New Moon

Happy Balantimes Day, dear readers. You are plural, aren't you?

Big news today. Well, it was old news, really. It's just official now. Kill Rock Stars made the announcement that New Moon, a collection of unreleased songs recorded from 1995-1997 by Elliott Smith will be released on May 8, 2007. Most of the 24 songs have been available in one way or another as demos or live tracks, but to have all of these songs in a "finished" state will be another incredible piece to Mr. Smith's oeuvre. I'm not going to get into the question of whether or not any or all of these were meant to be released. Almost all have been played live, and some of them appear to have been in consideration for From a Basement on the Hill [Elliott's intended double-disk release, not the 14-song plus one sound track posthumous collection that I'm happy we got], suggesting that Elliott might have had a crop of songs that he meant to use at some point... but anyway. A lot of them had been part of the "Basement II" leak a while back.

Let's take a look under the hood n' see what we're dealing with. Mp3s are either old demos or live tracks...

Disc 1
1. Angel in the Snow (used to be available on elliottsmithbsides.com, but was taken down by request). This song was released as part of a comp for Yeti Zine. This is a gorgeous, gorgeous song. I think it's one of the more straightforward love songs, if Elliott had any, and has this nice 6/8 time that drives along quietly. Wish I could find a good link for y'all to here. As far as I know, it was never played live. This is probably one of my 10 favorite Elliott Smith songs.
2. Talking to Mary. live. Probably written for/about Mary Lou Lord. A good song.
3.High Times. "I'm so sick and tired trying to change your mind/ when it's so easy to disconnect mine." This song builds up for the first 2 minutes to a nice climax, then backs down to finish with a bit of a whimper.
4.New Monkey. This is one of the songs of which I'm really interested to hear a more polished version. I'm not totally sold on it based on the demos. Lots of people are excited for this song, though.
5.Looking Over My Shoulder. demo. This one used to be known as "Sticks and Stones." "I got nothin' that I want to do/ more than make another sonic 'fuck you' to play."
6.Going Nowhere. I think "High Times", "Going Nowhere", and "New Disaster" (see below) make a beautiful, sad trio.
7.Riot Coming. live.
8.All Cleaned Out. Totally New. No version known.
9.First Timer. live. and This is a later version of the song, called "From a Poison Well" here.
10.Go By. live. Sorry the sound is so bad on that.
11.Miss Misery (Early Version). Maybe it's this piano version?
12.Thirteen. From "Lucky 3". Elliott covered this Big Star song a lot live. Another beautiful one, and a good one to end the first disc.

Disc 2.
1.Georgia Georgia. Another one that had demos available and was taken down. Not super into this one.
2.Whatever (Folk Song in C). live. Another sweet one.
3.Big Decision. Can't find a good live one of this... but i know there are couple out there. This one is more up-tempo. Not upbeat, but up-tempo. It's on a comp somewhere, i think.
4.Placeholder.
5.New Disaster. See note above.
6.Seen How Things are Hard. live.
7.Fear City. Not super into this one...
8.Either/Or.
9.Pretty Mary K (alternate version). I like this better than the song with the same title on "Figure 8".
10.Almost Over. Another without a good link...
11.See You Later. demo . A Very Good Heatmiser Song.
12.Half Right. Another Very Good Heatmiser Song, and a very good way to end the second disc.


Here's Elliott perfoming "See You Later" on the pilot for The Jon Brion Show:



Should be sweet. Let's hope Interscope/Dreamworks follows suit and we can finally here "finished" versions of "True Love", "See You in Heaven", "Dancing on the Highway", "Stickman", and "Blue Mood"......

xomatt

"All right, you wanna hear a stupid pop song I wrote in about a minute?"

That's a video from 1997 (?) (ish?) of an Elliott Smith show when someone asked him to sing "I Figured You Out," a song he wrote but ended up giving away to his friend Mary Lou Lord. It kinda does sound like the fuckin' Eagles. Who wants that? I don't. And The Dude certainly doesn't.

It's funny how things that come so easily are often the things that don't bring the most satisfaction. (Although, if you think about things in terms of amount of work required vs. amount of satisfaction gained...) I think most people have the curse where certain things are just so easy, and even though the results are good or maybe even great, there just isn't much to gain out of it.

Could I be a better friend?
Could I be a better fiancé?
Could I be a better paintings conservator?
Could I be a better poker player?
Could I be a better cook/baker?
Could I be a better screenwriter?
Could I be a better blogger?
A better person?
A better neighbor?
A better video game player?
Better organized?
More financially responsible?
In better shape?

And it goes on and on. Of course, the answer to all of these questions, simply, is yes. Would any of those things take much work? Nope. Something a little sad about that. How satisfied am I with just good enough? I want to be better than that, but being just good enough is so easy. Mediocracy and mediocrity are evil, evil things... I could always try harder - does that mean I never try enough? [And the waters get a little sludgy, though, when you add in social mores and expectations. Some people value physical shape and appearance over all. Some find video games a waste of time. Some find poker immoral... and some don't really care what other people think.]

But anyway. Onward to less philosophical matters.

7 Good Things, 6 February 2007 (in some order, but I'm not quite sure what)
1. alluc.org. Go watch episodes of Mythbusters. I kind of have a crush on Kari Byron. Shh. Don't tell Karla.
2. I have a job lined up for the next two years, starting in September. Craziness. I will be living in the Berkshires, where I will enjoy falling on my ass whilst trying to learn how to snowboard. If all else fails, I can go tubing and drink hot chocolate.
3. Gotta admit, I kinda like Jenny Lewis. I'm not turning this into a music blog. I'm just not hip enough and not quick enough - what drives the whole music blog thing is finding The New Cool Obscure Thing before anyone else. And what do you know, five minutes later, it's not obscure anymore. So on to The Next New Cool Obscure Thing. We are gluttons for cool with ADHD and loyalty issues. Anyway. I like Jenny. I might write her a part in a movie and name her character Jenny Lewis.
4. Watched Donzoko this past weekend. It's Kurosawa's 1957 adaptation of Gorky's Lower Depths. It's a real slow burn - if you look at Jean Renoir's 1936 adaptation, the beginning scenes are about 45 minutes into Kurosawa's. It all ramps up to the last 5 minutes where everything kind of explodes into what is essentially drunken beatboxing (remember - 1957, Japan. OK.) and then an abrupt ending that kind of sums everything up, in a minimal, existential sort of way.
5. During a recent trip for work, I stayed in a room on the 14th floor of a hotel. That's hotel for 13th floor. They don't use 13 because of superstition. The entire time I was there, I kept thinking about Mitch Hedberg: "Hey, what room are you staying in? 1401. No you're not - jump out the window, you will die earlier."
6. I will soon have been on this planet for a quarter of a century.
7. Gametime is coming soon.

xomatt