Sinister: Fw: Lost and found, and lost again - Elliott Smith (+Nick Drake stuff this saturday)

[jim taylor]

I couldn't find Ian's E.S. obituary  [forwarded at the bottom] in the
archive, so I'm not sure if it ever got through last December?

I wanted to read it again, having thought of Elliott Smith a bit recently,
and thankfully found it in an old sent mail folder.
His name keeps appearing in my inbox re: this London tribute to which I
don't have time to contribute in the organising... there is a fund to donate
to though:

The Elliott Smith Memorial Fund  - financial support for children who are
victims of abuse.  http://www.sweetadeline.net/esmf.html

888888888888888888

Since people seem to be interested: more Nick Drake stuff :

This Saturday the BBC are really going for it-

For those I guess mainly in the UK/able to get the digital TV channel BBC4,
a film I've missed at various screenings and festivals for a few years now:

NICK DRAKE: A SKIN TOO FEW
Saturday 22 May 2004 10.55pm-11.45pm BBC 4
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/music/features/nick-drake.shtml


and on the radio + thus available to all online I presume (SEE I DON'T JUST
THINK OF THINGS LONDON + UK :)

21:00-2200
Lost Boy: In Search of Nick Drake
(presented by Brad Pitt!)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/documentaries/nickdrake/nickdrake_about.
shtml

So erm, set the videos, tape recorders. In fact if you have a DVDR and
happen to be not using it and like doing random acts of kindness?

Ok, maybe that *is* abusing the list...

I probably shouldn't bore you with the fact there is a nick drake single out
(yesterday) and album (next monday) worth getting of different stuff and one
brand 'new' track.

Jim x

Ian's words on Elliott Smith follow, and deserve to be archived somewhere
*I* think. I hope you don't disagree... (see below)


----- Original Message -----
From: "jim taylor" <>
To: <sinister at missprint.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2003 1:15 AM
Subject: Fw: Lost and found, and lost again - Elliott Smith


> So erm, this was quite fresh when Ian wrote it. I eventually asked him if
> he'd mind me passing it on to you lot.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ian Anscombe"
> To: <>
> Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 2:36 PM
> Subject: Lost and found, and lost again - Elliott Smith
>
>
> > Lost and found, and lost again - Elliott Smith, a tribute, of sorts.
> >
> >
> > I never had all your albums.
> >
> > I never stood, shivering in the cold, outside Wolverhampton Civic,
> > desperately hoping I'd be able to get in to meet you. I haven't done
> > that in a while, since I met Kirsty Maccoll and it didn't go as planned.
> >
> >
> > I couldn't quote the lyrics to all of your songs.
> >
> > But I'm sad, today.
> >
> > I want to turn round to the people in my office and ask them... 'isn't
> > it terrible?'...'have you heard the news?'.... but they would look at me
> > oddly and say 'who?' and go back to their own worlds, where other things
> > matter more.
> >
> > A friend wrote to me, to talk about it. He said he'd taken you for
> > granted while you were around. I had to agree. We'd been to see you,
> > both of us, on separate occasions. Mine was at Glastonbury, in the year
> > 2000. You were just about to make it big - or big in our terms, those
> > strange, precious terms of those of us who like quiet, sensitive,
> > beautifully strange music just a little bit too much.
> >
> > I don't remember what you wore. I assume I wore what I wore all weekend.
> > I do remember, though, how the crowd went quiet towards the end as you
> > stood, shyly, in front of us, performing slices of your life for our
> > entertainment. I remember how the words of loss, loneliness and hope
> > moved me and how I encountered unplaceable feelings as the words:
> >
> > Don't go home Angeline
> > Stay with me
> > Hanging around
> > At the lost and found
> >
> > Swept out towards me, and into the evening outside, where a festival
> > continued and, beyond that, into a world that lived oblivious to us.
> >
> > I had your albums on my shelf - below the ever-changing list of
> > favourites - Mercury Rev, Belle and Sebastian, The Aislers Set, The
> > Fieldmice, Galaxie 500 - you were there. If I didn't pay you enough
> > attention it was only because the other distractions were so wonderful,
> > so simultaneously happy-and-sad and achingly beautiful and warm that I
> > couldn't let them go while the love affairs lasted.
> > But I knew you were there. Sometimes, I'd come back to you, think I'd
> > like to see you more, and then not do anything about it.
> >
> >
> > I was shocked yesterday. You see some things coming - Kurt Cobain made a
> > living out of sounding suicidal. Nina Simone had been dying slowly for
> > years. It seemed better that she went than shuffled on in the deranged,
> > bitter fashion she had adopted. Barry White made me smile, but he never
> > moved me like you did, he was never one of 'mine'. Even pretty little
> > Zac Foley wasn't such a blow - he'd always belonged to my friend Jo. She
> > found him first, and kept him.
> >
> > But you were a little secret I had to myself. And I realise that's
> > preposterous on one level - anyone who ever sat through 'Good Will
> > Hunting' would have heard your songs - those and the sight of Matt Damon
> > without clothes being the only things that could entice me to sit
> > through it again. You were lauded in the music press, though some of
> > them set you up to knock you down, but that's their way. You were
> > compared to Nick Drake. I saw the comparsion. I didn't know you'd follow
> > it through to its logical extreme.
> >
> > Part of me wants to say you're stupid. Part of me wants to say look at
> > all the people who struggled to stay alive. Look at Kirsty Maccoll -who
> > gave her life to save her child - who gave it for something important.
> > And you threw yours away, or so it seems.
> >
> > Incidentally, I mentioned you when Kirsty died. It made me sad, she'd
> > been a favourite once upon a time, but she'd already slipped away. or I
> > had. I mentioned that you were one of my new friends, and I hadn't
> > needed her any more.
> >
> > I can't say the same this time. So, I took you for granted, but that's
> > what people do. That's how we live, and get through the days. We have
> > too much to think about as it is.
> >
> > And you never would have noticed if I hadn't. I was just a blip on a
> > sales chart. Nothing important. We only met the once, and I had to share
> > you with several hundred people.
> > We won't meet again, clearly, except when I play those songs, and think
> > of how they made me feel, and how they could make me shiver, and bring
> > a warm, happy sort of aloneness.
> >
> > So, I won't call you stupid, because I know that isn't true. You did
> > something selfish, but, ultimately, that's your prerogative. I wish it
> > hadn't happened this way. You felt different. You were a little boy who
> > made it big and so many of us who watched you felt the little boys
> > inside us smiling slightly as you grew.
> >
> > There will be a posthumous album. I'm guessing it will be your biggest
> > yet. You should have stuck around, and seen it through. Now, we'll have
> > to do it for you.
> >
> >
> > I never had all your albums.
> >
> > I never stood, in the cold, outside Wolverhampton Civic. Ever since the
> > day I embarrassed myself in front of Kirsty MacColl, I've been wary of
> > meeting my heroes.
> >
> > I couldn't quote the lyrics to all of your songs.
> >
> > I never knew you.
> >
> > I'll miss you. Good luck, wherever you are.
> >
> >
> > Ian
> >
> >
> >
>
> It still moves me to read Ian's words now. Not a lot you can say after
that
> is there?
>
> The only useful thing I might do is point people in the direction of a
> favourite Australian singer-songwriter of mine, TIM OXLEY. If at least one
> good thing could come of ES's death it might be it prompting me to bang on
> about this guy in Sinister land. I immediately thought ES when I heard one
> of TO's songs, and indeed he references ES (as well as Bonnie Prince
Billy)
> in his songs on the gorgeous 2002 album 'It's All About Love'. Which does
> what it says on the label.
>
> I understand said CD to have received the ginger-fox seal of approval too.
>
> check the discussion boards through the Sweet Adeline ES website for
tribute
> events if they haven't already happened in you area. I'll try + post when
> the London tribute event finally gets sorted out.
>
> Jim x
>
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