"Stray" is worth a serious listen. Not only is it vintage Heatmiser, it captures Elliott in barking, throaty Joe Strummer mode, universes away from the more Chet Baker vocal style he'd later unveil on "Roman Candle." The pressing was white vinyl, and in keeping with Heatmiser's scrupulously 50/50 songwriting arrangement, the B-side went to Gust ("Can't Be Touched"). For CSR 2, Swofford and label co-founder Chris Cooper knew what they wanted: Elliott's song "Stray." After a bit of back and forth, everyone agreed. A smart band, smart individuals." A meeting was set in the basement of the house Heatmiser lived and practiced in, on SE 16th in Portland, just off Division (a street Elliott would later reference in more than one song). By now Swofford also knew Heatmiser well, excited by their "raw, aggressive, crushing sound." Plus, just as important, "Heatmiser had manners. Like everyone else, he adored Hazel immediately, and Cavity Search brought out their first vinyl seven-inch (CSR 1), " J Hell" (with two B-sides, "Day-Glo" and "Joe Louis Punchout"). Virtually nightly Swofford scouted talent. Overripe, chaotic, heroin-infused venues like Satyricon hosted fresh, adventurous, intensely original bands - Hazel, Crackerbash, Pond, Dharma Bums, and eventually, Elliott's Heatmiser. Heatmiser gigged in college, they wrote and composed (even joke songs like “The Dicks on D-3,” about dipshits living below them), they recorded in dorm stairwells where the sound was thickest, but they didn't take off until Elliott and Gust brought the band to Portland in the early '90s, adding drummer Tony Lash (who'd also played in Stranger Than Fiction) and Oberlin bassist Brandt Peterson.Įarly '90s Portland warrants an essay all its own. It never stopped, and it almost never failed him. This was easily the surest thing in his life. No matter where he was, no matter who he was with, no matter how hospitable the conditions, Elliott wrote and recorded music. What's clear, from seventh grade on, is the force of the need to create. In college at Hampshire, Elliott did what he'd always done - he started another band, Heatmiser, with gifted guitarist friend Neil Gust. Now and then Elliott wrote his own lyrics but he never really liked them. The songs were dense, complex, multi-sectioned, a blend of political satire (inspired by Duckler) and introspective soul-scouring. The process, then, was this: Duckler wrote words, and he passed them along to Elliott, who, with astonishing effortlessness, put the words to music.
He moved to Portland, Oregon, at age 14, where he attended Lincoln High School downtown and formed the band Stranger Than Fiction with songwriting partner Garrick Duckler, a brilliantly precocious lyricist, fond of writers like Pinter and Kafka. They played live now and then - at Duckler’s girlfriend’s 16th birthday party, for club gatherings (where they once shouted out, “Live from the Russian Club!”). Several cassettes followed, also recorded on various four-tracks, some sold at a local record store called Djangos. Since middle school in Texas on a friend's dad's borrowed four-track Elliott had been learning and writing and recording songs, a mix of Rush covers (he adored Rush, as a lot of musically gifted kids do) and originals (songs like "Inspector Detector," "Ocean," "Outward Bound," "#37"). (L-R: Tony Lash, Brandt Peterson, Neil Gust, Elliott Smith) If it's a masterpiece of its form - literally homemade, recorded on zero budget, featuring four unnamed songs - it's an accidental masterpiece. "Roman Candle" wasn't meant to be a record. The album's latent story is complicatedly charming. Cavity Search Records co-founder Denny Swofford, who brought the record out, called the sound quality "perfectly bad." The songs themselves were just plain perfect.Įlliott and the friends with whom he recorded in middle school in Texas Looking back from a two-decade distance, it's a case of art rising above conditions, like a kid given a screwdriver and building a chapel. (Click the photos to view them full-size)Įlliott Smith's archetypally indie "Roman Candle" album turns 20 years old on Monday. All photos courtesy of JJ Gonson Photography, except where noted.
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