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I'm in a very odd state of mind, having just ehard about Elliott Smith's death. It makes me very sad, both for and him and for myself--for the selfish reason that I was looking forward to decades more of his music and the more personal reason that it feels like some part of my past has died too. I never knew Elliott (though I met him a few times--he was on the periphery of my Portland social scene) but ever since I heard "Last Call" his music was the literal and metaphoric soundtrack to my life in Portland. (For good and for ill, if you know what I mean.)

The last couple of times I'd seen him play, I thought about how much I missed seeing in Portland in the old days--shows at small venues like EJ's or the Living Room at La Luna. And he'd always sit down to to play, damnit, making it really hard to see him if you weren't up front. I think my fondest memory of seeing him play was at the Clinton St. Theater, which I ran at the time. We'd booked him and The Softies for the final show of their tour. My theater was crappy, my sound system was for shit, but the place was packed, no one making a sound as he sat and played. I sat in the aisle near the front and just listened. I remember it was the first time I head "Say Yes." It was the last song of his set and he introduced it with a wry smile, sayng "Now here's a happy song that I wrote."