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Elliott Smith poll. Preference questions and factoids. Just for fun, don’t be a jerk?
Preference:1. Favorite record.2. Favorite tune.3. The big one: Major label Elliott or indie Elliott, or both are just as good?Factoids:4. What song by Roy Orbison, according to his old roommate from New York, would he play on the juke box, but stand outside while it played because he would break down if he heard it?5. What Phil Collins song did he have the same feeling about?6. T/F Elliott Smith was a big Scorpions fan.Shoot, I forgot the bonus:7. What are your feelings on Heatmiser?You guys rock. Thanks for resonding, and don;t worry. I just happen to be reading a book about him at the moment. Which if you’re into learning more about him I’m very much enjoying the Autumn DeWilde book about him, and at least the copy I got came with a 5 song “Live at Largo” CD that is great. The factoid questions came straight out of that book.Moreso than anything I’m trying to poll people as to their feelings on early, more broken down Elliott Smith and later, more orchestrated Elliott Smith. A lot of people I’ve read about feel that he should have turned down that Dreamworks contract both for his well being and his sort of musical soul, but I’ve never felt that way. I can’t quite put my finger on a best album for him, but my stock answer is XO because I suppose I feel that way more days than I feel the Juke Box Label Template others. I feel all his work is on a pretty similar plane though.Wow Mr. Bernstein. Not that I’m suprised, but you knocked it completely out of the park. Great stuff.Personally, I get where the indie stuff was probably better, but there is something in the later production (XO particularly) that really appeals to me. There was less of that raw Elliott Smith thing, but there was a certain… Well, I guess I have a soft spot for bells and whistles and he was better at really all aspects of music than most (at least the songwriting and orchestration). It was really neat to hear him have the opportunity to expand his sound. I tend to rotate from day to day (or week to week) which album is my favorite, but I certainly see where both people close to him and a very large contingent of the real hardcore fans wished he’d never signed with Dreamworks. Apparently, there is a train of thought that he very well could be alive today because of the added exposure and kind of confusion it created for him. The book I’m reading still is just kind of throwing (ctd.)little jabs at the topic. I’m hoping it works with a certain chronology (which makes a little sense with the way it’s reading) and they get into it more, but so far just very small brushstrokes.Personally, with Heatmiser, I’ve only really heard Cop and Speeder and Mic City Sons. I have a friend who’s opinion I trust a lot who picked up Dead Air and said it’s terrible, and I never really looked any further. I like Mic City Sons a lot, and I thought Cop and Speeder was strong at points, but all in all very hit and miss. I am not a huge fan of Neil Gust, but I find myself digging Elliott’s stuff and maybe about 1 in 3 of Neil’s. I haven’t heard “Right Hand” though. Do you know which release that was from?As for the right arm, that’s new information for me. I know about the heroin and thus I’m not terribly suprised. From everything I’ve heard particularly the last couple years of his life he was losing the battle. (ctd.)There were reports that he had gotten clean for a bit, if I remember correctly I saw a couple pictures or maybe saw him on tv and thought he looked relatively healthy, but then probably about 5 months before he died my friend went to some L.A. award show (I think the L.A. Weekly Awards) and he was in terrible shape. He was being helped around and was just a complete mess. Like I said, I don’t know a ton about it, but from the stuff I heard the speculation is that he briefly got clean, then regressed and kind of couldn’t deal. I look forward to knowing more and putting the pieces together better, but that’s kind of what I gathered right about when it happened. I did hear that he was a real mess at the end though so all of that completely makes sense, but I don’t know a lot about it.
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