Elliott Smith Either Or Blogspot Videos
Jan 23, 2014 - Hidden Treasures: Elliott Smith Max Broady. Your browser does not currently recognize any of the video formats available. Click here to. Appearing as a B-side to 'Speed Trials', from 'Either/Or', this breezy folk tune is one of Smith's songs least weighed down with his usual worldly worries. Elliott Smith - Either/Or (1997) Acoustic Posting that Jose Gonzalez album made me remember that I kept putting off uploading an Elliott Smith album. Probably one of my biggest influences, not to mention one of the greatest creative musical minds of the last couple of decades; Elliott Smith is the man. Blog Archive 2011 (6) October (6.
Hidden Treasures: Elliott Smith Max Broady The Fly 26 Sep 2013 Elliott Smith passed away 10 years ago next month. His body of solo work has grown in stature from humble beginnings as the side project of Smith’s day-job band, Heatmiser, to firm pillars in the indie rock pantheon,evolving from home-recorded lo-fi gems (‘Roman Candle’, ‘Elliott Smith’ and ‘Either/Or’), to major label flourishes (‘XO’ and ‘Figure 8’). The material he had been working on up until his death in 2003 was patched together posthumously as ‘From A Basement On A Hill’, not without some controversy over whether the released album represented what Smith had intended.
If you’ve read this far you’re more than likely familiar with the arc those records trace, so we thought we’d take you off piste a little. What follows are not necessarily unreleased songs, but tracks not available on Smith’s studio albums: a mix of bootleg songs, covers and singles which are less well known, even if they are readily available over the internet these days. ‘New Moon’, the acclaimed two-disc set of outtakes and alternate versions, was no odds-and-sods collection but could hold its own against Smith’s ‘proper’ albums. It contained a lot of A-grade material, with the quality of Smith’s outtakes prompting many of those “shoulda made the album” deliberations. But ‘New Moon’ was by no means exhaustive — it only covered the years 1994-1997 (arguably his most consistently excellent period, admittedly), so there’s plenty of unmined gold out there — certainly enough material to fully warrant another release that would be far from those barrel-scraping cash-cow exercises which too frequently do disservice to the legacies of artists who left us too soon.
‘New Moon’, in fact only hinted at the riches lying in the vaults, with around 100 tracks still to see official release. As such, the selection of songs below should appeal not just to the compulsive, completist fans but to anyone who feels a pang of loss when reminded about Smith’s untimely death ten years ago. ‘Some Song’ At least three recorded versions of this song exist, illustrating how much Smith liked to rework and refine his songs.
Given a dismissive, throwaway title — perhaps deliberately for one of his most straightforward songs — Some Song has a straight-strumming rhythm and a cyclical, repetitive vocal line that lacks his usual melodic twists and turns but is all the more direct and catchy for it. One of his earliest solo songs, it resembles ‘Division Day’, a later single, and is one of his most openly autobiographical songs about his early life in Texas, where he lived until he moved to Portland, Oregon, at 14. ‘Stained Glass Eyes’ A late, unreleased but fully realised song recorded during the sessions that produced the 30-plus tracks which would be pared down to produce ‘From A Basement On The Hill’ after his death. A delicate, understated waltz full of typical Smith imagery: “Rather spend the day blank as hell by the window looking out of my stained glass eyes.” ‘Living Will’ The flipside to the ‘Son Of Sam’ single, this was an unusually brisk power-pop romp, with Smith slinging out crunchy chords and high harmonies like the first Big Star album. It could even be described as fun, if it was written by anyone other than Smith, who seemed to add gravity to everything he sung. ‘I Don’t Think I’m Ever Gonna Figure It Out’ Appearing as a B-side to ‘Speed Trials’, from ‘Either/Or’, this breezy folk tune is one of Smith’s songs least weighed down with his usual worldly worries. A charming, refreshingly light-hearted piece, it serves as a showcase for his nimble guitar skills.
Lyrically it mines the common Smith territory of misunderstanding and miscommunication (see also ‘I Can’t Answer You Anymore’). ‘Trouble’ (Cat Stevens cover) “Trouble, oh trouble can’t you see you have made me a wreck now won’t you leave me in my misery?” Smith was fond of a cover, and he tried his hand at some odd choices (‘Supersonic’, ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’) alongside some less surprising ones (a whole slew of Beatles songs). But perhaps none fitted him as well as ‘Trouble’, an aching Cat Stevens tune which Smith really inhabits. He sounds thoroughly defeated, and his resigned delivery embodies all the despair of the lyric: “I don’t want no fight and I haven’t got a lot of time” which echoes his own lyric, “I’m tired of being down I got no fight” from Twilight.
That this was allegedly one of the last songs he recorded before his death makes it all the more poignant. ‘Stickman’ At least two studio versions of this late-period song exist: an acoustic demo and a full band version fleshed out with some angelic harmonies that lend it a surreal, eerie edge. It’s a textbook example of Smith juxtaposing bitter words with a sweet melody: “I’m a stickman,” he sings. “I live with one dimension dead.” An unusual song, quite unlike anything else he recorded, it demonstrates the variety and ambition of the material he was coming up with at the time, and how Smith’s vision for ‘From A Basement On The Hill’ could well have been markedly different to what was actually released (producer David McConnell, who worked with Smith on the sessions, certainly thinks so). But, as with Jeff Buckley’s similarly unfinished ‘Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk’, we will forever be kept guessing.
‘I Can’t Answer You Anymore’ From a French promo EP ‘3 Titres Inedits’, released in 2000, this lurching waltz sounds like it could’ve been ripped from the Beatles’ ‘White Album’. The slow-burning bridge builds to a climax (“I did everything right for somebody that does everything wrong”) before Smith turns out some lovely George Harrison-esque guitar. Rougher than the lush sound he adopted for ‘Figure 8’, and easily surpassing most of the material on that album. ‘Cecilia / Amanda’ It’s a small wonder that Smith chose not to include this song, recorded in 1997, on any of his albums, but perhaps he thought the polished, almost ‘Abbey Road’-esque sound didn’t sit alongside the rest of his material. The obscure lyric finds Smith describing a character “Dancing on a permanent scratch in a place where lonely men pay to make their opposites match.” The vocal sweeps up an octave for the last verse as Smith sings “If you got a little baby now I don’t wanna see him round here no more.” Smith recorded a version of this song with different lyrics way back with his high school band, Stranger Than Fiction. ‘Cecilia / Amanda’, however, didn’t see light of day until it was made available by Kill Rock Stars when they reissued his debut album ‘Roman Candle’ in 2010. ‘No Confidence Man’ Part of a 1994 split single with Smith’s friend and fellow Portland musician, Pete Krebs, with whom Smith occasionally worked construction jobs in order to make ends meet.
According to Krebs, the pair spent the recording session, conducted in the basement of Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss’s house, clowning around wearing masks. However, precious little of that sense of fun finds its way into the song, one of the most haunting, uncomfortable tracks he recorded, right up with ‘Needle In The Hay’. It features the same warm, intimate sound and whispered vocals of his early recordings and could slip seamlessly onto his second solo album (‘Elliott Smith’) which he would start work on shortly. The ending refrain, “You’re on it all the time”, appears to be an early example of the many ambiguous drug references that would populate his songs. ‘Abused’ On this song, a labyrinthine melody in the verse gives way to a simple single-word chorus, delivered at first in a whisper, then in a cathartic scream, possibly the loudest the feather-voiced singer ever registered on record.
The version which has leaked on the internet could do with remixing, but is still perhaps Smith’s greatest unreleased song, dealing matter-of-factly with the abuse he occasionally alleged to have suffered in his childhood. “Why does everyone know I’ve been abused now? Didn’t want it to show.” There is some speculation that the unflinching lyric led Smith’s family to deliberately leave the song off ‘From A Basement On The Hill’, although this remains, like so much about that album, just conjecture.
About 8 years ago, I was introduced to Elliott Smith and soon after became a big fan. Listen to two seconds of since and the influence is easily apparent. I still listen to his music frequently (almost on a daily basis), have two of his records hanging on my wall, and have a dog named after one of his songs. Basically, I am somewhat of a fan. The problem with being an Elliott Smith fan is that, well, he’s dead. This means I’ll never get to see him play live.
This also means that there’s a finite amount of youtube videos and recordings that can be found. And since I worked a really boring job with internet access while in college, I’ve seen every single clip of him playing live that is currently on the internet (I’m not kidding).
We returned and realized that waiting in line for our seats was a waste of time. The theater is small. About half of the size of the theater at my high school. It’s always cooler to be as close to the stage as possible, but you would still be able to see everything perfectly fine from the very back of the theater. Also, we saw people sitting in the rows in front of us that we had seen behind us in the line to get our seats. I guess the seating might just be a raffle, but that’s fucking stupid.
Either way, we were pretty close so it didn’t really matter. Eventually, a theater guy came out and told everyone the show was about to start so turn off your cell phones, no pictures, blah blah blah.
This was interesting because the website said they would not allow cell phones in the theater at all. As did a sign by the front door. But the guys at the door not only didn’t check our pockets/bags for cell phones or cameras, they didn’t check our IDs or even our tickets.
We just held up our hands which had a stamp from the original line (which was literally a faint, single, purple line) and walked right in. Any 18-year-old kid could have walked in, went straight to the bar, and then walked into the theater after pounding as many ten-dollar beers as he could. Or brought in a bomb/gun/knife/vial of ebola.
So that was kinda stupid. The show started and we were first presented with a projected slide show backed with a live track of Elliott playing a couple songs at the old Largo Theater. After that was a string quartet playing beautifully arranged versions of Speed Trials and Rose Parade. Then Jon Brian, who would basically be the host for the night, came out, told some Elliott stories and played a couple songs.
Brian is an amazing musician but his voice seems to be deteriorating, which is a little depressing. He seems to be a really nice guy and obviously has the equivalent of opera scores running through his blood stream, but the vocals just weren’t there. There was a lady comedian that came out and told some Elliott stories before singing a song with Jon Brian accompanying on the piano. This was my first taste of what I didn’t like in the show. She was commenting while playing the song with stuff like “Ooh, that wasn’t high enough,” or “boy I screwed that up,” in an effort to get us to laugh. I get that they were trying to make it down-to-earth and all of that, but that really threw me off. I may be taking it too seriously, but I thought the tenth anniversary of such a great influence on these people’s lives stabbing himself in the chest and leaving behind a great wealth of superb, serious music would evoke a little more reverence.
Perhaps she was attempting levity in the face of such a daunting task, but I thought it was cheap. There was a fifteen-year-old intern at the theater that came out to sing Between the Bars with the string quartet backing him up. He was obviously nervous as hell, which was endearing, but I’m not going to let this shit slide.
He was not bad. Meaning he didn’t suck, but he also wasn’t good. He walked out and picked up Elliott’s guitar which pissed me right the hell off.
What did this kid do to deserve the honor? Then he played the song and fucked the lyrics up even though he had the lyric sheet on a music stand right in front of him.
“Hey Josh, lay off. The kids only fifteen.” I don’t give a shit. He’s playing one of my favorite Elliott Smith songs at an Elliott Smith tribute concert on Elliott Smith’s birthday on Elliott Smith’s guitar. You better be a fucking phenomenon to deserve this opportunity. You sure as hell don’t go out there and fuck up the lyrics while only sounding decent.
This was actually a problem with a lot of the performers. They would bring out the lyric sheet and then fuck up the lyrics.
They’d say stuff like, “Earlier this week when I started learning the song,” which immediately made me think about how I bought the tickets two months earlier. You waited until a few days before the show to learn a couple songs? What the hell is your problem? Now, as I’ve stated before, I’ve seen plenty of live Elliott videos and know that he frequently fucked up his own songs.
But he was also an alcoholic and drug addict and these fuck ups were a detriment to his career. You don’t need to shoot a bunch of heroin into your arm to play a Nirvana song and you don’t need to fuck up a verse to play an Elliott Smith song. Pay tribute to your friend by playing his songs correctly, please.
Another dude played a couple songs on the piano that was a touring guitarist for one of Elliott’s last tours. He told a funny story of how he was late to a connecting flight in Ireland and Elliott kept the plane from taking off by pretending to tie his shoes on the threshold of the loading dock and the plane. He played Everything Means Nothing to Me, which was the closest I came to crying like a little bitch.
At the end, he asked the crowd to sing the repeating round that fades out the song and it was like a beautiful campfire sing-along. He then played In the Lost and Found which was nice to have a major key follow up to the misery of the previous song. It was also kinda funny because I have been trying to learn how to play both of these songs on the keyboard, and then this guy shows up and shows me exactly how difficult it will be to learn the whole song. Everybody laughed and they started over. It was funny. The first time.
Elliott Smith Either Or
And the second. But it took them four tries before they made it through the whole song.
It seemed like genuine mistakes to me, but there’s a part of me suspects it was just a comedic ploy. I thought it was real, but he’s an actor so what the hell do I know. He sang the song really well, I just didn’t think the trademark Jack Black grunts and pelvic thrusts were appropriate for such a great song. After they finally made it through, the other half of Tenacious D came out and they did a Beatles medley (with Jack Black doing fake guitar solos on Elliott’s goddamn guitar). Overall, the show was a good-humored attempt to have a light-hearted night celebrating Elliott Smith and his music. I think they accomplished that goal despite the setbacks.
There was a mix of heartbreaking beauty and downright annoyances throughout the show, but I think it was worth it. They said this will continue as an annual concert and I’m sure I’ll be attending as long as I’m in Los Angeles. After all, there’s not really anywhere else to hear these songs played live since Elliott’s death in 2003. It would have been his 44 th birthday last night and I don’t know of any better way to celebrate it than watching his friends share stories about him while playing his songs. Anonymous I have to say that I was a bit disappointed that the performers and stories were so Largo centric. I was hoping for more diversity.
Elliott’s relationship with Los Angeles went far beyond the walls of Largo but it didn’t seem like they sought out enough of those voices. I fully agree would have liked more reverence, less covers and allowing the intern kid to perform really bothered me too I could go on but won't.he should have just gotten a ticket to the show and been happy with that. Anonymous My thoughts In particular, I enjoyed most of the stories—I learned that Jon Brion and Elliott had met through Mary Lou Lord. The Section Quartet was fabulous and they really improved whoever they backed up throughout the night.
I enjoyed David Garza's covers and playing. Tom Brousseau was definitely a unique musician and reminded me of Ricky Nelson who sang 'Lonesome Town'. I don't remember the name of the older woman who played a couple songs but I will remember her gnarled, shaky hands strumming the guitar. Jack Black and Tenacious D were entertaining.
Elliott Smith Either Or Vinyl
Shon Sullivan playing 'Everything Means Nothing To Me' was chilling. I loved singing along harmony to the ending of 'Happiness'. I was a little disappointed in the singing quality overall, though—appreciate the effort but it was uncomfortable to sit through the uneven vocals sometimes. I hadn't really heard Jon Brion sing before so that was a shock, to say the least, but he's an excellent multi-instrumentalist. Neat to see Jason Schwartzman roaming the halls afterward. Don't forget how the entire room gasped when the intern picked up Elliott's acoustic and bumped it against the stand, ha.
It was an interesting night and I was happy to share it with other Elliott Smith fans. Anonymous I was also at the show. I thought David Garza had the greatest musical moments of the night. The intern is a kid, and I was a little insulted. I jokingly sang Between the Bars in a mono tone for my girlfriend and she said I nailed the intern's performance. Well, I knew Elliott too, but am not part of the 'Largo' crowd, but wanted to anonymously spend a little time in his spirit.
Elliott Smith Either Or Lyrics
It was kind of there.And kind of not. I can tell the planning was poor. Last concert of his I saw was at the Troub with Quasi. That was something I'll never forget.