It’s hard to imagine we’d be chatting up typically rock-star topics such as popular ascent and the loss of outsider status without telling the story of how Mr. Remaining on the fringe seems integral to what he does. And it’s the spokesperson role Smith probably resists most. It’s all false, of course, except for the part about the fans, which speaks volumes more than gossip and rumor. Or better yet, a spokesperson for the disenfranchised fans who adore him the ones who call out titles to songs Smith himself has forgotten, then jog his memory by singing the first few bars. If you believe what’s been written, he’s Minnie Driver’s shy, severely depressed boyfriend who was discovered in a coffeehouse by Gus Van Sant. Smith, too, has been the target of badly aimed shots. Why complicate it?”įrom our perch, we have a view of a basketball goal where members of the Beck and Folds contingents are lazily bouncing the ball off a lopsided rim. I don’t think about that a whole lot-I just like to make up songs and play them. “I’m happy that some people seem to like it. “I can’t picture what would be my audience,” he says. The mere fact we’re discussing comparative celebrity fashion begs the more grounded question of whether Smith’s audience is actually expanding. I don’t usually read my press, but I did a couple times after that, and Entertainment Weekly had a picture of me and the caption was something like, ‘Sedate Beck Impersonator.’ Why? Because of my white suit?” “I became reminded of that many times after the Academy Awards. “Beck already has a white suit, I think,” he says. In light of the wardrobe and bill, I suggest that perhaps tonight Smith can lend Beck the white suit he wore at the Oscars. Despite the June weather, Smith retains his omnipresent knit cap of baby blue and rounds out the ensemble with olive pants and a plain black T-shirt, a blank variation on his more familiar Willie Nelson or Hank Williams jerseys. So we grab a couple of Sierra Nevadas from the amply stocked cooler, take a left past the door marked “Beck: Yoga” and walk out to a sun-drenched set of dilapidated wooden stairs near the backstage loading dock.
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As such, the security forces are on full alert I spend a lot of time explaining I’m a journalist to staff members who suspect I’m going to cart off one of Beck’s oxygen tanks after I’m done stitching shut the legs of Folds’ corduroys. At the Coca-Cola Star Lake Amphitheatre-site of neither lake nor star (it’s foggy) nor star-shaped lake brimming with soft drink-the polite and soft-spoken 28-year-old singer/songwriter is on the third of four dates supporting two popular purveyors of the new kitsch: Beck and Ben Folds Five.
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Today, Smith is in Burgettstown, Pa., a small, pasture-ized cowtown somewhat near Pittsburgh, but closer to nowhere in particular. It’s safe to say that no one will call XO a folk record. Whether Smith’s migration from Portland, Ore., to Brooklyn last year had any inspirational effect is a question that doesn’t need asking New York City is imprinted upon the record like a silent partner’s songwriting credit, lyrically hovering in the background alongside the cosmopolitan touches of piano, strings and brass arrangements.
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XO is the album, and its compositions appropriately conjure the intimacy of handwritten notes, heartwarming and heartsick sentiments and, of course, hugs and kiss-offs to lovers, friends and those who just don’t understand. And now gracing the cover of a plush, orchestrated pop record for the DreamWorks mega-label. Lately, we’ve been seeing Smith in all the unfamiliar places: the Academy Awards, MTV, Entertainment Weekly. “Ever since I got here, they’ve been asking me to do that.
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He’s just flatly delivered his line for a promotional spot marking the anniversary of the venue where he’s performing tonight. Congratulations.” As the video camera’s red light flickers out, Smith shoots a wry, sideways grin at me, obviously amused at the multimedia invasion (well, me and the guy with the camera) going on in his dressing room. “Hi, this is Elliott Smith and it’s been 10 years. Somewhere between acquiring a broader musical palette and bouts of Oscar madness, Elliott Smith has become an unlikely pop star.