More new songs!

Man, I have to convert this page into a blog, this is getting to be a pain to update.

Apparently there are even more unreleased ES songs now available online at Elliott Smith B-sides and Other Songs, a fact that was allegedly trumpeted in all the major crappy "music" magazines like Rolling Stone and so maybe you already knew this, but I try to avoid the latest updates on The Black Eyed Peas and Jessica Simpson so I try not to read Rolling Stone. Are you getting the impression that I really, really hate Rolling Stone?

Go to ESBS&OS, and download those songs!

Ostriches & Chirping

This Wikipedia entry about Basement contains some interesting information about what Elliott Smith may or may not have intended for the record; one thing I hadn't seen before is that the instrumental bit Ostriches & Chirping was allegedly not even Elliott's song. It also claims the song "Little One" contains a backwards message. I haven't tried to play it backwards, have you?

Placeholder

Just when you thought Elliott had been dead for years, he releases a new album, called Placeholder. It's the damnedest thing, not to mention, a really great record.

OK, so maybe it happened like this: Brandon came up with the idea of arguing out the best of the multitudinous unreleased ES material floating around on the internet, down to an album-length collection. The judging panel featured a carefully chosen cross-section of Elliott's most gloomy and obsessed fans: Brandon and myself.

The final list is:

1. High Times
2. Stickman
3. Angel in the Snow
4. The Worst Part
5. Going Nowhere
6. Riot Coming
7. The Last Hour
8. New Disaster
9. Amanda Cecelia
10. Taking a Fall
11. Abused

So then Brandon did some clean up/ mastering since as anyone knows, these songs are mostly wacky demos with varied recording volumes, so that the whole thing plays like a record, one that you don't have to keep cranking the volume up and down on.

He even chose a lovely and ironic title if you ask me. It's almost like having a new Elliott record lying around the house. Take that, Tupac.

New studio cut from FABOTH

I don't know how long this link will hang around but this is apparently a studio version of a song from the FABOTH sessions called Stickman. It's really great. I haven't heard any prior rough or live version of this particular song although it's surely out there.

A lot more stuff from the unreleased Basement on the Hill sessions is found on Trash Treasury.

Elliott's instruments and songwriting technique

I've lately been scrounging around the internet for information on the specific types of guitars Elliott Smith owned and/or preferred. For a musician who had a very distinct talent and technique, there seems to be scant information about the technical aspects of his music. That seems kind of strange to me, but there you have it.

I did find this link regarding some of his preferred guitars, and was proud to see he owned a Norman guitar, because my own guitar is a Norman too.

I also found an obscure, old interview in which ES talked about his songwriting method, how he put together lyrics, for example, and also something about how he learned to play piano...

Unreleased and/or b-side songs

Before the weird thing that happened after Elliott died, in which all of his unreleased music and/or b-sides and most of his bootlegs were Swiffered from the internet by some dark, profiteering force, I managed to grab a couple of songs, including Going Nowhere, Angel in the Snow, Some Song, and A Living Will that I did not previously have. Let me know if you've never heard these songs, because you really should hear them. Call me cynical but I have a feeling these songs will be released one at a time, like a slow morphine drip, in redundant and overpriced CD sets of songs we already have, You Know You're Right-style, if in fact they are ever released at all. And that just seems wrong.

I may have just summoned the dark force to tiny dog with the preceeding paragraph...

Recent magazine articles

In addition to turning up on a spate of year-end best lists for 2004, Elliott Smith has also been the subject of several grim posthumous profiles, including the oddly insubstantial book, "Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing" (which I have reviewed at right). The January 2005 issue of Magnet has Elliott as the cover story; "A Fond Farewell: Elliott Smith, Inside The Basement on the The Hill, by Jonathan Valania. Spin's December 2004 issue (with U2 on the cover) also offers an Elliott tell-all, "Mr. Misery," by Liam Gowing. Neither are available for free online as far as the Internet tells me.

First, the Magnet article. For a cover story, it's pretty light, in my opinion. The author, much like Benjamin Nugent, admits right off that he encountered the alleged wall of silence when attempting to get Elliott's inner circle to crack. That is perfectly understandable, but-- where's the cover story in that?

"A Fond Farewell / All Things Must Pass" (not sure what the title is, it's hard to tell) does feature several very good, large photographs of Elliott, taken by Christian Lantry. But its narrative offerings are not profound. It starts out with the scene of the crime, which, like a lot of other articles, indirectly quotes information in the homicide report about Elliott posted on The Smoking Gun.The article then focuses on a discussion with David McConnell, who owned Satellite Park studio, the place referenced in the title "basement on a hill." (Weirdly, the author of this article indirectly suggests that readers go to the studio and bug this guy themselves: "If you go out of your way... to knock on the door, he might invite you in for lunch"). David McConnell must also have spoken to Benjamin Nugent and Liam Gowing, because all three sources describe the Basement recording session to varying degrees.

The Magnet article ends with some stuff probably gleaned from the Under the Radar article (at right) and some vague aspersions cast on Elliott's family regarding the exclusion of tracks from "Basement." Personally, I think the record they did put out is great, I hope they plan to release the rest of the songs, and aside from that, it strikes me as a little weird to grouse about the "real" record that should have been released, being that its artist up and killed himself. Anyway I am obviously not writing for Magnet, so I guess I should shut up. But for my money, I'd read...

Spin's "Mr. Misery," by Liam Gowing. Despite its obvious title, this article touches on two subjects usually absent from other sources of information about him: his girlfriend (at the time of his death), spuriously accused of killing him by internet fanboys, and his stepfather, who Elliott himself accused of sexual abuse and who is likely the subject, at the very least, of Roman Candle.

Make no mistake: this is not a feel-good kind of portrait: "At Smith's home in Los Angeles' Los Feliz neighborhood, above a floor littered with crack pipes and heroin-scalded tinfoil, he had hung a noose, just in case."

That's an extreme example, but there you have it. This is an informative article, on par with the Under the Radar interview. It starts out with a scene from a 2001 show in which Elliott was clearly on the downward spiral, and is written as if the author was there. It moves on to a lot of new subjects: how Elliott felt about his Dreamworks record contract, a discussion with (and photograph of) Elliott's girlfriend, and most significantly, details about Elliott's memories of possible sexual abuse and his relationship with his family in Texas. After reading the article, you definitely come away kind of sadder and wiser about the kind of issues this guy was dealing with. To paraphrase The Nup, "That was the most depressing article I ever read. Thanks."

Strange Parallel

I finally stumbled on the Elliott Smith documentary, Strange Parallel, that was filmed in 1998 (you can view it at right) after reading about it for years. It is about 30 minutes long, and seems split between a half-baked interview crew attempting to find Elliott, some metaphor about a robot hand (a dream of Elliott's, apparently), and simple footage of Elliott talking and playing various instruments (the last detail being the most interesting). The best moments are shots of Elliott playing drums and piano, even a classical bit, and of course guitar, reminding you of his virtuosity.

The rest of the film (Elliott himself is not onscreen for half of it) underscores his disdain for fame, and even for interacting with people in general (bartenders seem to know him better than his music industry colleagues). A telling moment is when he is being interviewed by one of the documentary crew (with the World Trade Center towers as a backdrop) and he is asked a rambling question about how it felt to play at the Grammy Awards. He says simply, looking away, "Well, it was the Oscars..." No wonder he hated interviews.

The Oscar performance

There is a link to the notorious Oscar performance at right. It is lovely, despite its long shadow over his career.

took a long time to stand / took an hour to fall

Welcome to tiny dog's earnest, fan-girl page honoring the great Elliott Smith, in which a figurative cigarette lighter is always held aloft in tribute to his life and music.

Tiny dog's Elliott related screeds

Tiny dog rambles about the albums of Elliott Smith

In which I ponder, album by album, which songs you are most likely to sing along with in the car, and reveal my struggles with the Elliott-Sgt. Pepper years

Tiny dog wigs out in series of incoherent posts at the news of his death

I admittedly hadn't anything sage to say upon hearing the news, while driving in my car one random October morning, that Elliott Smith had apparently stabbed himself. However I wrote about it anyway, because I just couldn't really quite believe my ears.

Links to other Elliott stuff

Elliott Smith B-sides and Other Songs

New unreleased songs!

Trash Treasury

New-ish Elliott site, most interesting for its catalog of unreleased demos from the FABOTH sessions (go to the demos link).

Elliott in the studio (hosted by katy)

Footage of Elliott in the recording studio, esp. interesting when playing piano on Figure 8 and Everything Means Nothing to Me. Bonus skateboarding and moonwalking scenes.

Elliott's Oscar performance

Very interesting. An orchestra plays (unnecessarily) behind him, busting out a piccolo or some type of crazy pan flute, even, at one point. Despite this, he sounds beautiful, and brings his typical poignancy even to that setting. Bonus points for not washing his hair- that was definitely, by his standards, keeping it real.

Autumn De Wilde portfolio of Elliott

Elliott Smith has been described as hard to look at. To me, he is physically indistinct, and looks different in most every photograph. He also manages to seem reserved and evasive in most pictures, which keeps you looking through them hoping to learn something about him, to no avail.

Strange Parallel

I've often heard about this documentary/movie featuring Elliott, but only found a link to it recently, on MTV.com. Its premise is aptly, a documentary crew trying, and failing, to create a portrait of Elliott, and they pursue him throughout the film.

elliottsmith.com

This site is back, after a hiatus. It tends to be superior to the official Elliott site, sweetadeline, in that it actually offers video and audio clips.

"Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing" by Bengamin Nugent

I read this book, and it isn't very good. It is, surprise surprise, lacking substance, although highlights do include details about how and where Basement on a Hill was recorded, and a precious few details about Elliott's childhood. Amazingly, no insight is provided about his stepdad, which is a major question about Elliott if you are interested in biographical details about his life. The Under the Radar article (below) still is the most comprehensive piece of information about him that I have yet to see.

Salon interview with Elliott from 2000

Elliott had a cool world view on some subjects in interviews. I often think about how modern bands (not corporate whore "Nickleback" type bands but bands like Death Cab or the Shins, you know, those modern cool-kid bands) focus primarily on being ironic. I mean they are still cool bands but irony or quoting other genres of music or being clever seem to the the main thrust of the band. In this interview Elliott said "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 totally agree with that.

An interview shortly before his death with Under the Radar Magazine

Billed as Elliott Smith's return from drug-induced exile, this interview covers his work on the unreleased album From a Basement on a Hill, and contains a lot of quotes from Elliott about his own history and career. I think you can get a sense of what he was like due to the length and extensive quotes, and a long page of material cut from the original interview.

Sweetadeline.net - his official Web site

This site became interestingly defensive after Elliott's death, bristling at discussion board postings that dared to ask why, how, or other details about his demise. That said, it does have all the latest information about his new album, and other issues of fan interest.

His lyrics

Elliott himself said in an interview with Ray Davies, “not to make it all serious, but no one shows any interest in lyrics at all.” He did, obviously. It's dumb to call him an underrated lyricist because he was just underrated, period (outside of a certain self-congratulating crowd I suppose). These lyrics appear on his official site, Sweet Adeline.. I have always loved the lyrics to this song.

Quirkyworks tribute song

Nup pays homage to Elliott...

Noname3.com

Great bootleg recordings on this site; mostly others have mysteriously vanished from the web, so listen while you can.