyric sheet. He said, “That’s even better.”"

Neil Gust

"Some people are afraid that if they don't seem like some sort of perpetual winner all the time, if they don't make a lot of money and wear expensive cologne and go to all the right places, that then people are going to think that they're some sort of loser. But just because people have a range of emotions and thoughts which can coexist at the same time and at times sometimes they get ecstatically happy about something and at others times ridiculously depressed, doesn't mean that there's something wrong with them when they're sad and that they are only successful, good Americans when they're happy, when everything's going right for them. The media is always telling people to look better and go shopping more and present an image of prosperity and you can only do that so much before you're presenting that even to yourself all the time. So if you do go see a movie and the ending isn't happy, it may be a great movie, but you end up feeling inordinately depressed because you've been blocking out your own feelings. There must be some reason why I always get these questions, which to me seem like totally surface things about my music. There's a lot in my music that I find happy and optimistic, in both the melody and the lyrics."

Elliott Smith

'I don’t think Elliott really wanted to die. There are people who I think are truly in so much pain that they want to end their lives. I don’t think that was his situation. I don’t think he was going to call Dr. Kevorkian to end his life because he was suffering so much. I think he was in a lot of pain, and I think he was trying to reach out to the universe somehow. And I think that he talked about ending his life a lot, and that was a byproduct of his drug use and the fact that he felt like shit. But he was such a sweetheart, and I don’t think he wanted to die. I don’t think that he wanted to do that to anybody. I think Elliott knew enough good times in his life and knew enough good people that he knew that there was something there to live for. I just think he was in a really dark place, and he was searching for something. He was searching for a way out. And he did talk a lot about [suicide], and he romanticized it, I think, a little bit. But it just didn’t seem like he wanted to die. I think he had too much curiosity and passion for life…. It just seems more like an existential exercise than an actual desire to die.’

David McConnell



"My "take" on Elliott Smith's major label debut XO took shape shape in mid-2006, when a series of conversations with friends and bandmates led me to the observation that XO not only defied the widely held perception of Smith as a weepy coffeehouse troubadour, but actually took up that defiance as a central theme. Already a fan of the 33 1/3 series, I decided that I would turn in a proposal the next time Continuum was accepting them.
Sure enough, an open call was announced in early 2007, and I submitted a summary of my thoughts on XO and a planned outline for the book. My pitch was one of 21 accepted from over 450 submissions.
My initial plan for this book was to write a fairly straightforward behind-the-scenes account of the making of XO. As I began to interview those who participated in the making of the record, it became clear that such an approach would not be particularly fruitful; Smith worked tirelessly, but rarely discussed his decision-making process. He did, however, leave a telling trail of demo and live recordings, each of which differed in provocative and interesting ways. Armed with as many such recordings as I could find, I set about decoding the creative process, focusing on the themes and gestures that Smith pursued in his work.
This quasi-archaeological process was aided greatly by interviews with Smith's friend, collaborator and estate archivist Larry Crane, and with XO producer Rob Schnapf. Many of the specific lyrical trends charted in my book were brought to my attention via an extended e-mail correspondence with self-proclaimed "besotted XO-phile" and unofficial XO media librarian Phil Fischer. The book is both a celebration of Smith's craft and a debunking of his cultural myth; a detailed map of the ideas and processes that went into his music, and an analysis of how his popular image is perpetually at odds with those ideas and processes."

Matt LeMay

"I think there are people who are made of music and some people who use music to communicate. To me, Elliott Smith was made of it. His genius seemed effortless. He was very human and unafraid of uncomfortable topics, to the point where he made us comfortable with the uncomfortable parts of being human. He unapologetically spilled his humanity by exposing reality through song. That kind of writing inherently brings us closer to each other, by making us more fragile and pries us into our real selves, which we may have trouble doing on our own. I love him for that."

Holly Newsome

"One city's just as good as another. I've lived in L.A. for about a year and a half, and I'll probably move pretty soon. There's no real reason to stay in one place for too long."

Elliott Smith

"Paris is my favorite place!"

Elliott Smith

"Elliott, You are deeply missed...Thank you for your depth, sweetness, encouragement, and friendship. I pray your heavy load is lifted and you are able now to freely be the masterpiece that we were given just a glimpse of. Much Love to You always.... "

Cheryl Meier

"Elliott Smith helped me build the studio and we had a special rate for him that I never charged. "Miss Misery", "Amity", "Waltz #1 (demo)" and "Baby Britain" were all done at Jackpot! as demos. Elliott moved to Brooklyn about 9 months after we opened the studio (though I own it, always have, contrary to what some say) and we did sporadic sessions before and after him recording XO in LA with Rob Schnapf and Tom Rothrock . There's bits of the Quad 8 console all over the west coast. New Monkey, Ken Stringfellow (Paris?), Jackpot!, Supernatural, Type Foundry, etc…
Hey kids, there's no secret piece of gear or recording trick that will give you doubles like Elliott Smith. I was there, I saw it, and it was all a very musical mind at work and someone who worked his fucking ass off to be at that level. We all wish more artists were this fucking good. He was a great friend and one of my favorite people to listen to.
He could sing through a phone and do what he did."

Larry Crane

"gather round children and i'll tell you a little story.......
i don't think the songs were written as vehicles for
doing harmonies if thats what you're asking.
the words were first and foremost.
and the songs could/did exist perfectly well as
acoustic gtr vocal.
the narrative was strong.
some songs were well sketched out in advance harmony wise.
others he'd send out the probe"

Rob Schnapf

"Dancing on the highway was turned into a song after the fact.
It started as a piece of music made on the boomerang looper.
Used as a segue.
During the recording of figure eight elliott was making lots of these little musical vignettes.
They helped tie the record together as it was recorded over a span of time in several different studios."

Rob Schnapf

"I remember walking into a warehouse with Elliott a few years ago. There was a funny little sign posted on the bulletin board with a cartoon of a guy who was completely stressed out. The caption had every possible synonym for anxiety spelled out in bold print. We were never close and we didn't speak that often, but for some reason he felt compelled to tap me on the shoulder and point to the sign. He only looked at me sideways and walked away without saying a word. The way he did it was so profound and understated. He was clearly struggling with depression on a very deep level."

Craig Alvin

"I took a Polaroid in 2000 of a mural that was near my old junior high. I showed it to the singer-songwriter Elliott Smith and we decided to shoot there. It became the cover of his album Figure 8. The funny thing is that for years I used to pass that mural every day and think, That is the ugliest mural I have ever seen in my life. It was next to a McDonald’s where the kids in my school that were in gangs would meet to fight off-campus. That was where the showdowns were, especially the girl fights. They were bloody and brutal. Next to this bloodbath over burgers was a stereo repair shop with this obnoxious mural painted over the entire wall. The whole block looked like hell. Over time I started to become obsessed with it. I couldn’t explain why, but I felt compelled to show it to Elliott. Maybe the brutality of the fights I witnessed next door snuck into the story of that photo. Something was so wrong that eventually it was right."

Autumn de Wilde



"lost and found piano sound, hmmmm.
it was a strange experience because that upright piano at abbey road, all on its own, sounded very familiar.
it turns out with good reason. it is/was the very same as used by beatles on penny lane etc and zombies odyssey and the oracle and the likes.
laquered hammer great sounding old upright.
elliott playing it.
so that was where we started.
either a 67 or km 54 cant remember which mic'd across the hammers thru the old emi eq's and compressors.
added tape slap later in mix.
at the beginning of the take you can hear tom over the talk back and me running up the stairs after moving the mic around."

Rob Schnapf

"The last time I saw him, I was playing at the Universal Amphitheatre , and he had come down to the show, and we heard after the show that he'd been arrested.
He'd gotten into a fight with security because they were trying to kick some kid and he'd intervened or something.
In the last call I got, he was trying to find people who had seen what happened at the show. He was trying to get help from me for that. He was trying to clear his name or something."

Beck

“Elliott didn't mess up a single song, which i found to be a little disappointing... we love the foul ups! at least he started playing st. ides heaven then stopped and said "oh, it's all out of tune!" in the cutest possible way. when he finished that song i asked him to play sean croghan's "space room." first elliott said he didn't know it, but then...
elliott: "i do but i can't sing it like him."
me: "have him come out then! we know he's back there!"
elliott: "if he wants to, i think he's going to be too shy to do that"
me: "hey sean! come sing us a song, man!"
then sean came out looking confused and after a quick huddle with elliott they busted into the beatles cover with half the crowd backing up on vocals.... at one pause, elliott told sean: "you've got to get closer to the mic!"
after the show, i went to the boys room for some relief and found myself using a urinal between two old men. as i reached into my fly I apologized for coming between them and their conversation. they said it was okay and i was welcome to join in! one guy was complaining about the fact that everyone was talking in the back of the room, as if they
weren't even there to see elliott. we spoke for a minute, then as I introduced myself and said goodnight, he introduced himself as elliott's dad. "duh," i thought. they look exactly the same. he's really proud of his son, by the way!
the night was pretty much over then. i ran around bothering friends I never see, then conversed with neil before heading to the adjacent bar for one last drink and a cab ride home... elliott was there, of course, looking happy to be amongst his friends in a familiar bar...”

Jason McQuilliams

"Speaking of someone who can never be forgotten, I would like to bring up Elliott Smith. I used to watch him transform on your stage. He may not have wanted to perform, but you had a gentle way of reminding him how much he needed to. It went from not being sure whether he’d get on stage to being hopeful that it may not come to an end. Those were special nights. And, in addition to Elliott Smith, you offered us the space to experience the deep friendship between Elliott Smith and Jon Brion. It seemed as if they felt, on some level, that they were the only ones who understood each other. Jon had a way of “being” with Elliott that seemed to put him at ease, or at least make him feel significantly better. And Elliott had a way of sparking a look of pure admiration and awe on Jon’s face when he’d sing “Say Yes” with his eyes closed. This kind of experience can’t happen everywhere. The moments that “happen” at Largo happen because you’ve created, and consistently provide, the space and tone that are required for them to occur."

Colette Weintraub

"we definitely recorded a version of Go By
i'm not sure which version got used on new moon
either or was the yamaha cant remember the model number
XO was a 60's gibson country and western and a 63 epiphone texan
and the yamaha
figure 8 was the '63 texan and a '57 J-50"

Rob Schnapf

"I don't try to romanticize the sad stuff anymore. Depression isn't fun or cute, and it doesn't make you more desirable. I don't know if it killed him, but it didn't make him happy when he was alive. Elliott was always seen as a man crying with a constant cloud over his head, but he was a hilarious guy, and he was like any of us - he had a full spectrum of emotion. I have no way to say how he died; nobody has actually ruled it as a suicide."

Sean Croghan

"I have made a film with a musician called Elliott's Suicide about Elliott Smith who was a friend of mine who committed suicide in October 2003 and I did a film with him before that happened. We both lived in a district called Silver Lake and we were both neighbours. He used to play in a club which would hold about 20 people, just for fun. He had a serious drug problem and he had a fight with his girlfriend. She locked herself in her bathroom, which is a very bad thing for a woman to do in a quarrel, the symbolism is all wrong, and he went into the kitchen opened the drawer pulled out a steak knife and stabbed himself in the heart, which is really overdoing it. He was only 34 so we'll never know what he could have produced but he did some wonderful songs. This one particular song which I used full-length in one of my films is called "Rose Parade" — "follow me down to the rose parade" — that's the famous parade every year in Pasadena. He was from New York but when he settled in California he used to go to the Rose Parade after being up all night and stoned and he was seeing it through the filter of . . . I guess heroin, I don't know, I never went with him but I understood that he enjoyed watching it in that state. I went back and filmed segments of the actual parade and included it in a film."

Kenneth Anger

"aww shucks larry.
hell those recordings sounded cool.
amity is awesome.
didn't we use some version of baby britain?
i can't remember anymore.
and you had that awesome little magazine that you were doing.
i loved that the very first time i read it.
were you there when we did the strings?
that was a rough day.
we definitely had the B team.
ther was one guy who was real good.
jerry goodman was the first violin.
he had been in mahvishnu orchestra.
i had been i huge fan of those first two mahvishnu records and there he was
playin in the double quartet getting pissed at everyone because they sucked.
ahhh the memories....."

Rob Schnapf

"Yeah, turned out Joanna Bolme tracked that but I got credited. Amity was a rocker. Odd snare sound somehow... we never figured out why but I'm sure it was the tuning!
I was there for that. Jerry was amazing. I remember a lot of the people complaining and then they couldn't get the bend part on "Cecelia/Amanda" right!"

Larry Crane


"elliott didnt get his J45 until after figure eight.
on xo we used a combination of a 60's gibson hummingbird and a '63 epiphone texan.
on figure eight its the texan and a '57 gibson J50.
the mic pres for XO were the sunset sound custom mic pre's that are in the studio 3 API/demideo console.
they are kinda API ish.
figure eight is a combination of things being that it was recorded all over the place.
some neve some API some EMI.
compression was probably a combo of 3A's and a CL1B.
maybe some distressors.
thanks for the kind words"

Rob Schnapf

about SNL 98

"yeah it was a total blast.
and more than a little bit strange considering
i hadn't played with a band for quite a few years by that point.
so to come out of "retirement" and play on SNL was a trip.
they really made you feel comfortable at SNL.
you had like two days of on set rehearsal between getting the sound and blocking it out etc.
by the time it was showtime it was pretty loose.
i do remember somebody clammed during the performance, getting off stage and everybody assumed it must've been me because i had the least amt of sealegs.
but it wasn't.
also on saturday night you do two shows.
a full dress rehearsal with an audience thats 2hrs long
and we did two songs.
then the live show that had skits cut out of it and elliott cut back to one song.
somewhere in the archive is a live version of baby britain.
i also remember they cut out the joke
"in the mexican border towns near Texas, LBJ was known to the mexican prostitutes as EL b.j."

"It only took about ten seconds to realize he was very badly strung out and the effects on his mind were more than apparent. He couldn't speak clearly, his hand-eye coordination was gone, he nodded off every few minutes, and woke up mumbling to imaginary people.
It was sad and awful to watch, like a car crash, you don't want to look but. ... So, to make matters worse, he kept passing out and his head would crack off the bar every time. Did his friends help him out of the club and into his bed / nearest treatment center / the hospital? No, they laughed at him and then -- you won't believe this -- they took turns to plait his lanky, matted hair as he lay passed out on the bar. So he was kind of their hair doll, if you like. Then he'd wake up muttering to the imaginary people and all his friends burst their shit laughing because he wasn't in a fit state to notice that they'd plaited his hair while he was 'asleep.' Then he'd pass out again, and someone would unknot the plaits and take a turn themselves. Un-fucking-real."

Conor Jonathan

"My introduction to Elliott Smith was perfect. Songwriter/producer Jon Brion, who has always been a lightning rod for creative goodness, phoned me up and said, “I have something that you have to have.” He showed up in a coffee shop the next day, still wearing his pajama top over jeans, sheet wrinkles fresh on his cheek, and presented me with three CDs, Roman Candle, Elliott Smith and Either/Or. Now, I like a good pop record as much as the next guy, but very few things will propel me out of bed with a compulsive need to share. “Imagine the best of Paul Simon’s lyricism and melody, Simon and Garfunkel’s harmonies with those fragile Nirvana verses. You, of all people, have to hear this. You’re going to love it. It’s amazing.” Driving away, I popped in either/or. It was playing in the background, I was talking to someone … and then I heard it. I had to pull over. I was doing that thing you do, when you stare at the CD player, at the wondrous device that is allowing a blue rental car to become an emotional transporter, to become a bearer of art. It was pure pop revelation."

Shireen Liane

“I saw Elliott after one of his shows a few months before he died and he was not charmed by my attempt to make a humorous remark. He told me he would never move back to Brooklyn as the area had become really gentrified. I replied, ‘God damn white people!’ implying that he was one of those responsible for gentrifying it. He didn’t think it was funny. He just shrugged his shoulders and walked away.”

Adam Green

"Fucking demons. Now they’ve taken Elliott too, and it’s not fair. How could this be, how could it have come to this? He’s one of my favorite musicians ever, I put him on my last mix CD. I was thrilled to get to meet him and see him play, twice I think, but that was years ago. Weren’t we on a compilation together? I think he liked my music, and boy I know I love his. My Holler Sister Deborah’s got to be devastated, she’s the biggest Elliott fan I know. Roger Manning too, they were good friends. And Birddog too, they’d recorded together. This is too close to home!! What a fantastic talent. It’s not fair that he had to go through everything he did, and not fair that he gave us so much, but we the fans and friends couldn’t give him just a little more in return. I feel that way about every musician and anybody I love who’s ever died, but this is especially tragic.
Fucking hell."

Edith Frost

"Yeah, Elliott tragically, still don't know what really went on there, still hard to believe he's gone. I've thoroughly admired him and his work. I got to know him quite well. I met him before on a few occasions, and then when I was in LA working with Tom Rothrock. At Sunset Junction, he wasn't all that together. We went to say hello to him. He was a lovely person and a great musician, a lot of circumstances and a troubled mind, such a shame, obviously he had a lot more music left to give. That is one of the horrible things. He was so young, as well, multi-talented, someone who was very tuned into what he was good at, very focused. I'm not really like that. My music is more all over the place. I'm still learning what it is I'm good at. Elliott seemed to be good at what he was doing and he focused on that purely, something to aspire to, really."

Damon Gough

"Hi ,

I appreciate your email -- though it does get a bit
aggressive towards the end. What you and all of your
friends need to know is that (a) I am a big fan of
Elliott Smith and have been for almost a decade
(probably since I saw him open for the Spinanes at
Haverford College in the spring of 1996) and (b) my
book was planned, plotted, and started well before
Elliott's truly tragic death. When the book was
finished, I spoke at length to Jordan Kurland, the
manager of Elliott's professional estate and the
liason to his family, about the book and its title. I
expressed to Jordan my desire for the book to receive
if not the blessing of Elliott's family, than at least
their acknowledgment. Jordan, in his professional
capacity, expressed no reservations, and the book's
publication went ahead.

The title of the book derives from one of the main
character's online aliases and is a tribute to her
love of Elliott and his songwriting. Elliott Smith's
name and his music do not appear anywhere else in any
context between its covers. I have made no attempt to
"capitalize" on the relationship between the title of
my novel and Elliott Smith's life and career and it is
incredibly presumptuous -- not to mention a bit
offensive -- of you to characterize my work as
"whorish," particularly since you have not read a
single word of it.

I appreciate the concerns of Elliott Smith fans all
over the world -- and since you seem to be their
appointed spokesperson, I appreciate and respect yours
as well. I hope that you do post this to Sweet Adeline
as I want to make sure there is no misunderstanding AT
ALL going forward. I am an Elliott Smith fan that was
shocked by his death. I kept the name of my book as is
because it is a beautiful and evocative title that
hopefully pays tribute to the man responsible for it.
I can only ask that no boycott is necessary and that
everyone can find out for themselves whether the words
inside the covers are worthy of the two on the front."



"Wow. I never would have thought that people who enjoy records put out by a fantastic label like Barsuk would be so petty, small-minded, and bitter. I've always considered myself to be an "acceptable human being" -- and so have my family and friends -- but I guess I should start anonymously shredding strangers on the internet and judging books I've never read before I can consider myself as classy as some of you.
Seriously, guys. Seriously. I'm an open person. If anyone has any problems with something I've written, I'd like to hear about it. (If you're deadset on vomiting on my books and/or setting them on fire, I hope you'll at least have the decency to pay for them first.) If anyone has any questions about the title of my book -- a title taken from a song I personally love by an artist I've enjoyed for over a decade and something that I carefully cleared with the family and estate of Elliott and his family before publication -- I'd appreciate it if they were addressed to me at my "awful" website, andygreenwald.com. Man, I could expect this from fans of a bad label, but Barsuk? Tsk. Anyway, I'll be sure to be careful opening my mail in the future."

Andy Greenwald

"I'm not the most introspective person in the world, but I am used to my internal musical landscape being unpeopled, and for a while there were lots of people camping out in there. It seemed kind of crowded. It wasn't bad, it was just weird.
Now I'm kind of in a place where I feel free to do whatever comes up musically. There's not as much focus on one bizarre event in my life, like the Oscars were. . . . So I'm just kind of floating along now, seeing what happens to float up next to me."

Elliott Smith

"I work with David McConnell who recorded with Elliott during the last 3 years of his life to compile what is now called "From A Basement On A Hill."
As far as David knows, Elliott usually used whatever was around for vocals. U47 during the XO and Figure 8 period but in David's case, Elliott used David's modded U87 and his U47 for things recorded around this time..As well as a 1073 that David owns. Also various outboard gear such as a vintage RCA compressor, AKG D19, and a beautiful 59 telecaster.
Anyway, as far as doubling vocals go, most of you are right. He was 'that good.' I don't think David ever has mentioned that vocal production was something he had a big part in. Elliott knew his craft. David was more into doubling the drum tracks.
On a few tunes on that album like "Coast to Coast," They had two drum kits in one room and two different drummers with headphones and a click track and some scratch guitars. The recorded them in the same room and panned them on the record..THey used 2 in tape then dumped to PT.
David still has all of the mixes from when he and Elliott did their stuff and the project files, it's quite a fun listen. But as some of you may or may not know, David recorded Elliott's last record but however did not receive production credits. After Elliott's death, his family believed that David had something to do with Elliott's drug use and they tossed it off to his previous producer Rob Schnapf and Elliott's ex girlfriend Joanna Bolme..
Anyone that knows David knows that drugs are not in his vocabulary. But strange things happen when people die. David is the person responsible for getting Elliott to record all of those beautiful songs over the last 3 years of his life when he was struggling with his drug problems. It was very hard to get work done sometimes because of this...But David managed to get some amazing tracks with Elliott.
But as far as vocals go, it was all him. He had it down to a science...I'll try to chime in again if people have questions...David is a cell phone call away and he's told me some really great stories about recording techniques on that album....
For example, "Shooting Star," the weird speed up and speed down of the guitars in the begining is David holding his fingers down on the tape while it was running and letting it back up, choking it.."

Hamburg58

"Even though I knew Elliott Smith outside of the industry, I feel lucky to have recorded one of our conversations for a feature that ran in the October 1998 issue of Alternative Press and later appeared in my book. It’s a day that’s been etched into record, whose words I don’t need to paraphrase. There are pictures from that day for when my memory fails me, so I can actually tell you what Elliott was wearing: a black t-shirt, blue jeans, black socks, and a thick-soled brown shoe. (It was a humid day in Brooklyn, so no, he was not wearing a stocking cap.) There are even notes: He lived five flights up in a Park Slope tenement building, back when Fourth Avenue was where you went to change your tires, not change your life. It was considerably warm outside, so we sat in his living room — away from the windows — and drank from ice cold Coke cans. When the interview was over, we talked about Ry Cooder and Poison Idea and that time people started yelling for Elliott’s solo songs at a Heatmiser show I saw at the Mercury Lounge. He was mortified by that.
I don’t have anything like this for any of my other friends who have died. The memories of them, sooner or later, begin to fragment, blur, and blend into each other; a holistic picture emerges, but the singularity comes at the cost of specificity. I’ve written about some of my memories of Elliott before — see here, here, and especially here — but today, on the eighth anniversary of Elliott’s death, I choose to think about the one day we spent together that’s been preserved and the words we recorded.
“I just don’t want to fuck up and get confused to the point where I’m not so close to the thing that made me play music in the first place,” he told me. “The less I think about this stuff, the happier I am.”
I remember that day the most because we both seemed genuinely happy."

Norman Brannon

"A year ago I was sitting in the Los Angeles living room of mr Roger Steffens, curator of a huge Bob Marley archive that was the in the process of being sold to the Marley estate. Elliott Smith had died in Steffens Echo Park neighbourhood two days earlier, so I asked Roger if he'd ever met the singer.
Take a look our the window, he said. So I did. Just below us on the sloping hill was a modest single storey box surrounded by trees and bushes. In the hazy half light caused by the brush fires then surrounding LA, I could just about discern the glow of a lamp in one of the windows.
That's the house Elliott died in, Roger told me. Looks like his girlfriend must be home. I felt vaguely sick. I imagined his girlfriend Jennifer Chiba alone in the kitchen where Smith had lain bleeding to death with a knife in his chest. But I couldn't resist taking a picture of the house. I thought about how Elliott Smith had been on my mind for the three weeks I'd been in Los Angeles, right up to the moment I got the shocking news that he was dead."

Barney Hoskyns

"In loving memory of Elliott Smith 10/21/03

we miss your gentle smile
we sure wish you would have stayed a while
longer.
We don't believe a word they say
about the day you went away
things had changed for the good
but there is only money in being misunderstood
their still trying to profit off of "misery"
at least your gentle heart is free"

Caroline Cooley-Shams
Valley Center Studios

"I actually first heard Elliott Smith by accident. I was really into a jazz pianist named Brad Mehldau for a while, and he had a song called ‘Bottle Up and Explode.’ Somehow my copy got deleted off my computer, so I was trying to find it again online, stumbling across a version by some guy named Elliott Smith. I bought all of his albums within two weeks, soon finding out that he’d just died weeks earlier. At age 19, I moved to Fort Wayne in January of 2006. When I got here I looked up everyone in town who listed Elliott Smith as a music favorite on Facebook, then added them as a friend. You could say I didn’t have good social skills."

Jon Keller

"Donna Lee, can you make your presence known?
It’s your pupil here, learning lessons on his own
About what becomes of this world’s refuse.

Oh Donna Lee, poor you,
Struggled in slow pursuit

Of that wandering satisfaction never met.
Like your Elliot Smith, you chose asylum in your end.
In Los Angeles, I touched his memorial wall:
I signed your name.

Like the refugee denied her one request:
A safe escape from the great unrest.
In her rags, they dragged her off, disowned,
Far away from where she’d dreamt
The streets were paved with gold.

God, rest her soul.
After all, you let her wander alone.

If you finally find Elliott Smith,
I hope he tells you how much you were missed.
So when you see him, wave him hello
After the show (he’ll know, he’ll know)
Still, I’m hurting to know
If I’ll still feel your glow, or will I shiver…

Donna Lee, can you make your presence known?"

Hostage Calm

"I first met Elliott Smith when he started coming into Luna Lounge in winter, around the beginning of 1997. Luna’s bar was shaped like the letter ‘L’, with the small part of the ‘L’ coming out from the wall closest to the front door. Elliott would often sit at the small part of the ‘L’, at the bar. He was a solitary figure and I had no idea of who he was or what he had already done. Every night he would sit alone, filling page after page in his book. He was not yet a star in New York.
He had a couple of albums recorded and a bit of a following too, but leaving his world back in Portland for a place where he wanted to write, Elliott traded in a town that he knew for a place where he had not yet arrived. Just another musician making his way through the Lower East Side, it was still most of a year before his music appeared in the film, Good Will Hunting, and the newfound fame that would come from his Academy Award nomination.
After a few months, on one particular night, having just completed something giving him pause for a smile, Elliott glanced up from his book to find me looking for something behind the bar. By now he had seen me in Luna dozens of times but to each other we had not yet spoken. I used to think to myself,
“That man is very far into his jar and the lid’s on tight.” But, on this night, there was a brief opening and I took a chance and sought to make an entrance into his world. I said,
“Nice day, today. I think it’s getting warmer.” He thought about it for a moment and then with a slight smile replied,
“Yeah, it was nice today.” I smiled back at him and walked out from behind the bar. On my way home I thought to myself that he seemed like an interesting guy. But, I still had no idea who was this solitary man.
Elliott Smith and I had broken the ice, but he continued to bring his notebook into the club and I would not disturb him when he would write. But, it was almost spring in New York and like the new thaw coming; he was slowly warming up in the world in which he now lived.
Elliott had made great use of his freedom while writing his new album at Luna. By April, it seemed like his work was complete. I got the feeling that Elliott had escaped from his people in Portland. His feelings expressed, he seemed a little bit lighter now, having set down what he had set out to say.
We two knew of sadness, both winners and losers the same, but he was driven by something inside which was bringing him anger and pain. Sometimes we would talk about life, and how love could abandon us all, pursuing a notion of happiness and chasing a beckoning call. We never spoke of his music."

Rob Sacher

"Of course it’s rewarding to see that so many people understand your work and appreciate it but I don’t think it’s because I’m the same. I’m definitely not the same as I was some years ago but I reckon that I’m honest in everything I sing or do and maybe people can feel it…That’s true that I take a particular attention to lyrics without concentrating only on them as they just express what I truly feel about things. And as feelings are something that every human being can share, I can understand that some people feel close to what I express through my music. But I don’t think I give myself away, I’ve still my own secret garden…"

Elliott Smith

Bedlam on the corner
there’s a darkness on the town
yet another fella’s burned out
and gone

Home-brewed fuse is burning
a little too fast for the crowd
bite the bitter bullet
to sleep prescribe to dream

wonder how I’ll end up
will I go that far?
who’ll be there to push me?
there’s an elvis in us all

stealing all the outtakes
clearing out the vaults
wrap him up in autumn
to have and be sold

wonder how I’ll end up
will I go that far?
who’ll be there to push me?
there’s an elvis in us all

between the heart and the life lines
maps of wars you wage and lose
dread the hours of last orders
with all these unlived lives
with all these unlived lives
with all these unlived lives....

...buying all the bootlegs
learning all the words
listening closely
for the signs we missed before

Tiger Cooke

"Elliott was touring Australia with his friends in the band Quasi. Quasi was the support act – with Elliott on bass – and then they backed him in the main set doing his solo material. They played Brisbane’s The Chelsea in Warner Street, The Valley on 7th January 1999. Elliott Smith had achieved significant independent artist acclaim in the previous decade with the “queer-core” Portland Oregon band “Heatmiser”. By the time of this tour he was enjoying worldwide success and well deserved acclaim for his solo recordings – including an Academy Award Nomination for “Miss Misery” from the soundtrack to Gus Van Sant’s “Good Will Hunting”.
Elliott is just about the most laid back person I’ve ever interviewed – equal parts humble and genuinely sweet. I went to this interview just assuming that, as one of the two leading members in a queer-core band, Elliott would be gay. You’ll hear that some way into this interview I ask Elliott whether his openness about his queer identity has affected his ability to function as an artist? He responds calmly, but a little surprised, “MY queer identity??” …”I’m not gay. Neil Gust from Heatmiser is gay - I’m straight. I might be a lot happier if I was gay but!” I apologise, and he says “Almost half of my friends are gay. It’s not an insult in the least.”
While I had personal reservations about the music from Quasi in their own set, they were fantastic in backing Elliott for his. The world lost one of its most gifted musicians and songsmiths when Elliott died in 2003."

John Frame

www.queerradio.org/downloads.htm#Elliott_Smith

"It's the difference between your friend taking a picture of you just to remember that time and someone taking your picture to publish it somewhere. It's kind of unnerving in a way."

Elliott Smith

"It seems like it would be easy to get locked into a kind of safe mode of, well, maybe if people are looking at me then maybe I'd better not do anything too--like if you walk into a room and feel like people are looking at you, then you don't want to crack a joke or something or act weird. But then it's kind of more important to crack a joke. It's definitely too boring to just do stuff that you know for a fact you can do."

Elliott Smith

“Did you say Elliott Smith? I’m from the same place he’s from! Portland, Oregon!” And they’d say, “Yes, we know,” and I’d realize that some people in small towns really DO THEIR RESEARCH when an act from America comes through. And I would tell them that I was recording a piano album on a piano that used to belong to Elliott Smith and they would react by doing that mock bowing thing from Wayne’s World."

Nick Jaina

"To me, They Might Be Giants’ music is very brilliant. But their kid record, meh. I got that ’cause I had kids at the time and then I thought, “God, I don’t want them listening to this crap.” I played them Elliott Smith instead; they liked that."

Ben Folds

“It’s always flattering to have that comparison. It’s also funny because the first time I actually heard Elliott Smith is when I was recording with another band and the producer mentioned that when I double tracked the vocals, it sounded like Elliott Smith. I had never heard him, so they handed me one of his records — I think it was XO. And then I went out and bought XO and Either/Or. They remain two of my favorite records.“

Meredith Bragg

"I like half-steps a lot and I think about these things constantly. I work it all out in my head. Things like motifs and metaphors, I like those things, but I don't usually want to make one carry the whole song or have everything point back to that one thing because somehow that makes it seem just kind of small psychically. Sometimes, the initial thing, something in the first verse, some image or something has to kind of to sleep for a while, and then come back later in a changed form or a more direct form, or a more indirect one or something. The way that people usually use metaphor often times is unfortunately deliberate."

Elliott Smith

“A couple of years ago, a kid who called himself Kyle Cobain showed up early for one of my weekly Buddhist meetings. He was about to turn 27. The Anonymouses weren’t working for him and he was stuck inside an existentialist tunnel looking for a way out. He spoke of his friendship with Elliott Smith, a red flag if there ever was one. Suicide idols.”

Eric Erlandson
of the Chiba school

"He was a friend of a friend, and one time when I was staying over at her house, Elliott was as well. I was amused to see that he wrote his name on his socks in Sharpie - E. SMITH - just like I did, and for the same reason I did. We had a moment."

Jodi Shapiro

"A friend of mine first introduced me to Elliott Smith’s music in 1999 just before I left for Africa. I remember the night we drove to the store so he could buy the Good Will Hunting soundtrack because “some guy does all the songs and he is amazing.” I scoffed at the idea and refused to even listen to it (this is a bad habit I have since remedied- not listening to people when they suggest new music). I left for Mozambique, and for some reason I thought it would be okay to simply take about 5 cassette tapes of music for two years. Thank god that this same friend had made me two tapes: Elliott Smith’s Kill Rock Stars, X/O and Roman Candle.
Many a day was spent draining time in training, off to the side watching my peers wait out their various levels of shock and assimilation. As I scribbled lonesome poems in my journal, I listened to the prettiest voice I have ever heard whisper over a blend of finger-picked, strummed guitar chords and piano. The songs told stories of loss and desperation- misfits skirting the edges of the ordinary. Here was a soundtrack for everyone not fit to understand. Period. Life in these songs was an album filled with old photographs of people looking down, their eyes begging for you to look away, but still daring you to make contact.
Day after day, I listened to these confessions of vulnerability and obscured strength. The lyrics were more than poetry, more than prose. The music itself was soft and aggressive, like a character to be considered in each narrative. The melodies helped tie the days together, and suddenly two years had gone by.
Smith’s music, like Charles Bukowsi’s poetry, brings the listener down to the foundation of life, at the bottom with the depression, the feelings of inadequacy, and the pain. But from the underside of our emotional worlds, they both elucidate our next destination. There is nothing more dejected, and in turn nothing more hopeful, than an Elliot Smith song. He left us a substantial collection of amazing songs, ranging in subject matter and emotional landscapes.
Every now and again, I don my sullen cap and lose myself in his stories. I imagine myself- eyes barely open, a cigarette burning in an ashtray, a half bottle of Johnny Walker on the table, melting ice cubes, a guitar sleeping on the couch, and me- pen in hand dead set to prove that beauty comes in many shapes and sizes.
Before leaving New York, I saw him perform live at the North Six, a tiny bar in Williamsburg; he was sullen, mumbling and disconnected. This was months before his suicide. A girl yelled out, “We love you Elliott.” To which he answered, “What am I supposed to say to that?” Tell us you love us back, is what I wanted to hear him say. Listening to his music now, I realize that is what he has been saying his whole life.
My days are of drinking and glorifying my pain are gone, and for my wife’s sake I hope for good. But the emotional journeys that his songs afford me will always play a pivotal role in my day-to-day life."

Jabiz

"I sort of understand the cultish David Foster Wallace thing. He died young. Beyond that, he killed himself. And there is really nothing more romantic than a tortured artist committing suicide. Would we all still be listening to Elliott Smith if he hadn’t stabbed himself in the heart? I know I wouldn’t. That’s like 75 percent of the appeal!"

Elana Dahlager

"GP Blvd" is a song written about King's encounter with one of her musical influences, Elliott Smith, in the streets of Los Feliz right before he died. It is gripping, and her first single.

Bardo

www.ourstage.com/tracks/BJHUKHHOGGCH-gp-blvd

"For my 30th birthday? Um... I don't know. Maybe I'll start wearing suits all the time."

Elliott Smith

"The magazine I was shooting for were doing a formal issue and everyone was required to wear a tux. Elliott was not someone you would ever expect to wear a tuxedo but he worked with us and was happy to wear it."

Steven Dewall

[solveig7]

"I am a psychologist and was a friend of Elliott's
....I wrote a whole book (Unbreakable Bonds: Practicing the Art of Loving and
Being Loved) on how to break that cycle and learn how to love
yourself, regardless of how horribly others treated you when you were little - teaching you
that you weren't worth protecting - and in that teaching you you weren't worth
being alive.... I would have dedicated the book to Elliott but I had just
gotten married so I wanted to dedicate it to him. I sent Elliott a copy though.


"Renowned song-writer Elliott Smith (1998) has included his perception [of
God] in the lyrics of these two songs: "god don't make no junk, but it's plain
to see, he still made me" and "I always feel like shit--I don't know why, I
guess that I 'just do.' " If there is a God--is this what He/She intended? Did
He intend to create people as "junk" and/or make people who continually feel
so undeserving of signifigance?"

My dissertation was on how we form our perception of God-- how our childhood
effects that....anyways, Elliott and I had that in common -- we loved to think
about thinking-- and philosophy... and of course I always wanted to care for
the people who felt worthless.... I learned over lots of struggle to actually
start showing up for myself more in that way (and feel much better now--
except for the immediate grief that seems to be non-stop over Elliott and the
finality of his death)

Anyways, I just wrote Elliott in August on his birthday and told him I was
glad to be celebrating another year of his life-- and that we can't let the
people of our past who taught us (through their actions) that we were worthless --
we can't let them be so powerful in our lives...we deserve more than that--
just because they didn't realize that then doesn't mean we can't realize it
now-- and treat ourselves differently. It just sucks because with Elliott -- as
much as he was trying to get away from those painful feelings through
alcohol, and all the rest -- he was actually continuing to abuse himself and repeat
the cycle of the hurt he hated from his past. When you are faced with that
conflict -- of somewhere inside knowing you are betraying yourself every day
(whle using, etc.) -- you start taking your anger for them out on yourself and
start feeling even more unprotected-- because YOU are now the one leaving
yourself unprotected. -- just like we felt in childhood....

It is a viscous cycle to say the least. One I would have done anything to
help Elliott break. I think my whole motivation for finally getting my book out
was to help Elliott (and one other beautiful--but self-torturing-artist
friend I know) heal... They --and people like them were in my heart the whole
time... I am not saying my book is profound, by any means, I am only 30 ... but I
said as much as I knew and could articulate at the time to help people who
wanted to change that very dilemma that you brought up Dino "But how do you
intervene with someone who can't love themself?" He could love himself... I know
he could have....I know he struggled with that -- I know he tried to show up
for himself-- many times....which I won't blab about here.... I just don't
think he knew how much he deserved to DO IT ....not to try ...like he wrote
"stupidity tries...." We don't deserve the half-hearted effort some of our
parents made to protect us-- we deserve a full-fledged showing up and commitment to
loving us and protecting us... It sucks because we often just try as much
as we perceived our parents tried (even if they did try more than that to take
care of us) -- we go as far in helping us as we think they made the effort to
care for us.

I'll stop talking .... it's just sad ....I can't explain why he finally made
the choice he made...I know I can't... I just loved him so much and hated the
fact that I couldn't do more to show him that.

I've only been able to keep going back to work and working with my clients
(being as sad as I am right now) because I keep reminding myself-- these are
people that really want to change this cycle... that are still alive now and able
to learn to treat themselves otherwise..... I want more LOVE to be in this
universe already!!!"


Cheryl Meier

"I think words are bound to… Every word carries a whole bunch of meanings behind it, like the tail of a comet, you know? And it gets really complicated when you pile them up on each other, and in a way, it gets so complicated that people trying to talk about novels can spend an entire career just talking about one author.
The crossword puzzle gets so complicated, but that’s part of what’s so interesting about it. If it was really comprehensible, and you could really understand some song or something like that, then it wouldn’t be so interesting to listen to any more, you know? I can deal with a couple of direct lyrics on a record of mine, but if they were all songs like "Somebody That I Used to Know…" or "Easy Way Out", if they were all songs that were simple and direct, then it would be hard for me to sing them over and over again, because I’d have to go back to a very specific place to be inside the song when I’m playing it. And anyway, I feel like I’ve already made up some pretty straight, story- type songs in the past, and now I’m interested in more impressionistic, fragmented little movies."

Elliott Smith

“This neighborhood is a little too athletic for me.”

Elliott Smith

"I seem to have a way of backing into good situations."

Elliott Smith

“My shaky camera work perfectly mirrors the feelings I have about Elliott now. I know that he’s still there but I can’t quite get a clear glimpse of him anymore.”

Ross Harris

"Do you remember when we were seeing Mary Lou's band at the Troubador, and Elliott walked in hand-in-hand with Minnie Driver? You had the back of your head to me, but then you turned with that goofy smile, and I kinda nudged you. "Oooh - it's Elliott! And he's with Minnie Driver!"
"That's not Minnie Driver!" you said.
"Sure it is - he got nominated for Good Will Hunting; it would make sense."

And we all kinda thought they were together, but then Elliott was quoted in the press:
"I'm not dating Minnie Driver, and my girlfriend is getting very pissed off that you guys keep saying I am."

But I will never forget that excited, my-heart-is-melting look on your face, Rachel. Which is probably the way I looked when Mary Lou came onstage."

Dino

"He was a friend of mine. He inspired songs on this album in, I think, the same way he inspired a lot of people in just being a great musician; in just being a pure, pure heart. I don’t necessarily think that it was a direct influence in sitting down and writing songs, but he was an influence on my life in being a friend, definitely. I learned a lot of things from him."
Were you surprised when he took his own life?
"I’d rather not talk about Elliott."

Russ Pollard

"I’ve been trying to find one of the interviews I did with him back in 1998 and 2000 but I can’t locate the damn things anywhere online or offline. He was a reluctant but very funny interviewee – never quite enamoured with the promotional process, but who had a dark, sharp, wry sense of humour. I remember going to a cafe on South William Street with him and Quasi after his gig n Dublin’s Button Factory in ’98 and he was wisecracking away to beat the band. A truly lovely soul."

Jim Carroll

"I never intended to collect concert posters; it just kind of happened. It all started with my first poster for an Elliott Smith concert in Austin on May 3rd, 2003. The show was billed as a tribute to the recently deceased musician and middle school History teacher Glynn Allen Owens. It took place at the legendary venue The Steamboat. It had been a few years since his last release “Figure 8,” and there were rumors of a new album in the works. As you can imagine, my friends and I were teeming with anticipation for new material. I’d been listening to Elliott Smith since college, owned all of his albums (even his work with Heatmiser), yet I’d never seen him perform live. This show was a big deal.
The magic began the instant we walked through the door. Next to the merchandise table stood a short, frail little man with greasy hair swiped to one side. He resembled Elliott Smith – he was Elliot Smith – an Oscar nominated genius hanging out by a merch table at a little venue in Austin. It was all so surreal. I walked past him with my head down, avoiding eye contact with the man who had spoken directly to my soul all these years. Everyone knows that you don’t look into the eyes of God, and I didn’t want to tempt fate."

Android50

"In the late 90′s I followed this “weird” call of my intuition one night and ended up befriending a certain musician, fellow “Texan,” also a child of a psychiatrist (like me),…his name was Elliott Smith. His beautiful songs were in the movie Goodwill Hunting… So anyways, we were talking one evening and I told him how lucky he was, to be able to live the life as an ARTIST– and he said: 'Cheryl, you are an artist and the canvas is a person’s life …you get to work with them to create something beautiful…'
I was always drawn to music, art, and writing– but had never considered myself an “artist” before he so kindly catalyzed that idea to the surface. Truly, we are all artists, creative-creators. (Elliott also told me not to be afraid of cliche’s!!)"


Cheryl Meier

"This is a picture I found in a book, by Autumn De Wilde–there I was, in the picture…that was the first night I met him too….listening to our intuition is a wild ride!"

Cheryl Meier

"I had a studio in what had been a Victorian mental hospital in the east end of London, I persuaded loads of people to come out there to be photographed, they always turned up looking forlorn, Elliott Smith was no exception....."

Steve Gullick

"I don’t like to keep track of myself a whole lot, you know? Too weird. [Seeing yourself through the prism of someone else’s perception] it's a weird prism. Not mine. It doesn’t make sense to me, so I don’t look through it very much. I sort of have my own identity that’s not particularly receptive to that sort of thing. No, it’s too weird… reading my own press would be like sitting in an empty room and putting on my own record again and again."

Elliott Smith

"It's a drag, a real drag to lose someone."

Elliott Smith

"So, I've been thinking a lot recently about art. Well, to be honest, I think about art all the time. It seems to be the one consistent thing in my life that I can use to channel my energy positively. I've been thinking about folk-rocker, Elliott Smith, who died over five years ago. I was once in a dark place -- darker than I ever knew existed. There, I shamefully hid my passions and stowed away within my own self-destruction. Beyond not getting a DUI or AIDs, I didn't really accomplish anything at all for those three years of my life. I certainly didn't make anything beautiful.Elliott Smith on the other hand, was a man who experienced challenges and personal drama that went way beyond my scruples and follies, yet still reached down to make some of the best and most powerful songs ever crafted.(...)
I'm kind of embarrassed to admit, years after I first listened to his posthumous album, "From a Basement on a Hill," I still really don't know all too much about the man. I've never decided that I needed to. I discovered his music through a review in Maxim Magazine while I served in Iraq; I resolved to purchase his album when I returned. I did purchase it then, and that timing was perfect: my great three year depression started upon my return home. I've listened to that album now at least 500 times. It has impacted me to this day so much, the title of this blog takes inspiration from his lyrics off that CD.(...)
After his death, dozens of myspace.com tribute pages went up in his honor. You would only have to read a dozen or so comments to know this was a man you wanted to hear. On your typical band page people say, "oh, I really like your one song," or "the drummer is cute." On the Elliott's page people said, "Elliott, your music changed my life," or "I still think about you every day, and I've never known you."
Elliott suffered from rampant depression, severe alcoholism, and heavy drug usage. Despite this, I can't think of any other artist of any medium who still loved so much; who still had such an amazing heart; who still cared about the world and others. Can you imagine just being so wrecked by poor mental health and addiction but still writing songs about how much you are frustrated with people who mistreat the lower classes of the world? On the final track of "From a Basement on a Hill," "A Distorted Reality is Now a Necessity to be Free," Elliott sings: "You disappoint me / you people raking in on the world / God knows, why my country don't give a fuck."
That to me is an unparalleled beauty and emotion that I think makes Elliott's work just a little bit better than even the best of what I've heard or seen or felt.
I miss you too, man. I hope I can do something with art that is nearly as amazing as what you did. "

Dario DiBattista

"That gets on my fuckin' nerves. Every day, same thing. That guy doesn't have any consideration for anybody else. It's too loud!"

Elliott Smith

"It got to the point where he had to laugh about it. He went over to England to play the Reading Festival. Every magazine had him on the cover with the headline Mr Misery. He was playing, and it was raining, and there was a hole in the tarp over him. Water was only falling on his head."

Robin Peringer

"I like it here. The bartender knows me and I can borrow a pen if I need to."

Elliott Smith

"A lot of the songs on XO had to do with being really amazed at how quickly people will totally invade your space just because you're not like them and you don't deal with things just like they do. They think that you drink too much, or they think that you're too... they just don't like how you live or something. It kind of blows my mind, the nerve people have to go parading around as if they know what somebody else ought to do with themselves. To the point where they'll confront you and tell you what you ought to do!"

Elliott Smith

"Went to see Elliott at the liquid room in Edinburgh in 2000 with a couple of friends and a fellow board member I'd met at an elliott show in Glasgow. I was still underage, so I wore a suit in the hope that that'd somehow prevent me getting IDd. Seemed to work.
Oranger opened that night. I'd never heard of them but they were great. Elliott and the band were amazing, really happy and up for it, cracking jokes etc. At some point in the show some idiot managed to swipe one of Elliott's guitarist's (Sean?) effects pedals. Elliott was pretty annoyed but tried to shrug it off, Sam Coomes was all like 'Give us back the pedal or we'll kick your fuckin' ass!'. So then Elliott gets his acoustic and starts playing 'The Biggest Lie', but stops about 30 seconds in and is all like 'Man......who the fuck comes to a show and steals a pedal. Y'know what, we will kick your ass!', or something to that effect. Pretty funny. I think they got it back in the end anyway.
it was John Lennon's birthday so the last song was Elliott's band and Oranger doing 'Jealous Guy' together with multiple whistling.
lliott left the stage and I stole the cigarettes he had left out and his lighter (which I've sadly lost).I never got to see him again after that. I still listen to his music a lot and don't think I'll ever feel anticipation for an album release like I did for Figure 8 ."

Alistair McErlain

a sweet addy story.

It was 2002, I was 16 years old and I had just moved to another new city (number 7 by this time) and I was beginning a new year at a new high school. This was the first time I was living without my brother or sister, and needless to say I was a lonely guy. One of the things my brother left me when he went away to university was a collection of mix CDs, opening the door to the likes of the velvet underground, pixies, pavement, and of course elliott smith.

It was during these first few months in this new city that I began connecting with elliott and being the Internet kid i was, i soon found Sweet Adeline. I started off by reading the wonderful biography it had of Elliott and soon moved the myriad of interviews and articles SA had in it's coffers. It was the beginning of one of the most defining times in my life. Within no time i was a member of the board and found a new place of like minded people, a place to feel welcome. I was a youngin, a mere 16/17 year old, but the culture of the board welcomed me in, and new friendships were forged. During the time i was able to learn about music, movies, books, share stories, hear ideas, and above all talk about our mutual admiration for elliott smith. I quickly joined the sweetaddy group on soulseek, and shared endless bootlegs and rarities. I had never called myself a fan of anything, yet i could call elliott my inspiration.

I took time to learn all the songs on guitar, went out and play "miss misery" to the school auditorium, all while feeling that i was somehow singing the voice of everyone on the message board. It was unlike any gathering of people i had ever known. It didn't matter of age, race, sex or style, the community of SA was there to be a positive force in life. No moment was more indicative of this then oct 21, 2003. I remember the crushing blow it took on this community. It was an emotional landscape you'd never expect to see with an Internet community, but it was simply the gravity that smith had on our lives. I remember in toronto, getting together with addiers at trinity bellwoods, sharing stories and tears, singing the songs of a lost friend, while making connections with new ones. That connection that elliott had brought a lot of addiers into my life. We had Toronto meet-ups on occasion, sneeky dees and a sad night at trinity bellwoods. Tiah would send me letters, postcards in the mail. Joel would advise me on all things design (i'm a professional designer now). Tina was a longtime connection that i still keep with today. And many others were friends when a lonely boy needed some.

Over the last 5 years I've drifted away from sweetaddy, went to university, feel in love, fell out of love, and fell in love again. I've started a career, changed my relationship with music, and have grown leaps and bounds as a person. I was once a 16 year old boy with a love for Elliott, and I've grown into a 23 year old boy/man shaped by the spirit of a community and a relationship with music.

It seemed like oct 2003 took a bit of my fan spirit away. I was always inspired by the brilliance of Elliott Smith, and hoped the light would shine for a long time. It's hard to know that there is no more songs to be written or shows to be played, but what makes me smile coming back to sweet addy is to know that there are always new fans, and a community to do for others, what it had once done for me.

thanks sweet addy.

André



"to me, pretty ugly is a rather straight forward mix
i remember really digging that sample of aaron embry's voice in the casio that he played all over the song.
it was recorded in boston on a day off during the figure 8 tour.
i think its the only recording of that band.
personally i really dug that band and really love the version of the song.
Elliott and i had recorded a version of it in my garage as my first experiment with protools.
unfortunately, due to a learning curve and user error(me) it was deleted.
i learned never to do that again...."

Rob Schnapf

"I don't intend what I do to be especially revealing. It's not like I just reel it out of my subconscious."

Elliott Smith

"After moving to Olympia in ‘92, I usually played an acoustic guitar and my songs, though still fueled by the same substances, mania, and demons as before had evolved into more conventional, if somewhat overwrought, pop tunes with pseudo-messianic and covertly psychedelic overtones. I played out and toured quite a bit between 92 and 2000.
In summer of 1995 I put on this show (which was something I almost never did) at The Midnight Sun in downtown Olympia. I thought Elliott’s solo songs were great (He was still usually billed as “Elliott Smith from Heatmiser” at this point) so I got his number from Lois and called him up. He was living in Portland at the time and I promised him we’d at least give him gas money if he could make it up. He was into it.
I billed the show as an “all acoustic oly/pdx convergence!” on the flyer and invited our sisters in acousticity Jen Smith and Sarah Dougher to round out the bill. The Midnight Sun is a black box theater type room that holds about 50 people. I brought a rug down to the venue (the one on the flyer in fact) and made the place look nice. We had a full house and I think Elliott got a few hundred dollars for his trouble.
I finished my set of insanely upbeat, self-help anthems and made funny before handing the mic to Elliott who, before playing a note jokingly said “now I feel bad because I’m going to make everybody sad” He didn’t. He made everyone quiet, some of us a little jealous (no one you’d know) and everybody very glad they were at The Midnight Sun that night.
I’m far from alone in placing Elliott in the very special category of people who were simply touched with that thing. Whatever you want to call it, you know what it is when you see it. It visits a lot of people briefly here and there but the ones that it haunts all the time are the rare ones we say are possessed with “genius”. Elliott Smith was certainly one of those people.
R.I.P. Elliott Smith."

Jason Traeger

"This was the first time since Elliott’s days with Heatmiser that I had
seen him wield an electric guitar. This time however it was pure future
folk. Right before Elliott went on I had a brief word with him. He
appeared overwhelmed with all the people that knew him so I did not
want to be yet another gregarious groupie. If you haven’t noticed
already most of Elliott’s “come up and meetcha fans” are women, all
of which have no problem fawning over the pristine beauty of indie
star he has so emobodied. Appearing quite tipsy however he remembered
me. I asked him about his presence on the internet. He said he had
a computer but had not seen any of the web sites dealing with him yet.
I thought for sure he had seen Nathan’s Heatmiser/Elliott Smith site;
it had been up for over a year now (guess not -- I imagine its better
that way). After our brief conversation he bumbled backstage to
prepare for his show. I wondered how he would pull it off being so
‘tinged’ by the water and all - I guess though once a
pro always a pro. (...)
Let it be known that the unsatiable media monster will have their
day with Elliott one way or another. Let us just hope that as he
continues his steady climb to post indie success - that another
Seattle tragedy does not occur -- I am most likely just being
apocalyptic and delusional -- something that appeases the lack of
stimulating experience in our march toward the millennium. Perhaps
I am just a jaded negative, but I feel a necessity to worry as
Elliott is amongst the greatest new talents our genre and generation
has to offer the next. "

Casey Crynes

"For this genre, as a songwriter, I would say that my biggest influence is Elliott Smith. I was on tour with Mason Jennings and I hadn't heard of Elliott . I was very, very oblivious to the world of folk music and rock music, because I came up studying instrumental music and jazz. So, I got a real education of folk music and rock music from Mason . I remember him, a couple years into us knowing each other, and him getting an idea for what my shit was that I liked, he was like, "I think I've got this guy you're going to freak out for." And XO had just come out. He put on that record, and I was like, this is like totally falling in love: this is so special. The reason why I think that it's a story is because the next day he killed himself. It was a very heavy way to come to the music. I fell in love with it, and then the next morning I looked in the paper and it was "Singer Elliot Smith Is Dead." I think I would have loved it the same, but the day that I was like, "I can't wait to see this guy play. I can't wait to hear his music." It was like, no, he's dead."

Chris Morrissey

"So, I felt the prompting to set my mp3 player to shuffle while doing “chores” today (I usually listen to lectures and teachings,etc.) …and this song started playing: Independence Day. (by Elliott Smith) … It was so profound and so poignant!
” ‘this guy’ was tapping into the deep knowledge of the Spirit…” (or of our Creator, or however one describes this phenomenon– i.e., the Psalms of David).
I loved the song when he sang it back when I knew him, and I could feel it was deep, but now, after being a therapist and psychologist for 15+ years, I see much more psychological and Spiritual depth to it–and I was saying to myself “he must’ve just tapped into that, he didn’t consciously ‘know’ all that he was writing.?!” And guess what!? I happened to look down at the comment section on the YouTube vid and “Dressrehersalrags” had commented:
“Elliott didn’t write it. As with John Lennon, this came from the spirit world, courtesy of a pact they both made.”
I know Elliott* would not mind at all, if anything I get all sorts of “hints” that he’d like me to use his art to help others, so, we can look at his lyrics to help us–because sometimes art, like the Tolstoy quote indicated, can get us beyond our ingrained defenses, and reveal the truth.
(...)
I know Elliott* would not mind at all, if anything I get all sorts of “hints” that he’d like me to use his art to help others, so, we can look at his lyrics to help us–because sometimes art, like the Tolstoy quote indicated, can get us beyond our ingrained defenses, and reveal the truth.
(...)
*(to Elliott’s estate, please contact me if you wish me not to post his lyrics here for educational purposes)"

Cheryl Meier

"I'm a lot happier now than I was a year ago. I kind of got about as bummed out as I could get. I don't know. If you sort of bottom out, then there's only one way to go."

Elliott Smith

"It’s an interesting word, encompassing, because each song, I feel, is like a universe unto itself . He’s drawing you in, not just by speaking or singing softly, but by the power of his delivery and the power of his concentration, and his absolute dedication to that moment and that song.
If I follow the curve of the piece and want to linger a bit, rather than go right over the edge back to melancholy from raging against the heavens, then the Elliott Smith songs serve rather well. They come very much of out of that same sort of idea that texture is a very, very important part of what makes Schumann’s music very beautiful to me. The melodies are pretty good, too, but mostly it’s the way that he gets different characters out of keys, like Elliott could do with the various colors at his disposal in the studio."

Christopher O'Riley

"On the dedication page, I chose to put a quote by Elliott Smith, “I don’t think I’m ever going to figure it out.” (...) Elliott Smith breaks my heart and I was writing a broken-hearts-club book. The lyrics “I could make you smile if you stayed a while / But how long will you stay with me baby” could be from Alice’s mouth."

Golda Fried

"And, another time he handed me a CD saying, “I got this because it was playing at Starbucks and someone told me there was a song about rehab on here. But I couldn’t understand anything she was saying.” It was Amy Winehouse.
He has introduced me to Sarah Vaughan and Nancy Wilson, music that entertains. But before I met my grandfather, I met Elliott Smith, a musician worlds apart from the bright phrasing of vocal jazz. It was in Olympia, a year after he played the Oscars. A roommate lent me the album, Either/Or.
Unlike the jazz greats, with their amazing vocal apparatus, Smith adds track after track of his reed thin voice to add texture to his otherwise sparse songs. His recording style is as much a part of his performance as his other musical talents. I was shocked at the time, by his music, weaned as I was, on mainstream radio and its unforgiving, muscular performances. Elliot Smith seemed either a fool or a genius. He seemed both an aesthete and an ascetic. On his albums, his voice is urgent, straining, barely able to form words and spit them out, layered in tedious four-track recordings. Each take as thin and airy as fog, but together, a sprite’s chorus, a ghostly choir.
This album kept me company, through one of the darker periods of my life; I was living in Olympia, Washington, a town somehow even more rainy and dark than Portland, going to the Evergreen State College and deeply depressed. Smith also taught me something of beauty, how quiet it can be, how it can be, without vocal fireworks or musical showmanship, how it can be very close.
I happened to see Elliot Smith perform. It was in Portland in 2000 and there was a big crowd, it being his hometown, and Portland being the independent music hub that it is. I remember being alarmed at the amount of thick-rimmed glasses and ironic t-shirts in the audience. These were different kinds of kids, enthusiastic but inhibited, feeling but barely expressive. He didn’t play many of the songs from Either/Or or his early albums. Mostly, he played from Figure Eight, which had just been released. It was more pop and rock influenced than the albums I was familiar with. I was disappointed in the show. I had expected the intimate, hushed songs with which I’d fallen in love. According to the Internet, Elliot Smith, didn’t become addicted to heroin until the end of the Figure Eight tour. This means I saw him perform before he was addicted. Although, I’m not sure that it matters.
Ironically, now that Elliot Smith is dead, I can say I saw him in concert even though I didn’t really enjoy the show. The cause of death is still unknown, some think it was his girlfriend, but most think it was suicide. Smith was suicidal on and off through much of his life.
After I learned of my grandfather’s addiction, stemming from an enjoyment of cough syrup- he used to drink it until he got sick, and then heroin, his aimless hitch-hiking, his hustling, homelessness, his hopelessness, I wonder if he ever thought of suicide. I wonder now why some people want death, while others, only the avoidance of pain. I wonder how some are blind to some options, suicide being one, and others are seemingly impervious to pleasure.
Three years later, a week after his death, I was at a local open mic my friend ran, in a basement bar next to the river and a tattoo parlor. Under the one stage light, a twenty year-old named Jeff, played “Somebody That I Used to Know”, in tribute to Elliot Smith and I cried into my red wine. But mostly I was angry that Smith had apparently, committed suicide. He was so talented. It was infuriating."

Martha Grover

"“There’s always that argument to make that you’re in better company historically if people don’t understand what you’re doing,” said the late musician Elliott Smith. While this may be true for some artists, Chicagoan Ken Wilson seems like the exception. With his new assemblage, “Smith,” Wilson intricately composes the tragic yet beautiful life of the late singer and songwriter through collage and painting.
The piece is part of the “Dead Rock Stars” exhibit currently displayed at Uncommon Ground, and it has been creating a buzz for its interesting portrayals of the musicians. “Smith” is the most intriguing because of the chaotic sprawl of seemingly random photos and clippings. On closer examination, however, each picture has significance to Smith’s personal life or career.
The work is framed in a wire-mesh windowpane—the clear window symbolizing Smith’s transparent writing, and the constricting wire screen signifying his distance and social anxiety. In the bottom right quadrant is Wilson’s painting of straight-faced, messy haired Smith. Though some may perceive his expression as sad, the subtle cheek muscles seem to represent a hint of content. Smith’s nostalgic eyes are focused down toward a paint-chipped chunk of wood pierced with needle-like nails. This may symbolize one of Smith’s most sentimental songs, “Needle in the Hay.”
The painting of Smith is surrounded by snippets of Beatles and Beach Boys pictures and album covers, for their undeniable influence on his music, especially heard in his “Bled White” and “I Didn’t Understand” arrangements, as well as the numerous Beatles cover songs he performed live.
Pasted upside down in the chaos is a magazine cutout of the word “luxury.” The fact that the word is flipped likely resembles the irony of Smith’s non-luxurious life, as he was raised in an abusive household with divorced parents, which eventual led to his depression and internal torment expressed through lyrics, “Charlie beat you up week after week, and when you grow up you’re going to be a freak.” A faded picture of Jesus Christ signifies Smith’s Catholic upbringing, though he later distanced himself from structured religion.
The most cohesive element to the arrangement is the scattered trimmings of floral wallpaper. Using about twenty different kinds of floral paper, Wilson shows Smith’s softer, sensitive side. After all, Smith does sing happy songs too: “And I feel pretty, pretty enough for you.”
An ominous raven in the top right quadrant is hard to ignore, as the mysterious bird looms over the entire piece. This bird of magic and omens both good and bad reminds us of the great poetry Smith brought to the world, as well as the unshakeable tragedy of Smith’s death by stab wounds at age 34. Ken Wilson superbly captured an outsider’s view of the musician as best as anyone could, delving into his music and personal life alike. Though Smith never liked pictures of himself, we can assume this piece might be an exception."

John Schmidt



"I just booked studio time at Abbey Road. Now, that's something that's terribly exciting in a star-struck way for me. It's more like a dream come true than being on television. Revolver was done there, the White Album was done there, and the Zombies recorded there. Holy shit!"

Elliott Smith

"I didn't really care that I was recording at Abby Road Studios. No... It was kind of a kick recording there. Just walking in the place was amazing. But when I was recording I was thinking of the songs and not that the Beatles were there. I never really thought about it all that much. There really wasn't any evidence that they were ever there."

Elliott Smith

"I am disgusted by Roger Waters act of defacing what really should be a national monument – Elliott Smith’s memorial wall on Sunset Blvd. His advertisers, trying to get hipsters to see him tour “The Wall” yet fucking AGAIN have put graffiti all over the beloved Silverlake monument.(...)
If you live in LA, are a Largo regular, love indie rock and live east of Robertson, then to you, Elliott Smith is like family. It’s like someone defaced our family crypt. I am so disappointed. I am so sick about it. And all of us, the broken-hearted Elliott Smith fans who still miss him so badly, who won’t see him at Sasquach or Bonnaroo or Largo with Jon Brion ever again, who won’t get to hear a new song or a new album from him ever ever ever again because he is gone gone gone from this world forever and the only thing keeping him alive is our love for him – our grateful, undying, everchanging, ever-evolving – ever strong devotion and love for him – for us – that wall – that wall was all we had. We have the records, we have the songs all on heavy rotation, I have a rare burned-by-Elliott-Smith-himself CD of all the songs off “From a Basement on the Hill,” beautifully raw and yet unmixed and unmastered – it’s my prized possession. And once, we had a monument, where we could go and say hello and goodbye and I love you and I’m sorry."

Margaret Cho

"Last week, when I was in New York to report on the jam-packed art auction "Buffalo on the Bowery," I took a side-trip to the Museum of Modern Art to check out its (nearly) universally hailed Willem de Kooning retrospective (reviewed in today's paper). Since long before I came to The News, I'd been enamored of his 1956 painting, "Gotham News," which normally hangs in its favored spot in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery among some of the great abstract expressionist works of the 20th century.(...)
In any case, something I read today about the painting, in resarch for a story on the Albright-Knox's 150th anniversary, struck me. Last week, I'd heard the late songwriter Elliott Smith, another favorite of mine, express the exact same thing in a YouTube interview. It has to do with the way we interpret dense, dark or "sentimental" works of art. And it gets to the heart of something deeply important about the artistic pursuit.
Here's AKAG education curator Mariann W. Smith on de Kooning: "Gotham News is filled with color and energy, just like New York. Those who are not fond of large cities might view it as chaotic, confusing, and dangerous, while those who like cities may interpret it as exciting, energetic, and full of possibility. Perhaps, like the city itself, it is all of these things at once."
And here's Smith, on how songwriting is like a picture of New York City, from an interview (embedded below) conducted by a Swedish journalist: "The thing that's kind of a drag about 'singer-songwriter,' [that] little tag, is that it has this connotation of just being super-sentimental, really kind of manipulative lyrically, as if the person singing is trying to get everybody to feel just like them... I mean, you can take a picture of New York, and one person looking at it will think it looks really depressing and frightening and someone else will look at it and think of all the fun things you can do in New York. I think songs are kind of like that."
And I think, in some strange and unexpected way, that Smith and de Kooning are kindred spirits."

Colin Dabkowski

"Waiting for Superman fucks me up. Sometimes your subconscious knows more than your front brain. And meanings change. Smith was always waiting for someone to save him. Sometimes you have to save yourself. We have to help each other along."

Wayne Coyne

"[My songs] make me feel better too. But then if I were to look at the words, and pretend I'm not me, I would have to go, 'Yes, this is pretty depressing'."

Elliott Smith

"It was strange watching the Oscars in a hospital bed with my wife and newly egressed son. Fresh from the traumatic and bewildering experience of birth, we huddled in the room, trying to adjust to the two that had become three. But as strange as that was, it was nothing compared to what happened during the Oscar broadcast. One of the inevitable lowlights of the show is the singing of the nominated songs – always boring and bland, always belted out through the roof by some vanilla songbird like Celine Dion. And, sure enough, there was Celine flame-throwing the egregious My Heart Will Go On from Titanic (the eventual winner, to nobody’s surprise), but, wait, who’s that stumbling onto the stage? Is that…Elliott Smith? Alone with an acoustic guitar? Are you kidding me? Life, which I didn’t think could get any stranger, had just taken a sharp turn into surreality.(...)
Smith is about as far from appealing to a mass audience as you can be, and yet, there he was, slightly rumpled, strumming his guitar and singing about Miss Misery live to over a billion people on the Academy Awards. I guess they were trying something new that year, and I guess they stopped after that because I haven’t seen anybody like that on the show since. And it’s too bad they didn’t try to get a little edgier the previous year, because then they could’ve had Fountains of Wayne singing That Thing You Do. But still, it was wonderful to see somebody so completely out of the mainstream inserted into such a festival of commercialism and middle-of-the-road aesthetics. That wonderfully incongruous moment was my favorite of the night (certainly beats the abusive James Cameron squealing that he was on top of the world) and I drifted off to sleep, next to my newly expanded family, thinking about all the ways the world had changed and wondering what else was in store. If I could curl up around my own frighteningly beautiful son – my son! – and Elliott Smith can sing at the Academy Awards, well, then, is anything really impossible?
Five years later, Smith would be found dead in his LA apartment, an apparent suicide. I say apparent because his demeanor and the stinging darkness of his songs made it very easy for everybody to assume he had killed himself, just listen to him sing. And although there are no suspects, the method of death – stabbed in the heart – is quite unusual for a suicide, especially since there were apparently no test wounds. Usually if somebody’s going to stab themselves, the do a couple of test jabs to see how it feels and how much pressure to apply and so on. There were apparently no test wounds on his chest (although there were tracks of them on his arm, Smith having fought with – and apparently lost to – a heroin addiction). I don’t know if the case is still open, but the general consensus seems to be that he killed himself because his songs are so depressing.
It’s like Sid and Nancy. There’s strong evidence and witnesses to suggest that Sid didn’t kill Nancy at all. That there was somebody else in that hotel room that night. But nobody wanted to hear that. Sid – Sid Vicious, mind you – must’ve killed Nancy because he was a punk and that would just make great romantic sense. Never mind the bollix, never mind the truth, Sid killed Nancy because the media and the police and the culture wanted him to. Case closed. Like Sid, Elliott was the songs he sang and deserved his fate in the court of public opinion. And in a democracy, that’s all that counts. Elliott fought against the cult of personality, arguing that the work and the creator should be judged on their own merits and that celebrities shouldn’t be treated differently because of what they do. But all that arguing was for naught. In the end, he was what her wrote, he lived by the guitar and died by the knife, and all his protestations added up to a big nothing."

Christopher Earl

" I was a friend more than a fan. Not that I wasn’t a fan of his music, but it’s not like I sat around listening to his records all the time, obsessing over them - like some people do. He was Elliott, he was a buddy. I always thought “Man, this guy is very, very good.” When it comes to something like listening to all these tapes, I had to sit down with the proper albums, too. I put everything on iTunes, I found bootlegs of unreleased stuff, and then I’d listen against that."

Larry Crane

"Saw Elliot in 1996/7 in a small pinball bar in Kansas whilst touring his self titled debut album. Being English in Kansas stood out so i even got to chat to him after the gig. He was a quiet chap who took my enthusiasm well. We chatted about Dischord a lot for some reason and I mentioned Nick Drake as simple base English comparison to him. He had no idea who Nick Drake was, I felt silly."

Rocket75




"But, like, I can't wear the blue bathing suit, because I'm already wearing a red bathing suit! And whether or not anybody wants to see me in a red bathing suit, I'm gonna wear it!"

Elliott Smith

"In 1996, I was living in Atlanta and playing bass in my first band, Violet... One day, I was driving to band practice, listening to WRAS, and this song came on. It was just a simple chord progression with a wispy male voice on top, but five seconds in, I was hooked, I pulled the car over I was so moved and waited through several songs for the DJ to tell me what the song was. Smith was playing at the Point the following week. None of my friends would go with me to the show because they had never heard of him, so I went by myself. I sat on the floor in front of him - there were about thirty people in attendance - and quit my band very soon after that night. And in all honesty, it was partly because I knew that I wanted to do what he was doing... About a week after he died, I wrote a song called 'Hole In the Road'. It's about how much his songs mean to me, how I wish I could have told him that and also about that first encounter with 'Needle In The Hay' on the college radio station that ultimately turned me into a singer songwriter."

Jennifer O'Connor

There's a hole in the road
I forget every time
And the impact it shocks me
Right out of my mind
When I'm thinking of you
And the way that you left
Leaving all of us wishing
We had taken that step
And said hello, said we cared
Hadn't been frozen, scared
By a beauty so painful
I'm underprepared to lose
And if your memory had a timeline
I'd know right where to begin
Driving down that road in Georgia
When the first chords started in
Rape me like an arrow
A ray of light from the sun
And I didn't know I was a target
'Til you made me feel like one
And I was hit in the heart
A bright green shot in the dark
And I knew right then what I had to end
And what I had to start


There's a hole in the road
I forget every time
And the impact it shocks me
Right out of my mind
When I'm thinking of you
And the way that you left
Leaving all of us wishing
We had taken that step
And said hello, said we cared
Hadn't been frozen, scared
By a beauty so painful
I'm underprepared to lose

And if your memory had a timeline
I'd know right where to begin
Driving down that road in Georgia
When the first chords started in
Rape me like an arrow
A ray of light from the sun
And I didn't know I was a target
'Til you made me feel like one
And I was hit in the heart
A bright green shot in the dark
And I knew right then what I had to end
And what I had to start

It's only been one week
Who knows how many will follow
I can only hope that the air in me
Slowly comes a little bit easier this time
Maybe tomorrow
There's a hole in the road
And I guess I'm not surprised
Even though I thought they'd fixed it
Since the last time we drove by
But you can never be too careful
Keep your eyes open wide
And maybe next time you'll remember to
Remember every time
And I hope that you're okay
And I'm sorry that you couldn't stay
And if I ever have the chance again
I'll know exactly what to say






The last few years he was alive, thinking about him was too painful...it would make me cry at the drop of a hat. After he died, what was really beautiful was that, slowly, when I allowed myself to think about him, the good stuff started floating back. Eventually I was just flooded with happy,good stuff. Sitting around playing songs for each other or, you know, an in-joke that started with us at the bar downstairs. One time we were just talking about life for hours and hours, and he was going on about something, and he got hit with this moment of self-doubt that he had perhaps been talking too much and that maybe he was boring us and whatever, and he said in that voice, "Well, I'm just talking out of my ass." And Flanagan and I both started laughing so hard, 'cause it was this moment when he wasn't talking out of his ass, and we started doing impressions of him, in front of him, for the rest of the night. Every time we said something, we would add:"I'm just talking out of my ass." It became this constant joke that any of us would interject when we felt we had been talking too much...

It's so funny that here is this guy we all love who had, you know, one of the most beautiful minds for seeing the world in analogy, and therefore it made conversing with him a deep human pleasure, but yet at the same time he had that intense combination of heaps of self-doubt and also self-assurance...Both were at 100 percent, which seems like a mathematical impossibility, his tonality is so memorable and so funny in light of how intelligent he was. It would be very low and quiet and husky, and the self-doubt would come in, the shoulders would hunch, and the head would go down, and the voice would get a little quieter, and things would get a little more monotone-...




Jon Brion

"Well, for a long time I made up most songs walking around at night, just cause I liked walking around at night. And, so I saw the moon a lot. It's a really overused image, but theres always ways to use overused images well. To make them new again, or to at least try to. I wouldn't say that I succeeded at that, but... "

Elliott Smith

If someone was to learn about Elliott without listening to his music, just from a thread on a message board, this would be that thread.

"I wanted to write this post here today, in remembrance of Elliott –who died from either suicide or homicide 9 years ago, on Oct. 21.
I just received an email from a reporter for the OC Weekly, Brandon Ferguson. I met Brandon a few months ago, at a Long Beach (CA) screening of “Searching for Elliott Smith” (docu. directed by Gil Reyes). Brandon just emailed me a link to his most recent blog on the subject of Elliott’s death…still an open case.
For the purposes of this healing blog this “unknown” is a reality in our lives! There are horrible (from our point of view) things that happen– and they are an enigma and a mystery, that 9 years later can still bring up grief and unanswered questions.
Clearly, if you’ve read my posts, Elliott is (metaphorically) like a child or a brother I lost –who inspires me to keep reaching out to those who want to heal their pain. I choose not to stay stuck in the “why?!” I realize it sounds cliche’ but I still feel his love, friendship, and presence–and why wouldn’t I!? He is living, just one veil outside of our reality in the “many rooms” of heaven.
Not to go too deeply, unnecessarily, into my life, but on Oct. 21, 2004, exactly one year from Elliott’s death–I got a call from my OBGYN doctor; she was calling to tell me my blood count/hormone level had dropped considerably and it meant I was having a miscarriage, my first pregnancy, and my husband and I’s first child…was no longer going to show up in our lives the way we excitedly had planned…I was in a daze, I didn’t even know what the date was, till I looked back a few days or weeks later.
Anyways, there are those people “out there” living in the depth of presence and awareness that Elliott awakened me to (which often does bring a person deep pain because he or she is sensitive and aware of more!) They say: “ignorance is bliss!” for a reason. (...)
Here’s Elliott singing Waterloo Sunset
(I took the train to London specifically to take a picture of Waterloo Sunset & I sent it to Elliott w. his birthday card ’99). …the day after he died I sincerely thought to myself: “That couldn’t have been a suicide, he knew Waterloo Sunset!” …. Xo Much Love"

Cheryl Meier


Eric J. Lawrence - Autumn, the next song you selected was from another singer-songwriter , somebody who is clearly influenced by David Bowie. You picked a selection from Elliot Smith from his album Either/Or. You picked the song "Say Yes."

Autumn DeWilde - You know what, this was hard. I mean, come on, every song has inspired me. Obviously, the friendship and the creative relationship, there's a long story there. All of his music has been important in my work. I picked "Say Yes" because this was a really special memory. My friend sat me down, we were going to go out for that night, and she was like "hold on, you gotta hear this song" and she played "Say Yes" for me. And of course I burst into tears. (laughs) I was like, "who is this man!"

Eric J. Lawrence - Elliot can do that to you.

Autumn DeWilde - But I also was somehow late and hadn't heard the other records so this was my very first experience. And as I was listening to it, and instantly applying it to my own life, I lifted up the cover of the record and was so surprised at what he looked like, and how interesting he looked, and how he wasn't a pretty boy, but he was so attractive to me. It's one of my favorite album covers of all time. I feel like it was just the perfect photo for that record. So, I wanted to play this song because this was really the beginning of my obsession.

www.kcrw.com/music/programs/g...autumn_dewilde

''He was a very intense person. His songs were like little bombs that he exploded.''

Mitchell Frank

"For me, when I listen to that record, it's totally like a time capsule. It's an emotional wave, but it's a beautiful wave. Elliott's vocals on that song are the most special thing ever to me. That song was written when we were on tour, when I was playing in his band during the Figure 8 tour. We were on tour for a couple months together, and music just sorta rubbed off. You'd sit around thumbing chords and learning songs. It was the biggest compliment. I think it's the best song we have to date."

Shon Sullivan

"He was sort of a neighbor of mine, and it was just a very, a very weird thing. Somebody of your generation, somebody that you've seen around whose work you like and they're just dead and it's really, really hard to deal with. But I just think he's a beautiful artist with a great voice and I love the simplicity of St Ides Heaven. It's very, very low and sad but it really captures that feeling of inebriation. You're sort of giddy and high and it's fun but it's tragic and it's just everything that I think he really is. There's a directness and it's sort of a love song to anything you can imbibe and this like glorious treasure that inebriation can give you. You know, it's very romantic and beautiful and sad. And if you know his story, it's very, very sad."

Margaret Cho

'What an unnecessarily painful and dramatic way to go! Of all the painful, drawn-out and messy things you could do, only stabbing yourself in the brain - and missing, dying of the resulting blood loss- could be worse. Not to mention that since he did it at a time when he and his girlfriend were alone and after they'd had a fight it casts a lot of suspicion on her as to whether maybe she plunged the knife literally into his heart. What an asshole last move - not only ensuring that his girlfriend (who would probably feel guilty for like the rest of her life, because the last thing she said to him were angry words) but embroiling her in a homicide case as a possible perpetrator.'

Kill Matilda

"They want England to accept them on that level, and that's never going to happen. They don't understand that England is a business and has no use for anybody that's not from England. They're promoting English art and music. They don't give a shit if you're Elliott Smith. I was amazed, because I asked Elliott, "What was it like when you did a Peel session?" And he's like, "I've never done a John Peel session. It was like a party I was never invited to.""

Anton Newcombe

"In fact, I think the autopsy *was* inconclusive, and there is, shall we say, an alternative theory as to Elliott’s death. A girl I used to know–someone with “insider” information–was certain he’d been murdered. Interestingly, a similar rumor persists about the death of Kurt Cobain, as you surely know. But I think I’ll stop there, because it’s a terrible thing to say if untrue."

D.R. Haney

"Thirty...When it happened, it wasn't just another birthday. It was kind of weird until the day I turned 30, then it didn't matter any more. The funny thing is, I didn't want to be younger, I just didn't want to get older. I didn't want to have to feel like I was older. I wanted time to keep passing and learn more things and get better at different things, but I just didn't want to have to feel the label of being older. But there is nothing to be done about it."

Elliott Smith

"I was opening for Jon Brion at this regular Friday night gig. During
the set I had noticed a few people that I admired in the crowd, as is
often the case at Jon's gigs. As I left the stage I spotted Elliott
Smith standing with a few friends, who frankly looked like drug
buddies, back by the bar in the corridor between the kitchen and the
soundboard. He was looking as scruffy as his press photos in a
light blue T Shirt with some sort of Texas logo on it. I knew who he
was, I had only recently been blown away by Either Or and the sight
of the "Serious New Voice" of songwriting, the descendant of Cobain,
the heir to Jeff Buckley, was intimidating. And besides, I'd heard
that he was the sort to get into a fight. What if he wanted to punch
me? As it turned out, I had nothing to be afraid of. Still I didn't
want to introduce myself at first, having just come off the stage,
clearly he had seen a couple of songs and I didn't need to be
reminded of my comparitive lack of originality. But then he did
something I've never forgotten. He leaned out and touched my arm as
I walked by, stopping me and making me look back. Then he spoke
directly to me, with a wide smile on his otherwise scrunched up face.
"Nice songs", he said.
"Thanks man, " I replied, looking over my shoulder to see if someone
else like Aimee Mann or Jon Brion was right behind me. They were not.
Now of course, musicians are often conditioned to just say something
nice, like "good set" or "you rock" but still I can't help thinking
that he got what I was doing. And like I said, if he didn't, he
could have just punched me.
So that's my personal brush with a man who is sure to become a legend
in the next while, as those who never heard his truly moving music
discover, a little late, but better than never, Elliott Smith. Maybe
Gus Van Sant will do a documentary about his life, maybe there'll be
a Behind The Music, Or maybe we'll all just continue sneaking a few
songs on to our mixed tapes, CD comps and iPods, and letting our
music loving friends discover him, one song at a time."

Paul Myers

[solveig7]

"So I first heard Elliott in Heatmiser in the early 90's. I was way into the Portland local music scene and saw him (with Heatmiser) loads of times at the Laluna, X-ray, Satyricon (I think I spelled that wrong). The Satyricon was a 21 and over only and I was still in high school so I used to have to sneak in. (haha good times) Then in 1994 I got a tape called Live @ the X-ray... It had a recording of elliott singing Roman Candle at the X-Ray on it. I loved it! I somehow heard that elliott was going to be playing at....I think it was the Clinton Street Theater.... and went with my friend s Thea & Bone. It was an amazing show! The crowd was a little rowdy at first because I think they expected a bit of a louder performance (like Heatmiser), but as soon as Elliott started to sing people just shut up, sat down and took in the whole show with no interuptions. It was..... hard to describe. I bought a tape of Roman Candle from a Locals Only as soon as it was out. I still have that tape and listen to it regularly. (Our van only has a tape player). A year later I graduated from high school and move to Portland where I ended up living in an appartment on 64th & Division with a girl who was dating one of elliott's friends (Dan from Jr. High) so I ended up at some of the same parties as him. He was very nice and kinda shy, but funny too. We would sometimes ride the same #4 bus into downtown. I worked on 5th and Stark and Elliott worked on NW 23rd. When I would meet my flat mate Nicole for lunch at Escape from new York he would always make me drink ginger ale with my slice. I remember that but not why. hhmmm. I met my husband a few months later, my life changed, I moved and never bumped into him again. But I followed his music since the begining. He is an amazing person.... or was. I feel lucky to have crossed paths with him, even for such a short time. "

Jeenah Explosion

"The first time I met him was in 1996. I was touring with Those Bastard Souls. We were opening up for Sebadoh and Elliott was on first. It was before he had any real notoriety or fame, we hit it off, but he was always in his own world. When we toured in 2000, I got to know him really well, I knew he was always struggling just to get through the day.For me, my fondest and most disturbing memory of him was when we did ecstasy together one night and we were listening to Elton John greatest hits. That song 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' came on and he started bawling his eyes out."

Steven Drozd

"I'm the kind of person who listens to one record over and over again pretty much until you can't anymore. Lately it's been Nico, The Marble Index. It's had a hold on me the last several months, it's a very cool record, there's just like, this static thing about it. Things are moving around but it's kind of like a trench, it puts me in a trench, which I like."

Elliott Smith

"The small cuts are the only piece of evidence that suggested that it could happen another way. Bottom line is, we may never know about the unexplained wounds. Unlike CSI, we can’t explain everything. It will remain open till we come to a conclusion, because we don’t like loose ends.”

John Berdin

"When I heard about his death, I was at my friend Bridget's apartment in New York. Elliott and I were not terribly close. By the time I got to L.A., he was descending into a bad state. But I was really affected when I heard about his death, because it took me back to that place when I was fourteen. I mean, it's a fragile place to be, us sensitive artsy types who tap into their dark side to write music. I remember the first time I met him, I was doing a songwriting circle with him and Fiona Apple at Largo, and the two of them were so nervous beforehand they were practically bawling. They were basket cases. And I was like, "What's wrong with you two? If anyone should be a basket case, it's me!" But he was just a sweet guy, and what he wrote about was really heartfelt and sincere. There was an awkward moment toward the end of his life when he was not doing well. I was at a show on my birthday, and my friend Kevin said, "So what do you know about Elliott?" I had heard something about him doing crack at his house, and somebody had just seen him on a street corner in Los Feliz, and I was saying it's such a waste. I mean, I really laid into him. And then, after the band finished, guess who was sitting right in front of us? Elliott was like, literally, six inches in front of us. At first I thought, "This is the most awkward moment of my life." And then I thought, "You know what? He needs to know people are talking about him like this."

Rhett Miller

"I saw him perform at Ludlow's, of all places, when touring for XO, and the show was brilliant. I hung around after the show so I could meet him. This was just after Rolling Stone did a feature story on him, painting him as a disturbed and troubled poet. So as he signed my ticket stub, I said "I just read that Rolling Stone story, and they made you sound so disturbed and depressed...nothing like the engergetic and passionate show I just watched. You really seemed to enjoy yourself up there." Elliot smirked and said, "You know, Rolling Stone is not a bad magazine to read if you're in the bathroom or something like that, but I wouldn't believe everything they write." We both laughed and I thanked him for the autograph."

Sabotage

'thank you so much for all your effort. it shows real love and respect for Elliott. unlike, as it happens more often than one would think, the person closest to someone – who can be a leech. an obsessed person. obsession is fueled by possession, envy and jealousy. it is NOT love. it is pure hatred.
even though Elliott was clearly a very intelligent man with a strong character, his sadness and depression may have pushed him straight into the arms of the devil (excuse the silly christian expression, it’s the most convenient right now). cos the devil never leaves you, it will suck the life out of you until you die. I think this is what happened here. maybe he just couldn’t cope with being left alone anymore. and like it says in your article, he felt he wasn’t deserving of relationships with the good people.
she is the classic manipulative compulsive liar. frankly i don’t believe a word she says. he knew this all along. and then she managed to lure him like a predator does, by helping him after his drug treatment. even if she didn’t put the knife into his heart, she sure did finish him off.
it’s incredibly important to spread the truth, for Elliott. if one’s son or daughter was killed or harmed in any way, and could not speak for him/herself, one would do anything to bring justice and speak their truth.'
'I didn’t know him, nor do I know her, what I’m saying is my opinion, based on everything I read about it. I’m someone who is interested in people and behaviors, psychology and disorders, and have had a lot of (mostly unfortunate) experience with many different people. that was my opinion based on everything I observed through life. I think he knew exactly who he was dealing with. I think (I don’t know, but I think) that he was able to read people well. when I read here that he had ”good people radar”, it made sense to me. but for some reason he succumbed to her. and I think the reason is this: now I don’t know the details but I read that she introduced him to heroin? when one is depressed one needs and wants escapism. she was there to give it to him. in desperation, people are not that hard to push into such things. she exploited that to her advantage. she wanted to possess him completely, this was the easiest way to do so.
this is outrageous. and completely unprofessional. a few pages from a journal was enough for them? that says nothing. absolutely nothing. a lot of people are depressed and suicidal. for a lot of people talking or writing about suicide is a relief, a way to get rid of those emotions. there’s a long way from having a feeling, to actually acting on it. the most disturbing thing to me are the defense wounds he had + the lack of hesitation wounds. also, there were 2 stab wounds. how in the world can you stab yourself a second time? if the first was significantly deep, I don’t see how he would have had the physical strength to do it again. I don’t care that much about him having his t-shirt on. if he was in such a state as to want to kill himself, I doubt he’d stop and think of taking his shirt off. the fact that she took the knife out *could* be an impulse reaction to such a horrific scene. she cleaned the blood from the room & the knife. that could be cos she was scared of being accused for something she didn’t do. OR it could be to wipe off the proof that she did it (it would be pretty easy to determine if the blood was still there). so I can’t be sure that she actually did it. but like I said – the wounds. that is the biggest clue to me. the fact that she was absolute poison to him is pretty obvious. I pretty much have no doubts about that. but I can’t stand the thought of him being killed. if there is 0,00001 % chance that he was, it needs to be investigated and the truth must be found. he deserves justice. what can we do about it? he can’t speak his truth. that infuriates me. she is free and probably enjoying being part of such a myth, such a mystery. she tried to get his money. sure that shows how much she loved him. makes me sick. I don’t know if there is anything I, or you can do about it.



L.R.

"junkie junkie junkie junkie (it's a kennedy song) funny how it just popped in my head after seeing
elliott smith tonight......(yikes)
i had to just leave after the first encore.....
i don't know if it is wrong to assume this type of thing.....
and it's really none of my business but when i pay to see a show, i expect to see a show. i was pissed that there wasn't a full band and that he didn't do many songs off of figure 8 (the best cd, in my opinion).
there was just too much talk about people thinking that they are better than other people
he just kept going on about those people being fucked. to me it's a given, no one is better than anyone else...
it's all about how you live your own life.....don't harp on it. just be yourself...gheez!
i don't understand the junk stuff....why would anyone keep doing it if they have watched all there friends die of it already??!!
why! why! why!
i guess you never really know the reasons until you actually try it.
i could have stayed home and listened to the cds and felt much better than i do now.
he sat down the whole show, okay some of the songs were done well but for the most
part, he fucked 'em up and mumbled al lot in between songs.
(…)
i'm just wondering if jon will do anything for elliott smith, though if i remember correctly he didn't do anything for george harrison, johnny cash, jeff buckley, joey ramone, or joe strummer. i just mean, do any songs by them. eventually he does but not right away (…)
I'm glad i went to the largo last night, all my friends were there and we were all feeling the same way. i even hugged strangers in the bathroom as all of our eyes filled with tears (…)jon came out and said that he wasn't going to do any Elliott Smith songs so don't ask and he that he didn't want to do B+ versions of Elliott's amazing work. i totally understand.
he continued to talk a little about Elliott after the first song or two and i heard almost everyone in the audience sniffling, including myself. i knew i wanted to be at the largo last night as well as tonight, just to be around others who feel it to (…)i remember seeing Elliott get on stage at the jon spencer blues explosion concert at the el rey the last time they played here and Elliott looked so happy and excited and why shouldn't he have been, he was on stage singing with jon fucking spencer! Then next concert in san diego at a place called the scene, i noticed Elliott peering out backstage with a huge smile on his face, giddy like a little kid. this is how i'm gonna remember him. jon shared some moments between him and Elliott and flanny, that was nice of him.
i went to the elliott smith memorial by myself. lit a candle for Rowan, (new friendster friend from england) with his message on it and took some photos for him. as i got there I sat in my car fumbling for a sharpie and i got all shakey. as i walked up and started to read all the beautiful things that people have written on the wall and letters and photos on the ground i started to cry. it's just really overwhelming to see.
this first article forgot to mention that elliotts little sister appeared on stage first and it was just heart breaking to watch. she told a story about elliott putting hundred dollar bills in homeless peoples boots while they were sleeping. how sweet is that!
the other highlight for me was the 88 who were on first then some people who i didn't even know. the problem is that they never announced who they were.
i'll post more article as they come in. : Alaska, whiskey biscuit and future pigeon, jenny lewis/rilo kiley, john doe, lou barlow, radar brothers, tito from tito and the tarantula...ithis man had a hard time getting through the song with out tears. it was sad."

Suze Dodd

"One of those usual brilliant Jon Brion shows at Largo a few years ago and of course the place was packed. There was one table open and I slipped into a seat, even though Flanny was kicking people out of those seats all night. I got to stay for some time, though, which was great...and I was totally caught in the music...and didn't notice that Elliott Smith had sat down in the chair next to me. We didn't talk...I couldn't have even if I'd wanted to, even if it wasn't Largo and that gets you kicked out of the joint. I eventually gave my seat up when the band Quasi came in, that's who Flannigan was saving the table for.
For weeks, Elliott's "Either/Or" played between sets. Jon Brion would come out and bask in that music, called him brilliant, exhorted everyone to get that record. He'd wait for a single hook at the end of the last song and make us all listen as though it was a piece by Bach or Mozart. Then Elliott came to L.A. and would play at Largo...these midnight sets after most of the posers left and he'd be there with his guitar. Achingly beautiful, simple songs. He couldn't even bring himself to name them, other than Waltz 3 or something like that. There are a couple covers he would do that I can't think of right now...brilliant."

Eagle 88

"Was at a Josh Ritter concert a couple of months back, and well a good hour or two after the gig I met this girl (turned out to be Mary Lou Lord - she had played support to Josh that night). She was really friendly so we eventually started to talk about music, films and stuff, for quite some time after that, artists we liked (Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake were some of many the names that popped up) and what not, etc.. Anyway to make a really long story quite, er, not so long, she ended up writing down this guys name on a piece of paper - "Elliott Smith". She insisted I listen to him, and then get in contact with her when I had.
It was only until a few weeks later that I had found out that she was both an ex-girlfriend of Kurt Cobain and a very close friend to Elliott Smith in the time before he passed.
I was pretty sure nooone really knew Elliott Smith, or well, that his talents would have never been appreciated this far away from the states, but hey, one never knows. Ps. I recommend you all to pick up Elliott's new album some time next year, it will be extra special (i promise you that)"

Hanna Danna

"We opened for "War" at the Bluebird in Denver. Crazy night. We ate their food, drank their booze, and Elliott was "The Cisco kid" that night...Oh man, he sure could dance... Why my name is huge and "War's" is small is beyond me...Elliott didn't have anything out yet really (first tour), so he wasn't added on. Was so awesome to watch the audience who had no idea become transfixed in a 5 minute time of hearing his music for the first time.
We didnt really understand that it was "actually" the band "WAR" that were on the bill. We thought someone fucked-up our rider and all the shit back stage was for US! There were only two of us and our beloved "Pops" (Jason)...we were so in the bag when War showed up. Shoving ham sandwiches in our faces along with top shelf booze when they ALL (there were tons of them) walked in. They were great! "You kids eat all ya want (Elliott about 120 lbs soaking wet) ! "C'mon you kids, eat up, have a drink!"...Oh War, we could not have been more happy! Touring sucks in the beginning. We were lucky to have 5 dollar per-diems for Mcdonalds back then. Best night ever.
Man, now that I think of it...SHIT. No wonder it was the BEST night ever. We were both well fed, had the rest of the night off after the early gig, and then lo and behold...FUCKIN WAR! ALL those awesome hits. If you ever thought for one SECOND that Elliott was just an old "stick in the mud"...you thought so very wrong.
After this show, L7 were playing the same night about a half a mile away....We went to see them after. Don't ask what happened later. All I will say, is that when someone holds your ponytail back for you, you know you've got a good friend..."

Mary Lou Lord


I got a chance to meet
Elliott Smith before he died. I’m a big Elliott Smith fan.
I went to Los Angeles to go see him. He was super fucked
up and thrashed and I’m sitting there at the bar staring
at him, and he’s 10 feet away. He’s drinking Johnny
Walker Red, and I’m thinking, “Oh man, he’s drinking
Johnny Walker Red.” I made him so uncomfortable.
I was staring at him and he kept looking over at me.
Finally he was staring back at me like he wanted to fight
me, and I realized what I was doing, because I’ve had
people do that to me before. I’m fully bumming this
dude out. We watched him play; it was totally awesome.
My friends that were in other bands were like, “Do you
want to meet him? Do you want to meet him? Let’s go
backstage.” And I’m thinking, I already did that shit at
the bar; he’s going to remember me. What do you say?
“Hey, your music changed my life”? You’re going to put
them in an uncomfortable situation. I just told them, “Nah. I don’t think so.” It’s such a bizarre thing to get
that kind of attention: to touch someone’s youth or be
a part of their childhood."

Jeff Grosso

[solveig7]

"I get along with animals fine, but I had some bad pet experiences as a kid. like, one of my neighbors shot my cat for getting into his garbage. I went out to go to school and my cat was just all over the street, and i had some parakeets and one of them died and i had some fish and they died and there was another cat that got crawled up inside a car and got chewed up when the started the car, so, i don't know. I'm not really much of a pet, or plant person."

Elliott Smith

[solveig7]

"It was my personal priority to book Elliott Smith (back in ’97). They were his first big sellout shows here in L.A., and he never forgot us. He would come in and do little sneaky shows out of the blue. It was a really special relationship."

Scott Sterling