On this the seventh anniversary of the death of folk rocker Elliott Smith, we pause to remember the great songwriter.
Life is a rush, it is one damn thing after another. And seven years is seventy years in pop music, but Smith’s spirit hovers over indie as the many people his music touched can’t move away and the many people he influenced move on to greater and greater success.
The poetic, depressive, cathartic wonder of folk-rock remains a cornerstone in the increasingly mainstreamed indie world and, to be perfectly frank, his inheritors have no idea what to do with his memory. This year there has been a couple of remixes and a baffling greatest hits compilation.
What is needed is what Alyson Camus has been doing for rock nyc: a formatting of all his songs by proximity to specific albums. Essentially, there should be deluxe double CDs of all his albums . Also, a series of live albums detailing the various stages of his stage career. A compilation from his first band if one doesn’t exists. And finally a true tribute album. There is nobody in the biz who wouldn’t be proud to sing a Smith song.
It might also help if his immediate family bit the bullet and forced the police to re-activate the case. M. Kriss and Alyson Camus have done everything in their power to push the LAPD but rock nyc have no legal right to do so. The LAPD don’t give a shit what anybody says. They just don’t want to be sued for botching the investigation.
So seven years ago today Elliott Smith died.
Put on the records and remember as you will.