From: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org (jinglejangle-digest) To: jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Subject: jinglejangle-digest V6 #85 Reply-To: jinglejangle@smoe.org Sender: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jinglejangle-digest Monday, December 22 2003 Volume 06 : Number 085 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [MLL] Pals pay tribute to Elliott Smith with lots of Xs and Os [K3285@aol] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 22:30:56 EST From: K3285@aol.com Subject: [MLL] Pals pay tribute to Elliott Smith with lots of Xs and Os I just found this from Saturday's Boston Herald. Melissa >Pals pay tribute to Elliott Smith with lots of Xs and Os By Linda Laban Saturday, December 20, 2003 ``The Elliott that I knew, God, he was probably the most intelligent person I have known. The most well-read person. He was an excellent dancer, too. He did a killer moonwalk!'' recalls Mary Lou Lord. The Salem-based singer-songwriter is talking about her friend, fellow pop singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, who died from a self-inflicted knife wound Oct. 21, at age 34. Since his death, much has been said of Smith's troubles with depression and drug abuse. However, in addition to a bevy of gorgeous pop-folk songs, Smith also left behind many memories of his sweet side. On Sunday, at TT the Bear's Place in Cambridge, fans and friends will gather for a special tribute, with proceeds benefiting the Elliott Smith Foundation for Abused Children, a charity Smith set up this year. The event, one of many across the country since Smith's death, is organized by Lord and her husband, Kevin Patey, who fronts the rockabilly band the Rocking Teens. The tribute's lineup, which is being kept under wraps, will feature Lord plus a host of Smith fans, some famous some not. Lord giggled as she recalled one night at a Raging Teens show in New York a few years ago: ``The bass player hadn't shown up and Elliott said, `I'll do it. I'll do it.' He was going to play, but the bass player arrived 10 minutes before the show. (Smith) stayed for the show and he was dancing the whole night to the Raging Teens, this rockabilly band. ``He had this funny dance. He would sort of halfway bend over and do this sideways shimmy, like a sort of sideways hand jive. And he would just march in place. We called it the Elliott Shuffle.'' The pair met at a show in Seattle in 1995. ``He was playing this little old banged-up Stella guitar,'' Lord remembered. ``My first reaction was, `My God! How is he making that thing sound so great?' Then I realized it was him. ``Then I started listening to the lyrics and by the end of the show I was crying. I was sitting there completely within myself.'' Lord immediately invited the then-unknown Smith to tour with her and they became friends and labelmates on the Olympia, Wash., based Kill Rock Stars label. ``He was just the funniest, funniest guy,'' Lord said with a warm laugh. But she also became aware of his intense fragility. ``I'm pretty sure he had issues of trust. Trusting people. Because he could see right through you if you weren't completely honest,'' Lord said. Smith's struggle with drug abuse was difficult for his friends. ``There were a few hard feelings between us at the end because I was part of a little campaign of people that tried to get him help,'' she said. ``It was what I thought was best.I thought, I can't live with seeing him like this.'' Apparently Smith had gotten some help. Before his death, he had completed 34 songs for an album he titled ``From a Basement on the Hill.'' The record is expected to be released early next year. Then came the bad news. ``Kevin and I knew that if he didn't completely get well, that one day we would get a phone call,'' Lord said. ``And we did.'' Smith's label, DreamWorks, pays tribute to Smith on its Web site: ``His enormous talent could change your life with a whisper.'' Ah, yes. But boy, did he like to dance. ------------------------------ End of jinglejangle-digest V6 #85 *********************************