Metro Pulse/Music/Elliott Smith

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Who:
Elliott Smith with Grandaddy

When:
Sun., Oct. 22 at 9 p.m.

Where:
Moose's

Tickets:
$15 at Tickets Unlimited Outlets or 656-4444 to charge by phone

Elliott Smith strikes an acolyte questionless

by Josh Black

I'm not sure if it's the static or the soft, barely audible voice on the other end of the line, but Elliott Smith and I are having a little trouble communicating. Or maybe it's just me.

I'm trying hard, and failing harder, to get over my raging fan-boy complex long enough to string together a decent question; this is, after all, the man who has consistently been composing some of the most achingly beautiful pop music since—well, since anyone I can remember with any clarity. But while listening to his last two offerings, XO and Figure 8, The Beatles spring to mind. And, since Smith has made no secret of his enduring respect for the band, it's an appropriate comparison.

He acknowledges their classic double LP, The White Album, as one of the sparks that ignited his desire to make music in the first place. When describing his first exposure to the record, he says, "I didn't know how to do any of that stuff, so it just sounded like magic."

Since then, he's learned to make a little magic of his own. His recent recordings make moves toward incorporating Lennon-esque rock sensibilities with McCartney's uncanny knack for melody. On Figure 8, Smith is able to balance some considerably aggressive instrumentation with melodies so sweet you'll need to schedule your dental check-up a month or two early this year.

And while he makes no effort to disguise his influences, his own voice in unmistakably clear. Smith's spiraling, fragmented tales of bad love and bohemian excess introduce compelling notes of black comedy, stark realism, and unabashed honesty into a music scene currently populated by some, to put it lightly, less than memorable acts. In "Coming up Roses," a song about love-induced claustrophobia, Smith compares falling in love to a sort of fatal full moon fever: "The moon is a sickle cell / it'll kill you in time / a cold white brother that rides in your blood / like spun glass in sore eyes." That kind of writing is in considerably short supply these days.

So I'm a little awestruck. Silly, maybe. But there it is.

Luckily, Smith seems intuitive enough to know where I'm going with my questions, and that's an unexpected pleasure. The press has consistently made a point of depicting him as a shy, dysfunctional loner, and that's not necessarily the case. Today, he seems both personable, and fairly well spoken.

The misconception is actually a source of some amusement for him. "Well no matter what I say, it [being thought of as shy] continues to happen; and the reason is because I made a couple of records that were acoustic. And everybody knows that if you play acoustic guitar, you must be shy and introverted...I mean, I don't feel bitter about it, I just think it's funny."

Playing acoustic guitar has led critics, and fans alike, to pigeonhole Smith as a folk singer—a label which he vocally denies.

"I know what I grew up listening to, and it really doesn't involve folk," he says. "I heard folk, and I liked it, but that's not really where I'm coming from. I liked really melodic music: things like Stevie Wonder, and the Beatles. And I liked a lot of punk music. Just because somebody plays acoustic guitar doesn't mean it's folk music. Folk music usually has a moral to the story, and more and more, my lyrics are kind of open-ended and fragmented."

It's music that really has more in common with writers like Beckett and Dostoyevski (writers in whom Smith expresses a heavy interest) than with protest songs or any other folk genre you'd care to mention. While folk is busy concentrating on what's wrong with the world, making grand proclamations and whatnot, Smith is examining the areas where happiness might exist in a progressively more unfeeling cultural landscape.

"Yeah, [my music's] kind of bleak at times, but there's a certain kind of humor that comes out of that. It can be kind of funny. And, I don't know, for me it's easier to see the happier thing in my life if I keep my eyes open and see the negative things. That's a clumsy way of saying it. I think, you know, it's hard to see the lightness without any darkness. You gotta have both to be able to see anything. I like that neither [Beckett of Dostoyevski] was afraid to get into dark territory. They just kind of plowed through it."

Critics have notoriously, and somewhat understandably, misunderstood Smith's world view. Ignoring the elements of humor in his songs, they've painted him as an unrelenting pessimist, and have called his work dismal and confessional. Much of this confusion stems from his second, self-titled record, which focuses heavily on drug abuse as a metaphor for the problems of the characters who populate his songs.

"The self-titled record was really dark. But you know, I didn't feel like it was therapeutic or like there was any real point to it at all other than, you know, to make a good record. If I had heard a lot of music that seemed real, then maybe I would have wanted to make a light-weight record."

Smith's music, up to this point, has been undeniably weighty, but it's a weight that's continually undercut by truly funny moments and references (as in "Waltz #2" on XO, where he makes a deadpan allusion to the Everly Brothers' "Cathy's Clown") to decidedly unweighty material. It's a weight that feels good. And a lighter record is certainly within his grasp, as songs like the lighthearted "Color Bars" on Figure 8 prove without a doubt.

Smith has an idea of how just such a record might turn out.

"If it turned out perfectly, it'd be like a whole record of...like Stevie Wonder, you know?"