You can order a short rib ragu, quaff fine cabernet and consider the irony of lyrics that weigh the Faustian bargain involved in coming to L.A. The Elliott Smith tribute wall that originally appeared on the cover of Figure 8 still stands, but it's been mutilated to make way for Bar Angeles, a wine bar named after “Angeles,” a song from Either/Or. In the aftermath, he's become the area's patron saint and ghoulish tourist attraction. Before they remodeled the Roost and outlawed smoking upstairs at Spaceland, you often heard mournful, drunken remembrances of Smith, which ended with “and … he was a really nice guy.” The wounds were still fresh, and the neighborhood retained the bohemian sensibility that had lured him from Portland, Oregon. I don't remember Smith becoming a totemic personal favorite until I moved to Silver Lake in the year after his suicide. It's what led to his move to L.A., the major-label deal with DreamWorks, the story that ends with him fatally stabbing himself in his Echo Park apartment with an 8-inch kitchen knife. It's what led to Smith's surreal performance at the Academy Awards and set him on a path to cult stardom. For most of us, that's Either/Or, the album released 20 years ago last month, the one that Gus Van Sant fell in love with and used to soundtrack Good Will Hunting. Chances are your favorite is the first one you heard. He discovered a way to make the softest music sound hard. Elliott Smith never fails to feel your pain yet avoids melodramatic whining and gothic cliché. I need a “break glass in case of existential crisis” album. I want dirges so emotionally raw that they're too severe for normal occasions. Some people need happy music to buoy their serotonin. “Make that two pieces of cheesecake, please.” With his reaper/angel rasp, Elliott Smith crooned those first syllables of “Speed Trials”: “He's pleased to meet you underneath the hearse/In the cathedral with the glass stained black/Singing sweet high notes that echo back/To destroy their master.” In a darkly absurd fugue state, I streamed the record in the fluorescent shadow of a Forever 21, ducking into the dimly lit faux opulence of the Cheesecake Factory. It was almost a Drake lyric.įor almost the entirety of my adult life, I have reflexively listened to Elliott Smith when beset by bleak vertigo. This could be my grandfather's last supper, and all he wanted to set his soul at ease was something easily procured next to the food court. So I found myself wandering around a Westfield mall in Woodland Hills, searching for a Cheesecake Factory, assaulted by mall perfume and shrill pop-punk. I told him that I'd honor his name and make him proud. I told him that I'd think of him every time I stared in the mirror and saw his slightly sunken mahogany eyes in my sockets. Scripture, poetry and drugs failed to offer solace. Show me someone who handles death well and I'll show you the spiritually delusional or the clinically sociopathic. This was January, as I clanked back and forth from Chatsworth, listening to Elliott Smith's Either/Or on loop, lunging for the right words to comfort my grandfather in his half-conscious fog - finding none. But tremors of hope briefly wobbled when he opened his eyes, gingerly slid the oxygen mask to the left, and whispered for dessert at 3 p.m. I Don’t Think I’m Ever Gonna Figure It Out (remixed/remastered)Ģ1.My grandfather's final request was a slice of cheesecake.įor those last two weeks, he painlessly withered away in his retirement home, refusing to eat, waiting to die. The double LP is packaged in a gatefold jacket that includes an insert of the original liner notes, a postcard of the original master tapes, and several never-before seen photos.ġ9. The second disc features five live multi-track recordings from the Yo Yo A Go Go Festival in Olympia WA in 1997, as well as three previously unreleased studio recordings and one b-side gem. Album is out Maon 2LP, 2CD and digital via Kill Rock Stars.Įither/Or: Expanded Edition features the original tracks carefully remastered from original tapes under the supervision of Larry Crane.
Recorded at the YoYo A GoGo festival in Olympia, WA in 1997, “Pictures of Me (Live)” appears on Either/Or: Expanded Edition, commemorating the 20th anniversary of Elliott Smith’s best selling and beloved album. An unreleased live recording of Elliott Smith’s “Pictures of Me” was released recently.
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