I recently got my hands on a whole caboodle of covers by the late great Elliott Smith, about 50 of them to be exact. And what better way to treat you to some of them than with a made up holiday. We here at Veritas Lux Mea are huge fans of made-up holidays, such as Festivus, Lebowski Days, and now, Elliott Smith Week. So stop by all this week to see what's in store for Elliott Smith week, and as always, enjoy the tunes.
Of course, you could just google Elliott Smith covers and probably find a zip file of all of the tunes, but what fun would that be?
Pitchfork article announcing the death of Elliott Smith in 2003:
Smith grew up near Dallas, TX, where he often had trouble fitting in and was physically and emotionally tormented by insensitive schoolmates. Smith went to high school in Portland, OR and attended college in Massachusetts. In 1992, Smith formed Heatmiser with bandmates Neil Gust, Tony Lash, and later Sam Coomes. Heatmiser released three albums and an EP, but it was Smith's self-recorded 1994 effort Roman Candle that drew attention to Smith's spare, confessional songwriting and innovative guitar work. After Heatmiser disbanded in 1996, Smith's solo career took off-- eventually landing the singer several songs on the soundtrack to Gus Van Sant's 1997 film Good Will Hunting, including the Oscar-nominated "Miss Misery."
Smith signed with Dreamworks in 1998, quickly serving up the baroque XO and ambitious Figure 8, backing both releases up with extensive full-band tours. Last year, Smith enlisted Flaming Lips manager Scott Booker to manage his career and shop Basement to indie labels. In the last ten months, Smith had played acoustic sets extensively across the U.S., including stops in Los Angeles, New York, Austin, Philly, and Hoboken. Smith's last public performance was at the University of Utah's Redfest festival last month in Salt Lake City.
In addition to his work with Heatmiser and his brief but productive solo career, Smith also lent his songs and musicianship to friends and fellow artists including Mary Lou Lord, Pete Krebs, Lois, The Spinanes, Quasi, No. 2, Guided By Voices, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and Goldenboy...
First up are a couple of Beatles tracks Elliott covered from 2000-2002. The audio quality isn't great on some of them because they are all live tracks, but it's good enough
Elliott Smith - "Something" (Beatles)
Elliott Smith - "I Me Mine" (Beatles)
Elliott Smith - "Yer Blues" (Beatles)
Elliott Smith - "Long Long Long" (Beatles)
Other people like to cover too! Chris Garneau covers Elliott Smith at MOKB