Elliott Smith's XO

Elliott Smith's XO PDF Author: Matthew LeMay
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441160094
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 143

Book Description
Many albums could be cited to support the claim that great suffering yields great art. Elliott Smith's XO should not be one of them. Smith's 1998 major label debut defies the "tortured singer-songwriter" stereotype, and takes up this defiance as a central theme. At a time when Smith was being groomed for a particular (and particularly condescending) brand of stardom, he produced a record that eviscerated one of the central assumptions of singersongwriterdom: that pain is beautiful. XO insists that romanticizing personal tragedy can only leave you "deaf and dumb and done." And it backs up this claim with some of the most artful and intelligent music of its day. Matthew LeMay writes an original take on a widely beloved album, steering clear of the sensationalist suicide angles that have dogged most analysis of Elliott Smith's extraordinary work.

Torment Saint

Torment Saint PDF Author: William Todd Schultz
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408840006
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 421

Book Description
Elliott Smith was one of the most gifted songwriters of the nineties, adored by worshipful fans for his subtly melancholic words and melodies. The sadness had its sources in the life. There was trauma from an early age, years of drug abuse and a chronic sense of disconnection that sometimes seemed almost self-engineered. Smith died violently in Los Angeles in 2003, under what some believe to be questionable circumstances, of a single fatal stab wound to the chest. By this time fame had found him, and record buyers who shared the listening experience felt he spoke directly to them from beyond: lonely, lovelorn, frustrated, fighting until he could fight no more. And yet, although his achingly intimate lyrics carried the weight of truth, Smith remained unknowable. In Torment Saint, William Todd Schultz gives us the first proper biography of the rock star, a decade after his death, imbued with affection, authority, sensitivity and long-awaited clarity. Torment Saint draws on Schultz's careful, deeply knowledgeable readings and insights, as well as on more than 150 hours of interviews with close friends, lovers, bandmates, peers, managers, label owners, and recording engineers and producers. This book unravels the remaining mysteries of Smith's life and his shocking, too-early end. It will be an indispensable examination of his life and legacy, both for Smith's legions of fans as well as readers still discovering his songbook.

Elliott Smith

Elliott Smith PDF Author: Autumn de Wilde
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 9780811857994
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Book Description
A compilation of photographs of musician Elliott Smith and transcriptions of interviews with people who knew him, accompanied by a compact disc of unreleased live recordings.

Elliott Smith Songbook

Elliott Smith Songbook PDF Author: Elliott Smith
Publisher: Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation
ISBN: 9781423440130
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
(Guitar Recorded Versions). A fixture on the Portland indie music scene, singer-songwriter Elliott Smith was introduced to the mainstream via his Oscar-nominated song "Miss Misery" from the Good Will Hunting soundtrack. This collection features that song and 17 others, from his first CD, through tracks released after his tragic and untimely death. Includes: Angeles * Clementine * Everything Means Nothing to Me * Pretty (Ugly Before) * Say Yes * Son of Sam * Waltz #2 (XO) * and more, plus a discography and an intro.

Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing

Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing PDF Author: Benjamin Nugent
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786738103
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
Best known for his Oscar-nominated song "Miss Misery" from the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, Elliott Smith was catapulted to the status of indie rock star after performing at the 1997 Academy Awards. Some of his albums, XO and Either/Or among them, would become '90s classics, helping to define an understated aesthetic that owed as much to the melodic emphasis of The Beatles as it did to punk. In the afterglow of the success of "Miss Misery," Smith's fame grew--alongside his struggles with depression and substance abuse. First relocating to Brooklyn, and then finally to L.A., he fell into a downward spiral evident to friends and fans alike, even as he continued to write such beautifully realized songs as "Waltz #2" (XO). Drawing on new interviews with those who knew and loved Smith, and focusing on the crucial interplay between Smith's life and music, Ben Nugent compellingly and sympathetically portrays an enormously gifted, yet troubled, artist.

R.E.M.'s Murmur

R.E.M.'s Murmur PDF Author: J. Niimi
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780826416728
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Book Description
R.E.M.'s debut album, released in 1983, was so far removed from the prevailing trends of American popular music that it still sounds miraculous and out of time today. J. Niimi tells the story of the album's genesis - with fascinating input from Don Dixon and Mitch Easter. He also investigates Michael Stipe's hypnotic, mysterious lyrics, and makes the case for Murmur as a work of Southern Gothic art. EXCEPRT: In the course of an interview that took place some twenty years ago, Michael Stipe made passing reference to an essay that had a deep impact on him. It's what came to his mind when, after having been harangued by fans and journalists alike about Murmur's lyrics, already grown weary from having to continually entertain their broad speculations, he finally threw up his hands. "Anyone who really wants to figure out the words to our songs should probably read this essay, then go back and listen," Stipe told the interviewer. "It talks about how people misinterpret something that's being said, and come up with a little phrase or word that actually defines the essence of what the original was better than the original did." What Stipe was trying to say is that if you want answers to R.E.M., you're not only looking in the wrong place, you're also asking the wrong questions.

Wake Me When It's Over

Wake Me When It's Over PDF Author: Rob Sacher
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780615540450
Category : Businesspeople
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Book Description
This is my story; I am a musician and entrepreneur who created and co-owned nightclubs, now part of the history of music and nightlife in New York City. Starting with my first club, Sanctuary, and continuing with Mission in Manhattan's East Village and ending with the highly regarded Luna Lounge, this is the first book to cover a part of the New York rock music scene that came after punk, new wave, and no wave. Musicians and bands including Joey Ramone, The Psychedelic Furs, The Jesus And Mary Chain, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, The Sugarcubes, The Sisters Of Mercy, and Killing Joke, among others, would party together at Mission. It was the late 1980s, a time of MTV's "120 Minutes," melodic British psychedelic guitar rock, Wax Trax industrial rock records, and a dangerous but exciting Lower East Side. Moving further ahead, my story continues with the sale of the Mission and the opening of Luna Lounge in 1995, possibly the most important venue of its size in New York. Luna was the stage where The Strokes, Interpol, The National, Longwave, stellastarr*, The Bravery, The Hold Steady, and many other bands first performed before friends and early fans of the bands. Also, Luna would host free performances from Marty Willson-Piper (The Church), Black Box Recorder, Sonic Boom, and Kid Rock. This is also a narrative about Elliott Smith as he wrote out his work for the album, XO, while sitting at the Luna Lounge bar and his subsequent launch into stardom. In addition, Luna Lounge was a well known Monday night comedy spot where cutting edge comics worked new material in front of a supportive audience as part of the "Eating It" comedy series, the room where fans could see, among others, Jon Stewart, Janeane Garofalo, Jeff Garlin, Rob Cordry, Greg Fitzsimmons, Lewis Black, Jim Norton, Lewis C.K., and Marc Maron. Finally, this is the story of the forced closing of Luna Lounge, a victim of the rising real estate values which came as a result of the quality of life initiatives set out by the Republican mayors who have controlled the city for the last twenty years. More information is available at the author's website, wakeme.net.

Your Band Sucks

Your Band Sucks PDF Author: Jon Fine
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 067002659X
Category : Alternative rock music
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
"Jon Fine spent nearly thirty years performing and recording with bands that played various forms of aggressive and challenging underground rock music, and, as he writes in this memoir, at no point were any of those bands 'ever threatened, even distantly, by actual fame.' Yet when members of his first band, Bitch Magnet, reunited after twenty-one years to tour ... diehard longtime fans traveled from far and wide to attend those shows, despite creeping middle-age obligations of parenthood and 9-to-5 jobs, testament to the remarkable staying power of the indie culture that the bands predating the likes of Bitch Magnet--among them Black Flag, Mission of Burma, and Sonic Youth --willed into existence through sheer determination and a shared disdain for the mediocrity of contemporary popular music"--Amazon.com.
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