Elliott Smith is dead (1 Viewer)

[Unicron]

there was an interview reprinted in last month's Uncut with him (does anyone think Uncut has turned shite, btw?) and the writer basically said it was no surprise when he heard Elliott was dead.
I have the magazine with his last ever interview in it at home. The title's: 'Elliott Smith - Better Off Than Dead'

Seriously.

On the subject of "last Elliott Smith things ever" I did a youtube search for a few clips to put on my blog yesterday and found this one of "say yes" from what youtube says was his final gig.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8oLojgTMVA&eurl=http://thrillpier.blogspot.com/

 

[nlgbbbblth]

there was an interview reprinted in last month's Uncut with him (does anyone think Uncut has turned shite, btw?)

Uncut has gone seriously downhill although the current issue isn't bad.
The CDs are getting crappy. Reprinting articles seems kinda pointless to me.

 

[flashback]

there was an interview reprinted in last month's Uncut with him (does anyone think Uncut has turned shite, btw?) and the writer basically said it was no surprise when he heard Elliott was dead.
I have the magazine with his last ever interview in it at home. The title's: 'Elliott Smith - Better Off Than Dead'

Seriously.

He really wasn't a very happy bunny alright.
I was pretty shocked that he topped himself, but fully believed it. I mean, the
basement album is all about that.
I did think that he was smarter than that though. Not that you have to be stupid
to kill yourself, but I suppose I thought he must be pretty loaded, he is pretty
smart, if things are really tough why doesn't he just disappear off to Africa and
grow plants and teach kids English and the guitar or something.
I dunno. I suppose I am not suicidal.

 

[Jim Daniels]

Uncut has gone seriously downhill although the current issue isn't bad.
The CDs are getting crappy. Reprinting articles seems kinda pointless to me.

Yeah, I only buy it now cause I have every edition and can't bring myself to stop!
The current cd, compiled by Devandra Banhart is quite nice - including a really happy song by Bert Janch called "Life Depends on Love". What's his other stuff like? Something like 22 albums!

Word is slightly better these days.

 

[coast to coast]

He really wasn't a very happy bunny alright.
I was pretty shocked that he topped himself, but fully believed it. I mean, the
basement album is all about that.
I did think that he was smarter than that though. Not that you have to be stupid
to kill yourself, but I suppose I thought he must be pretty loaded, he is pretty
smart, if things are really tough why doesn't he just disappear off to Africa and
grow plants and teach kids English and the guitar or something.
I dunno. I suppose I am not suicidal.

Funny thing is that according to anecdotes from quite a few people that emerged after he died was that he was "suicidal" for much of the time he knew them, but that when he actually died he was clean and relatively happy and getting his life back together finishing the Basement album, etc. I think that his death (which I do regard as a suicide even though the coroner refused to rule out other goings on) was just a freakish accident, not the culmination of something grand.

Furthermore, I know that most of the songs on FABOTH are seemingly about addiction (and more specifically a parellel between love and drug relationships) all of those songs are very very very much older than the album that came out. All of them were played live at least about 3 years before his death, at the time when he really was miserable and kind of awash with drugs as far as I know.

There's a book coming out supposedly in a couple of weeks called simply Elliott Smith put together by Autumn de Wilde who was a friend of his who did the photos for the cover of Figure 8 amongst other things. Full of photos and anecdotes and stuff. I can only assume it'll be better than the Benjamin Nugent book.

 

[sweetoblivion]

people always dwell on the negative around Elliott.
What I found interesting was that he'd been throught a strange rehab programme, where they literally flush the drugs out of your system, and although he was clean and reportedly in far better health than he had been in a while, there were signs that things weren't exactly OK. In the Under the Radar interview (his last one) he said that some of his new tracks were stolen from his computer...he came off as rather paranoid. He thought people were following him. So perhaps things weren't as great for him as they were made out to be. It's so hard to know though. For a while I did think that Jennifer Chiba (his girlfriend who was in the house when he died) killed him...I didn't want to think he would do it himself. And on Sweet Addy, the Elliott Smith message board, there were constantly threads put up (and swiftly locked/deleted) where people were basically calling Chiba every name under the sun and saying she was a really negative influence on him.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

Yeah, I only buy it now cause I have every edition and can't bring myself to stop!
The current cd, compiled by Devandra Banhart is quite nice - including a really happy song by Bert Janch called "Life Depends on Love". What's his other stuff like? Something like 22 albums!

Word is slightly better these days.

Yeah, both Word and Mojo are better than Uncut. I have all the issues [aside from 1 - 6] so I keep buying it out of habit.

That Bert Jansch track is quite unrepresentative, he's one of the best acoustic guitarists I've heard. Quite sombre in parts but very enjoyable.
There's an anthology on Castle [double disc] which is a great intro.

 

[Jim Daniels]

Yeah, both Word and Mojo are better than Uncut. I have all the issues [aside from 1 - 6] so I keep buying it out of habit.

That Bert Jansch track is quite unrepresentative, he's one of the best acoustic guitarists I've heard. Quite sombre in parts but very enjoyable.
There's an anthology on Castle [double disc] which is a great intro.

Cool, I must check that out...
Cheers

 

[coast to coast]

Five years.

Sigh.

What great music.

 

[flashback]

What great music.

yup.

 

[sweetoblivion]

jesus, I can't believe it's 5 yrs remember it like it was yesterday.

 

[The septic]

Why isn't the first Heatmiser album on there? That's the only time I ever saw him and they were deadly.

 

[coast to coast]

Wow you saw Heatmiser! One of a very few I'd imagine.

Mic City Sons is on a par with all of his albums, but Neil Gust did write nearly half the album.

 

[sweetoblivion]

jeepers, lucky you seeing Heatmiser! Might dig out my albums actually. Never saw Elliott play because I was in school when he played the Red Box and my mum wouldn't let me go..!! Sigh.

 

[flashback]

not only did I see him play, I saw him give a cheeky grin to someone.

A cheeky grin!

 

[coast to coast]

I was front row centre for the Red Box gig. It was fucking phenomenal.

I caught glimpse of him through the stage door... he was a tiny, scruffy genius.

 

[Tubby Tucker]

I was at the Red Box gig as well. I remember I was DJing the night he died and I was really cut up about poor old Elliott so I finished up my set with I Didn't Understand and some redneck in the crowd shouted up "turn off this depressing shit and throw on some chilli peppers!". Cunt.

 

[mr pharmacist!!!!1]

some redneck in the crowd shouted up "turn off this depressing shit and throw on some chilli peppers!". Cunt.

under the bridge would have been beautiful.

 

[sweetoblivion]

I'm so jealous I would have killed to have seen him. Convinced myself he'd tour again but...well we all know what happened. Was doing the campus radio show the day he died so played a bunch of his stuff in rememberance. Was in shock though...got some lovely texts off people. I remember sweetadeline.net was full conspiracy theories about his death for months afterwards, lots of 'friends' suddenly joining to add their 2cents. Jennifer Chiba didn't come out of it well. Dark times.

 

[Jim Daniels]

I remember being totally addicted to the song Happiness, playing it constantly for about two weeks, right before he died. I was floored when I heard the news...