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| From | Paul Myers <paulm@shaw.ca> |
| Subject | My own brush with Elliott Smith |
| Date | Wed, 22 Oct 2003 23:00:03 -0700 |
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Like so many here on Audities, I had a great admiration for Elliott
Smith's beautiful melodies, delicately hand made music and his
startlingly eloquent expressions of his own exquisite and often self
inflicted pain. Today, as I heard the news (first on Audities by the
way, then horribly confirmed later on other outlets) I thought of
lines in songs like "Baby Britain" and "Say Yes", the last song off
Either / Or. The guy was an accident waiting to happen, and if you
know anything about depression and addiction, it's quite miraculous
that he survived to his 34th year. And like Cobain before him, I
find it jarring that people who spend so much of their waking life
trying to dull their reality and soften their edges, would end up
going out in such violent and bloody ways. But such is the logic of
suicide, sadly over romanticized in our culture from Mishima to Kurt,
it is often one last violent attempt at demon slaying....still so
fucking pointless like a glimpse into the abyss that could take any
one of us (by the forgive me if I sound a little Goth just there, but
these words are truly felt and carefully measured.)
My own personal brush with Elliott came at the Largo club in L.A. a
few years back.
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 Zant 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.
X/O
Paul.
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