PORTLAND, OR (1994) "Elliott Smith"

So now there was some super-genius folk singer in Portland? I was skeptical.

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It was 1992, the summer of Nirvana and the grunge explosion. Portland was probably the most awake and alive it had ever been. It was coming of age as a city. The dark spirits that possessed it were finding their way into the larger world. Signals were being transmitted outward.

I lived in a group house by the University. I was doing drafts of my first novel GIRL, and then at night I’d get high and ride my bike around town, a beer in one hand, a handlebar in the other.

Other young people would be riding around too, or there’d be house parties, or people would be sitting on the curb outside their local dive bars.

I’d see this one girl fairly often. She rode around on her cruiser bike, with a basket on the front. She was an “earnest scene person”, as opposed to a “cooler-than-you scene person”. She was friendly and interested in everything. She was a little older than the core scene kids who were in their early and mid-20s. She was maybe 28 or 29? I was a little older than that, 31.

I’d see this girl on her bike outside the music clubs, doing the same thing I was doing. Cruising around. Chatting with people. Checking out the bands.

She’d be with friends sometimes, sometimes by herself. It seemed inevitable that we would talk and get to know each other, but somehow that never happened. I found this frustrating. We obviously had a lot in common. We were roughly the same age. We should be friends!

But she stayed close to the other scene girls, who could be standoffish in those days. They were starting their own musical revolution of Bikini Kill and the Riot Grrrl bands.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times I guess.

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So then I moved to New York to try to sell my novel. A few months after I got there, someone called from Portland and told me that same Bike Girl was coming to New York and needed a place to stay. Could I put her up? I was like, yeah, definitely.

So that was the way to her heart. Move 3000 miles away.

She came to New York and I met her somewhere and we walked around and talked and she was just like I thought she’d be: super smart about music and books. We totally hit it off and had a great time.

And then we went back to my 8’ by 16’ apartment with my street-futon and my one sleeping bag and now we had no choice but to sleep together. So everything worked out.

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She went back to Portland but we stayed in touch. She kept me up to date on Portland music. At one point, I was back home for a brief period (Spring 1994?) and she told me there was this new “country folk” thing going on.

There had been these small intimate shows in a little annex above La Luna, which was Portland’s big club where the touring bands played.

The two notable people at these shows were Pete Krebs, from the excellent band Hazel. And Elliott Smith from the band Heatmiser, who I’d never seen.

They were both exceptional guitar players. So now they were playing these acoustic alt-country type songs, and all the cool kids were super into it.

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I have to say, I was skeptical. I mean, I believed it was happening. And I was sure they were good. And it made sense that there would be some sort of musical reaction against the loud/heavy grunge sound that had swept the nation.

But there was always folk-music stuff happening in Portland. It was a nice idea, and it fit the earthy vibe of the city, but nothing ever came of it. So I was like, whatever.

So I missed these cozy little gigs in the small room above La Luna. Which was where the legend was born.

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But even after that, Bike Girl kept insisting that I see this guy Elliott Smith. She would plead with me. She would get mad. YOU HAVE TO SEE HIM! He had become the spearhead of this little movement. And now I was hearing other people talk about him as well.

I still didn’t believe it. So now there’s some super-genius folk singer in Portland? Right after Nirvana? And right in the middle of the growing Riot Grrrl thing? (Which had its own burgeoning superstar in Kathleen Hanna.)

I’d been hanging around the Portland music scene since I was 16. I knew how much talent there was at any given time in tiny Portland, Oregon. Not that much.

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Eventually, Bike Girl dragged me to Satyricon to see Elliott Smith play on a Sunday night. There weren’t many people, so I got a good look at him. He sat in a chair with an acoustic guitar and sang.

He wasn’t the best-looking guy. He dressed in standard Portland hipster wear: vintage T-shirt, jeans, white socks, black thrift-store shoes. He was probably wearing the obligatory stocking cap.

The songs were understated. And mysterious in their structure. He sang in a faint, whispery voice.

It was very sparse. It was weird. It wasn’t country. Not at all. And it wasn’t folk either. It had these sped up parts, where he did these high-tension downstrokes, like a punk guitarist . . . but on an acoustic guitar.

But then he’d do something with a more relaxed, bouncy rhythm which did have a country flavor. There were lots of different aspects to it. It felt like a puzzle almost. I didn’t really understand it. But I liked it. It was different than anything I’d heard before. As usual, Bike Girl had been right about that.

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At some point, Bike Girl gave me a cassette tape. It might have been a demo or maybe a copy of a copy of the first record, Roman Candle.

At this time, I was seeing a poet woman who I didn’t know very well. I brought the Elliott Smith tape to her apartment and we listened to it in her kitchen. That was our relationship. Listening to the Elliott Smith cassette. We’d listen to it. Then we’d listen to it again. Then we’d listen to it one more time. And then I’d go home.

There wasn’t a bad song on that cassette. But you barely knew when one song ended and the next one began. The music created a continuous flow. The lyrics were sometimes sad, sometimes defiant, though they weren’t emphasized in the mix. It was the overall atmosphere that was so captivating. The quietness. The delicacy of the guitar playing.

Heatmiser (photo: JJ Gonson)

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I played that tape to death. It was comforting. Everyone in Portland (and Seattle and Olympia) was hung over and wrung out after all the attention and excitement of Nirvana. And then Kurt dying such a terrible death. And the massive feeling of deflation and hopelessness that followed.

And in the midst of this communal despair, this strange whispering guy appears. With these minor chords and shapeless songs. It was so dark. And so mysterious. And so addictive. You couldn’t stop listening to it.

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So then I did what I always did when I came across some amazing person or artistic movement, I called my film-maker friend Jem Cohen. That’s what we did back then. You had your little network of people who were on the lookout for cool new stuff. And when something extraordinary happened somewhere, you got a phone call.

Jem was a fiercely anti-MTV videographer, and was much in demand by the smarter musicians of that era. He showed up and he and Elliott made a short film called “Lucky Three” in which Elliott played three songs in somebody’s kitchen. There was some Portland footage and other interesting touches. The video remains very popular on Youtube.

Jem eventually went home to New York and I ended up hanging out with Elliott a little bit. He was a heavy drinker it turned out. I went to a film festival in Olympia with him and some other people. We all got totally wasted. I nearly killed myself driving home, I was so drunk.

After that, I’d see him in Portland here and there. His talent/fame ratio was completely inverted. Nobody knew who he was, but at the same time, the secret news of his utter greatness was criss-crossing the globe at the speed of light. And there he’d be, smoking a cigarette on a street corner in Portland.

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I had become somewhat locally famous myself by this time, with the release of my first novel Girl (1994). Portland started to feel claustrophobic and I eventually bailed to LA. It turned out Elliott was down there a lot, during this same time (1995-96).

This gave me the chance to finally see his band Heatmiser play a gig at Spaceland. Heatmiser’s album Mic City Sons had come out and was easily one of the best records of the post-grunge era. It was incredibly good. But people were now going so apeshit over Elliott’s solo stuff, nobody seemed to notice.

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After the Spaceland show, Elliot played a bunch of solo gigs around LA. I went to a lot of those shows, which were often sold out. I’d end up standing around outside and listening through the windows, which you could do, as the clubs would go totally silent when he played.

I kept seeing this fancy woman (late 30s?) at these shows. She would be near the back or standing outside like I was. One night I started talking to her. She was from a management company or maybe a record label? Some entity that was working with Elliott, or wanted to work with him.

She was older than the kids coming to the shows. She was very elegant and put together. I think she drove a Mercedes. Anyway, she looked out of place at these grimy rock clubs. But she was committed to Elliott Smith. She was there at every show.

We became friendly. She was very LA, very “industry”, but was also charming and intelligent. She claimed to love Elliott’s music. And she probably did.

And yet, I had to acknowledge to myself, as I happily chatted with her on the sidewalk: she was a shark of some kind.

Whatever artistic reasons she had to be there, she was also there for the millions of dollars Elliott Smith would eventually generate. And also for the clout she would get for having been there from the start.

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Elliott Smith and Joanna Bolme

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The first two Elliott Smith records were my favorite. And probably the purist distillation of his particular genius. And also, the way they came out of nowhere, this fully formed vision, this new undefinable sound.

But then on the next couple records, he seemed to get even better, the songs were more distinct, and more polished, and often more upbeat. It seemed inevitable that one of these songs would eventually break through and become a huge mainstream radio hit.

The thing about Elliott: all the songs were good. The weird songs. The sad songs. The drugs and alcohol songs. The singles. When he did get on mainstream radio, it would probably be something amazing.

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I eventually moved to Brooklyn (1997), which is much more of a writer’s town. I still kept up on Elliott’s progress, but now it was like news from another country.

I remember sitting in a crowded room of literary-types, at an Oscar party, watching him play his song from the film Good Will Hunting. All the intellectuals in Brooklyn knew who he was by now. They knew they were supposed to like him, so they did.

Not long after, Elliott moved to Brooklyn also. I was no longer in contact with him. I heard that his problems with alcohol and drugs were getting worse. There had possibly been suicide attempts.

As happens with our music stars, or any ascendant cultural figure, such people have a way of slipping out of our consciousness. They’re so important to you for a period of your life. Then a few more years pass and you hear they’re in the psych ward and you think: well, I’m sure his people are looking after him.

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It was after the Oscars, in 2002 maybe, that Elliott played a solo show at a club in Willamsburg, near where I lived. I hadn’t heard his latest release. I wasn’t sure where he was living. But I went to the show.

I did know he had a new girlfriend. People didn’t like her for various reasons. I think she might have been there that night, I could see a trendy girl with black hair back by the dressing room. But I don’t know if that was actually her.

The vibe was weird from the start. The club was only half full. I was still very excited to hear the songs and see Elliott play. He came out and sat in a chair and started his first song.

But there were some technical difficulties. So he stopped and the sound guy worked to fix the problem. The audience milled around.

And then someone started to heckle him.

It was a very strange thing to see. Some guy started giving him a hard time. Like for real. And then another guy joined in.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Why would they do this? Did they think Elliott was high? He didn’t look high to me. Was there some other controversy or rumor going around, that I didn’t know about?

It was the weirdest thing. Why would you come to an Elliott Smith show and start harassing him from the audience? Other people were also shocked. They tried to drown out the hecklers. But the damage was done.

Elliott got through the gig but it was totally fucked up. Maybe it was about him being on the Oscars. Or maybe it was a case of: “Welcome to New York” (people being super cruel for no apparent reason).

It scared me. I didn’t understand it. When the show was over, I got the hell out of there.

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A year or two later he died in Los Angeles. I felt terrible. And weird. But it seemed inevitable by that point. Like that’s just how it goes. Kurt and now Elliott. The great among us, the truly extraordinary: we celebrate them and shower them with love and then we get the worst possible outcome.

And afterward, we stand there dumbfounded. Like how did that happen? As if it doesn’t happen almost every time. And then we feel like maybe we were responsible in some way. Or that maybe we never deserved them in the first place.

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