Here’s a worthy Kickstarter project: Heaven Adores You, a love letter to Elliott Smith and his lingering influence in Portland, his home for many years and the city that birthed his unparalleled early records. Kick in some funds on Kickstarter, where you’ll find a nice trailer for the film.
Nothing new to report on Searching for Elliott Smith, the other recent doc — hopefully it gets a home video/VOD release sooner.
An unreleased Smith track, “Misery Let Me Down,” has been making the rounds recently — it’s great, one of the better surprise Smith songs to emerge in the last couple years. Download it and the rest of the radio session it emerged from at WMUC’s Tumblr.
There’s a lot of history in Rhett Miller’s The Interpreter: Live at Largo. The new set, recorded at Largo’s former Fairfax location — the best concert venue I’ve ever been to, R.I.P. — during its final days, finds the Old ’97s singer laying into covers of the Pixies, the Kinks and more, but you’ll want to skip to his impassioned take on Elliott Smith’s “Happiness.” Smith himself was a Largo regular in his early days in Los Angeles, of course: his only official live release, available with Autumn de Wilde’s wonderful book, was also recorded there.
Once a year, I realize what day it is and my eyes begin to well up. No musician has ever meant as much to me as Elliott Smith; I don’t imagine any ever will. We lost one of the best songwriters ever eight years ago, but more than that, we lost a son, a brother, a lover, a friend — a person who needed help and didn’t get it. Don’t let the people you care for go down this road.
Here’s Elliott singing “The Biggest Lie,” from his flawless, self-titled sophomore album, with the Softies’ Rose Melberg. You can find a full appreciation for him over at Rawkblog’s dedicated Elliott Smith page, which includes links to concert bootlegs, unreleased material and his complete live covers, among others.
The bittersweet feeling of hearing a new song by your favorite, deceased songwriter is almost too heavy to bear. So take a load off before sitting down to Elliott Smith’s “The Real Estate,” a previously unreleased, unknown rough mix of a track that will appear in a more finalized form on charity release Live From Nowhere Near You Two. The recording may date back to Smith’s Heatmiser era — to these ears, it’s not far from the keyboard-embracing sound he shot for on Mic City Sons or his own XO, though with its show-off-y (and totally great!) guitar solo, it’s clear why it never made it to a previous release. The stream and the full story, from Live creator Kevin Moyer is over on Pitchfork; you can buy the mammoth compilation from Greyday Records to benefit Outside In.
Get more Smith, including my 22-track Proper Introduction compilation, on the Rawkblog Elliott Smith archives page.
In case you want your heart broken. Elliott’s kind of a wreck, as he seemed to be for most of the last shows of his life, but the music’s as incredible as ever. I saw him live for the first and only time at the Fonda the next night.
I made this compilation in the 18 months or so between Elliott Smith’s last shows before his death and the studio release of From a Basement on the Hill. I love the album now, but in many ways, I still prefer these takes — given the posthumous nature of Basement, it’s nice to have at least one version that’s pure Smith. Many of these songs date back a ways. “Let’s Get Lost” was performed (and recorded) as early as February 6, 2001 and December 20, 2001, as far as I know, but I went with a 2003 version. However, the first recording of “King’s Crossing,” from October 14, 1999, is my favorite take on the song. Enjoy, and there’s much, more more on the Elliott Smith archive page. (Got a better version of one of these songs? Please send it over.)
Elliott Smith – Performances from a Basement on the Hill:ZIP
Here are a few of the tracks:
Elliott Smith – “Coast to Coast” (acoustic):mp3 Elliott Smith – “Twilight” (full band):mp3 Elliott Smith – “Memory Lane” (solo): mp3 Elliott Smith – “Fond Farewell” (solo):mp3 Elliott Smith – “Pretty (Ugly Before)” (solo): mp3
The Elliott Smith documentary Searching for Elliott Smith will screen twice in L.A., the late singer’s adopted home, this weekend. I’ve seen it; I’ll let you form your own opinions, except to say I will happily watch any film that features people talking about Elliott Smith for two hours. You can find my interview with Searching director Gil Reyes over on Brand X. The film screens at 2:30 on Saturday and 8 p.m. on Sunday at the Hayworth Theater at the Los Angeles New Wave International Film Festival. Not that you need more incentive, but Jennifer Chiba, Elliott Smith’s girlfriend at the time of his strange death, is scheduled to join the screenings for Q&As.
For those not completely obsessed with Smith’s music, I’ve made a little introduction mixtape. For those who are, correctly, devoted to the best songwriter of his generation, you can comb through my attempts at gathering his rare/live stuff on the Elliott Smith archive page.
Say what you will about Tupac. As a fan of Elliott Smith, any release that brings the late songwriter’s music to new listeners is an essential one. However, the new An Introduction To… Elliott Smith falls a little short of its intended goal, drawing mostly on Either/Or and, presumably due to funds and label issues, misses some important sections of his career. I’ve attempted to remedy that right here with A Proper Introduction.
This compilation is, like Kill Rock Stars’, an introduction: Elliott’s entire catalog, from his three albums with Heatmiser to his seven solo releases to his extensive b-sides collection to his 50+ live and studio covers to his albums’ worth of unreleased songs, is composed entirely of completely fucking great music and you should track it all down. (As you can tell by the previous links, I’ve done my best to curate some of what’s out there on this blog already.) This compilation skews on the legal side, so you’ll see live and unreleased versions subbed in for a number of album cuts. You can fit it on a single CD or listen to it half-and-half on your daily commute. Then go buy his albums. That is the best possible musical decision you will make this or any year. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s a worthy Kickstarter project: Heaven Adores You, a love letter to Elliott Smith and his lingering influence in Portland, his home for many years and the city that birthed his unparalleled early records. Kick in some funds on Kickstarter, where you’ll find a nice trailer for the film. 
There’s a lot of history in Rhett Miller’s The Interpreter: Live at Largo. The new set, recorded at Largo’s former Fairfax location — the best concert venue I’ve ever been to, R.I.P. — during its final days, finds the Old ’97s singer laying into covers of the Pixies, the Kinks and more, but you’ll want to skip to his impassioned take on Elliott Smith’s “Happiness.” Smith himself was a Largo regular in his early days in Los Angeles, of course: his only official live release, available with 
The bittersweet feeling of hearing a new song by your favorite, deceased songwriter is almost too heavy to bear. So take a load off before sitting down to Elliott Smith’s “The Real Estate,” a previously unreleased, unknown rough mix of a track that will appear in a more finalized form on charity release Live From Nowhere Near You Two. The recording may date back to Smith’s Heatmiser era — to these ears, it’s not far from the keyboard-embracing sound he shot for on Mic City Sons or his own XO, though with its show-off-y (and totally great!) guitar solo, it’s clear why it never made it to a previous release. The stream and the full story, from Live creator Kevin Moyer is over on 
The Elliott Smith documentary 
