“Don’t Call Me Billy [Fear City]”
written and performed by Elliott Smith
1993 // Produced by Elliott Smith
KEVIN MOYER: The music for this unreleased song would eventually evolve into the song “Fear City” which was recorded for the Either / Or sessions but appears on the posthumous release “New Moon”. But this song comes from a cassette. I would love to know the story behind this one, but I have no idea who might know, everyone I asked has no idea. The little breakdown in the middle with him looping and layering talking is fun and to me it just sounds like high school in terms of content but also maybe the songwriting and production, when you can hear him punching in and out.
LARRY CRANE: I would think it was from earlier too, but it’s on a cassette with Carl’s El Camino and others which places it in 1993 or a little earlier.
KEVIN MOYER: OK that makes sense that this would be with Carl’s El Camino (which would eventually become the released song “Kiwi Mad Dog”), as they are both early versions of later songs and sound similar in style and recording too. Elliott definitely revisited lots of his songs, we have seen so many examples of him having early songs that he keeps working on for years and years – songs like this one and “Carl’s El Camino” and “Little Caesers” and “This Bed” – early songs that became other songs later, sometimes with major changes made and other times with only small tweaks made. And I think there was one called “Waiting For The Second Hand”, or maybe that was the name of the high school tape that it was on, but there is one called “Sophistry” that has a Stranger Than Fiction version, a Heatmiser version, and a solo version which is interesting and something we would see him do later also too, trying songs out with different people and in different ways. Anyways, this one, “Don’t Call Me Billy” has a youthful and energetic vibe to it and I think its a fun one. And even though the lyrics from this are completely different from what it would become later as “Fear City”, you can hear the music is very close and some of the arrangement is the same and even some of the vocal inflection and melody from the original carries over too.
NICKOLAS ROSSI: My favorite part is Elliott proclaiming, “Don’t call me Billy!” after Larry comments on Elliott trying to sound like Joe Strummer or Elvis Costello.
KEVIN MOYER: Yeah. Don’t call me Billy. Don’t call me Elvis Costello. Don’t call me Nick Drake. I doubt that this was the intention of the song, but it does play up that side of him not wanting to be compared to other artists, even other artists that he liked. He wanted to be his own artist, his own voice, and his own sound. I think he did it. Definitely.
NICKOLAS ROSSI: “I can do everything…Yes I can, babe” The confidence is incredible.
“3 [King’s Crossing]”
written by Elliott Smith and Garrick Duckler; performed by A Murder of Crows August 1988 // produced by Elliott Smith and Garrick Duckler
NICKOLAS ROSSI: Another example of an early version of a song that would be released years later.
KEVIN MOYER: This is an unreleased early version of the song that would eventually evolve to become “Kings Crossing” which was posthumously released on Elliott’s solo album From A Basement On A Hill. This version was done first by Elliott’s band A Murder of Crows which was another project that Elliott had with high school friend Garrick Duckler and Tony Lash the summer between his first and second year of college. The name of the tape they produced was called The Greenhouse and I think the cassette tape artwork that this song appears on called him Elliott Stillwater-Rotter, which was the first time I heard him called Elliott. He had previously been called by his birth given name Steve up until about 1987 and then was listed as “Johnny Panic” in the 1987 Stranger Than Fiction cassette, only to be finally called Elliott around 1988 if I remember correctly. On this, to me he sounds a bit like he is aping Elvis Costello on this one, still kind of finding his voice, but sounding more like a phase that he was going through rather than an actual seed of the Elliott that was to come.
NICKOLAS ROSSI: The smoky harmonica at the beginning and Elliott’s Elvis Costello impersonation to introduce us to A Murder of Crows felt appropriate with the images of box cars on a freight train passing by.
KEVIN MOYER: Yeah on this one I get that Elvis Costello thing with his voice, but this one also sounds like Bob Dylan to me in the way it is written, and of course the harmonica intro pushes the Bob Dylan vibe too. Which maybe subconsciously fed into your thought about using trains and box car imagery to go with this piece because that’s very Dylanesque too. Elliott has such a beautiful way of describing things in lyrics if he wants, and he can also be intensely brutal the same way if we wants to, and he does it all to a pretty melody. I love to hear him curse in his songs, because he makes it sound so poetic. This one seems like he is purposely describing things as cold and ugly and industrial. I remember someone said the later version of this song, which was released on From A Basement On The Hill, was like Elliott’s version of Dylan’s “Desolation Row” with all the crass characters and imagery that he puts in there and the story. The sex and drugs and the greed. And the lyrics in this early version carry the same tendency and sentiments, it still talks about the human psyche and those who might have questionable integrity or motives and position, but it feels much more directly political with lyrics about “public congress”, “social business”, “confused countries” and mentions of America and politicians John Mitchell and Richard Nixon too. He even mentions “Baby Britain”. I think the only words that carry over in both versions are references to “Beverly Hills” – he says on the early version that “house bills keep a large man wealthy in Beverly Hills” while on the released version he sings that it is “keeping a fat man feeding”; also the words “sex life” and “ex-wife” both still appear in both versions – although in this early version he refers to a “political sex life” and “hiding pictures of you and the ex-wife”; and then the mentions of Christmas and “heavy metal mouths” both make quick appearance in both versions too. And in the well-known lyric “give me one reason not to do it” in the released version, in this earlier version he instead attacks the targets with the changed line “give me one reason why you do it?!”. So just those few things are similar but almost everything else is very different as far as lyrics go, not small adjustments or changes but totally different lines all throughout. And the instrumentation is totally different too, harmonica is replaced by piano, he has that elaborate opening with soundbites and the vocal effects, and the rolling drums and the wall of sound, whereas this early version it is mostly guitar and harmonica. So, it’s a really interesting one to hear because the two versions are similar but also so different.
“Shotgun”
written by Elliott Smith and Garrick Duckler; performed by A Murder of Crows
August 1988 // Produced by Elliott Smith and Garrick Duckler
KEVIN MOYER: This is another unreleased song by Elliott’s band A Murder of Crows from the same “The Greenhouse” tape as the previous song. Other songs that appear on that cassette include tracks titled “Mrs. Kennedy”, “Dear Eunice”, “Back Seat John”, “Condor Avenue”, “Coraliza”, “Chinatown” which has Cello on it, “Maritime Blue” which is the only one with Garrick on vocals instead of Elliott, and “Take A Fall” which a clip of was later used in reverse as an outro to the single version of Figure 8’s “Happiness”.
NICKOLAS ROSSI: This song seemed to be an early indication of where Elliott’s true voice was starting to develop. You can really hear his softness here and I thought it’d be nice to give that hint before we went full on into the louder Heatmiser stuff.
KEVIN MOYER: Even back then the style of guitar playing and the songwriting is recognizable as Elliott, but the vocals sounded a bit too much like Elvis Costello still as Elliott was not yet there in finding what would become his own singing voice and style. It was just a phase he was going through, a path he took on the way to find his own voice and style of vocal delivery. I think this one has less influence to be heard on the vocals, actually, and to me it’s a really haunting song but you can still hear some Elvis Costello influences.
PAUL PULVIRENTI (played drums for Elliott on the XO tour): We met Elvis at a show we played on the XO tour. I never thought of Elliott as one to get star struck, but I could tell that he was pretty geeked out to meet Elvis. I could tell Elvis was really psyched to meet Elliott as well. We were introduced and it was kind of awkward at first, but I remember Elvis said something like “you were nominated for an Oscar and I was only nominated for a Grammy”. Or something to that effect. It was funny and it totally broke the ice.
“Hamburgers”
written and performed by Elliott Smith and Neil Gust
1995 // Produced by Elliott Smith and Neil Gust
KEVIN MOYER: This unreleased track was recorded at the Heatmiser House temporary studio, Neil Gust is on drums and Elliott is on keys. Just an improv jam, it sounds like to me.
NICKOLAS ROSSI: This has got to be the most un-Elliott Smith song I’ve heard played by Elliott Smith. I love thinking about him and Neil just hanging out together and riffing on this tune in full jazz impromptu. Especially while Elliott talks for about meeting Neil for the first time. I wanted to have their early music collaborations as the soundtrack for their college friendship story that Elliott tells on the radio. Although it’s not obvious in the film who was playing the music, it’s a little secret for the fans to discover and was the best way to introduce Neil in the film.
LARRY CRANE: As an archivist, I feel guilty for digging this one up out of the tapes, but it’s a great example of Elliott and Neil just goofing around in the studio. It reminds me of the warm friendship I would see between these two when we were working on sessions or just hanging out.
NEIL GUST (founding member of Heatmiser, guitar and vocals): I don’t remember this? Funny.
“Dirt”
written and performed by Heatmiser (Gust, Lash, Peterson, Smith)
February 1993 // Produced by Heatmiser and Thee Slayer Hippy AKA Steve Hanford
KEVIN MOYER: This is a Heatmiser song, and Elliott was the lead writer on this one but the band shared all writing credits for their first two albums. This was produced by the band along with Thee Slayer Hippy AKA Steve Hanford who music fans will know was the drummer for punk band Poison Idea.
TONY LASH (founding member of Heatmiser, drums): In the early days of the band, I was the one with the most studio experience and ended up in charge of the engineering and production as a result, although certainly everyone had production input. I did end up doing all of the engineering and mixing on Dead Air. Regarding Steve Hanford, I’d been working with him for a few years on various things – Poison Idea’s “Feel the Darkness” was one of my earliest guitar-heavy engineering jobs – so I suggested bringing him in to help us make calls on performances (mostly on the basic tracks) and run the tape machine while we were all tracking as a band. This continued through the basics for Cop & Speeder. I think we all enjoyed his keen musical ear and sense of humor.
NICKOLAS ROSSI: We use this one right after Elliott laments about once being called “dirt” by a truck full of passing rednecks in North Hampton, MA. It only seemed appropriate to open up the Heatmiser story with a full on rock song by the same name. Lucky coincidence.
KEVIN MOYER: It’s an ironic thing because they call him dirt when he is going to work at a bakery, dressed in his baker whites – head to toe clean and sparkling white clothing, so it was an odd thing to yell. It also reminds me of his hair that always seemed greasy, but that’s just how his hair was. I think it was Larry or maybe Mary Lou Lord who was saying that he was out on tour in the hotel room and he showered and washed his hair, and as soon as it dried off it looked just like that again.
LARRY CRANE: During the recording of XO in L.A. I stayed with Elliott for a week at his hotel. He would wake up every morning, wash his hair and shower, we’d go get coffee at the Starbucks on Sunset Blvd, and then hit Sunset Sound and his hair would look oily by then. Mine had been like that when I was going through puberty, so I could imagine the frustration.
MARC SWANSON (friend of Elliott’s, roommate, artist) : Yeah Elliott cared about how he looked and what he wore. He did care. He really cared. He wasn’t into fashion, but he definitely liked specific things that he would wear. Vintage stuff sometimes that we would find, that he wore – but very specific stuff. He would find what he liked and just wear that and he wouldn’t change clothes, especially when he was on tour. He had that shirt with the 88 on it that was a Stephen Sprouse, who styled Debbie Harry but I doubt that Elliott knew it was designer, that he loved and borrowed from me and he wore it to the point that it was literally falling apart. I had to steal it back from him, I had to basically get it myself and tell him I was taking it, and by that point it was unwearable.
KEVIN MOYER: That also reminds me of something that Autumn De Wilde said about the LA sweatshirt that he is wearing on the front of the Figure 8 album. I think it was designer and really expensive and she got it from a stylist for the shoot and he really loved it and kept it, and wore it often. And Gus Van Sant tells a story of Elliott meeting up with him in New York for Good Will Hunting promotion and Elliott wanting to look “more presentable”, and so he wanted to change out of his jeans and into a pair of slacks, but didn’t have time so he changed his pants in the subway and was reprimanded by a subway cop. And for me, I always think of him when I wear red shoes.
MARC SWANSON: He found things that he liked and would stick with it. That wristband that he wore forever, I got that for him at a sporting goods store called Kaplans. They had military stuff also, down on Market Street in San Francisco. It was this old fashioned thing from the 50’s that was meant for support, for bowling or something. Kinda like a leather ace bandage, it looked a bit like bondage gear but thinner – I got a bunch of them, I had one too. I got those military glasses that you see him wear in some pictures too. But he wore that bracelet every day for so many years.
