Because of the impossible amount of special and noteworthy details that come with this topic, it will be difficult to hit this piece on the mark. I know there will always be more I could say, and I will never be 100 percent satisfied with the final product. Simultaneously, I am very happy I’m not holding this off any longer, and I know I am making somebody proud.
There were two things I accomplished in elementary school: how to punctuate my sentences, and how to listen to good music; both contributed to my drive for writing. During those early and nostalgic car rides to school, I explored varieties of music ranging from Jackson 5, to David Bowie, Queen, The Beatles, Leon Russell, and Hall & Oates…
I’d been inspired by many classic lyricists, and a pleasantly surprising oddity from the rest was Elliott Smith. My first impression of him was “Son of Sam”, the opening track on Figure 8. The piano introduction left an imprint on my consciousness – he had a talent for striking the chords in such a particular sequence, he might as well have been echoing inside my ribcage.
Yet it wasn’t until a couple years ago that I discovered my own free will. In a musical craze, I submerged myself in his entire discography and background, finding something so captivating about his compositions. YouTube began to guide me, providing me with various interviews, documentaries, video essays, unreleased songs, and performances.
By making the decision to go down this transformative rabbit hole, I found myself attempting to live vicariously through every audience member, journalist, and even every talk show host that was given the opportunity to talk and connect to the artist I hadn’t even lived in the same lifetime as.
You’d think you’re pretty heavily accommodated as a fan for growing up with unrestricted internet access, but it’s so frustrating. Unless a time machine is invented sometime soon, it will remain objective that I will never see Elliott Smith play live. I am disappointed in the fact that I will never reach the journalistic goal of being able to interview my favorite artist.
Bringing his relevancy to local aspects, it’s important to zoom in on the ways LA fosters a good portion of Elliott Smith culture. He’d play gigs in Silver Lake at The Grand Ole Echo. My parents’ band would play there all the time — I was practically raised in those backrooms!
Just six minutes east from that venue is the Elliott Smith tribute wall, also seen on the album cover of Figure 8, shot by Autumn DeWilde. Next to this mural is Dinosaur Coffee on the right, which is reportedly the designated “Sharpie borrowing spot” for fans who come to sign the mural.
Sort of behind / inside the mural is Drugstore Cowboy. I regret to inform you all that I am 17, and am not yet allowed in, as it is a bar. However, very slightly to the right is Solutions, which is an old music equipment repair shop Elliott used to frequently visit.
Motivated to learn more about his personal interests, I got in contact with Mary Lou Lord, a musical artist and very close pal of his.
“They had tons of old equipment – I just remember Elliott being obsessed with this place.” she said.
Out of all the people I contacted, Lord was the one I least expected to get back, as well as the only one to stay in contact. Yet, she was the one that contributed so greatly to this piece. I admire her so strongly; she’s a musical deity, somebody that’s so far above my level, which was apparent in the dense stacks of information she provided me with. I’ve loved her for so long, it’s all kinda surreal to me.
Lord’s story of meeting Elliott made me laugh and cry. It was such a quintessential “Elliott story” – I felt like, as she spoke, I was there with her. I could feel the ambient descriptions fill my senses. She met him around 1994-95, when she had a gig booked at the Velvet Elvis Arts Lounge Theatre in Seattle.
Her story starts with Slim Moon, who was her friend, and founder of the Kill Rock Stars label in Olympia, which she was signed onto. Prior to this, she had come from a very folky world in terms of music (a few honorable mentions being Shawn Colvin, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan among others).
She had taken a liking to the beloved Daniel Johnston, and the whole genre he entailed, because it brought upon her a new and innovative genre in which she had a lot of freedom (and there was no fixed amount of skill required).
“I remember I was backstage, and I just wanted the free beer, and Slim said that he’d heard this guy in Portland, and that I really should just do myself a favor and go out there and watch him,” she says. “I did not want to go out there. He had a crappy-lookin’ guitar, I just didn’t take him seriously …”
Part of Elliott Smith’s charm is how raw and authentic he is. You don’t need a thousand dollar guitar for that. His whole style (or lack thereof) is built from his soul, his emotions, the cheap equipment, if anything, contributes to that quality.
“He was like a song into it and I was like ‘Wow, he’s really making that crappy guitar sound good!’” she says.
Lord went on to talk about how they became fast friends. After that show they hung out a little, and she was just sitting there thinking “Man, this guy is cool…” She ended up touring with him as her opener, where she would announce him, and then proceed to go into the audience to see all the faces change while hearing him play for the first time. She’d tell people drifting away from the crowd exactly what Slim told her the night she discovered him.
“There’s nothing for you over here,” she says. “ Just do yourself a favor and go watch this guy.”
She knew he was special. He was so articulate in his words, with such vast knowledge on music, and just overall funny and sweet.
“He was like a little brother to me,” Lord says.
Around the time frame of 1999-2000, Elliott was officially living in LA. He had been nominated for an Oscar for his song “Miss Misery” in Good Will Hunting a couple years prior, something very out of the blue and satisfying.
At the same time, it had surfaced that he had been struggling with substances and mental health. There was a certain isolation about him; he was in and out of constant recording, and was just overall distant and forlorn.
Mary Lou Lord had been busy being a new mom to her daughter, and was just about to fly to New York to play a show— until she was told by her husband unexpectedly that she wouldn’t be going. Elliott had passed away.
During that time, record labels were folding and artists were getting dropped, and she removed herself from music – especially his. Feeling somewhat grateful to be missed by fame’s bullet, she went on to talk about how having an endless supply of money, access to whatever you want—having people depend on you as “the Golden Goose” as she put it—can put incredible amounts of pressure onto new and sensitive artists who were previously foreign to that lifestyle.
In so many instances, fueling a passion insists on nurturing its paradox; while it fills you with devotion and joy, it can just as easily drown you. So many artists have succumbed to the standards of their art. Art tends to become a threat against the artist rather than appreciated for being what it is – something beautiful and unique, and to be pursued in cautious moderation. While turning a hobby into a career, and bleeding it dry for your most concentrated art, you will be exhausted and yet – still have your best art to live up to.
Elliott Smith holds such high significance in the general teenage culture. Always so pleasantly unexpected, and almost never in ways we can recall, he gifts his art to us. The words we cannot speak, he sings. Through mouths of generations, he has remained a constant.
Almost a decade later, the torch was passed to Lord’s daughter, Annabelle Lord-Patey. I can only start to relate to what I’ve heard about her. From my understanding, she had went down a process akin to my own, after being given one of his records by her mom as a birthday gift. She had thrown herself down that same exact rabbit hole. She recognized how he was so special, such a musical anomaly – there’s only one Elliott. It feels like history always repeats itself when it comes to this.
“It was just so joyous, because it was coming from the same place from when I first heard him.” Lord says.
It’s always that same, epiphany-like feeling when the works of Elliott Smith are introduced to you. It’s always that same tunnel vision in those unfamiliar yet welcomed eyes. The story isn’t over; his vision lives on.
