Gareth Sayeth:

can anyone tell me anything about Elliot Smith as featured on the Good Will Hunting sound track i've never hear of him and neither has my local indie record shop. what has he done before? any albums recomended? all information greatly appreciated.

Well, this has probably been covered by now, but Elliot Smith used to be in the Portland-based band Heatmeiser. From what I understand, he was not a primary songwriter in said band, which was more punk than Smith's solo stuff. Anyway, as Smith began to write more, he released several solo LPs (_Roman Candle_, _Elliot Smith_, and _Either/Or_, in order). The last 2 are on the Kill Rock Stars label. The first is somewhat harder to find, forget the name of the label just now. Mounting tension regarding Smith's growing prominence as a songwriter supposedly contributed to the break up of Heatmeiser in, I think, 1996. At first, Smith was thought to be a Lou Barlow clone, at least by fans of Barlow. Certainly, there are similaries between early Sebadoh/Sentridoh and Smith's work. Anyway, I don't hear people complaining much about that anymore. Smith's last two LPs are pretty highly regarded in American indie circles. The _Good Will Hunting_ sndtk contains 4-5 songs from _Either/Or_ and one new one, "Miss Misery", which has been nominated for an Academy Award. I heard Smith will be performing at the Awards, but don't quote me on that. Some B&S (as promised!)- Recently, a group of y'all (led by Clem, whose contributions I also enjoy on the GBV list) have been contending that the _Tigermilk_ version of "The State I Am In" in vastly superior to the _DOW_ version. I feel just the opposite. The subdued T-milk version slips under my radar, but every time I play the DOW version I yell "Goddamn! That's a great song." Then I go back to the T-milk version, thinking I must've missed something, but no. I just like the more fleshed out version better. So there. TimK ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister@majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------