Downhill music v.05: doldrums

Sorry for being so unavailable lately. As many of you know (because most of you were there), I was in the Southeast doing some visiting last weekend. That was great. I had a blast seeing everybody and for those of you who haven’t been to Clemson in a while I suggest getting there asap, or you might not recognize it. Folks be building shit with wild abandon.

Problems began on Wednesday. On my trip home from the airport my car got into a rockfight with the semi in front of us that was apparently carrying (you guessed it) a load of rocks. We lost, and I’ve got the hole in my windshield to show for it. The dull pain in my knee (as Darnielle might say) isn’t getting any duller, and the charming-ness of the old women who staff my apartment’s rental office is belied by their Fagin-esque desire for my poverty. I did get an iPod…but my computer is in the process of destroying itself such that whatever digital content I own may well be trapped inside it for the foreseeable future. Awesome.

In that spirit, here’s some music from Elliott Smith. He sounds like a grittier, more lyrically gifted Nick Drake, but there are obvious bits of both Lennon and Brian Wilson in there. As I recall, Rachel, Ms. Katie, and I were supposed to see him opening for Belle and Sebastian in Atlanta on October 26, 2003, but Smith died five days before that show. I didn’t know much about him at the time, but in retrospect I would love to have seen him. Here's the music:

Some Song
Between Bars

“Between Bars” is from Smith’s third solo album, 1997’s Either/Or and “Some Song” is a b-side. If you’re interested, there is a ton of demos, live covers, etc. available here.