“Solo Symphonic”
2013-2014 // SCORE // written and performed and produced by Kevin Moyer
KEVIN MOYER: I think this was another score piece that I sent that I took from something else. I did that with a bunch of things I sent over from stuff that I recorded for score, just taking little parts of other songs and using them separated or repeating them to make their own thing. So I don’t necessarily remember where this came from other than it was most certainly done on an acoustic, a nice little guitar that was actually the first guitar i ever owned and it’s just got this really nice sound. And it sounds to be overlaid a few times and with reverb too. When I heard it, the way it first rings, it sounded a bit like a sound you might hear from a symphony when they are testing or cueing. Just kind of ringing in waves. That and it sounds so much bigger than just a single acoustic, and the way it kind of is used during the portion of Elliott going solo is where the name of the song came from. It’s just a piece of sound actually, not even a song really. But it helps to add color and mood.
“Coming Up Roses”
written and performed by Elliott Smith
Jan-Feb 1995 // Produced by Elliott Smith
KEVIN MOYER: This one appears on the 1995 self-titled studio release via Kill Rock Stars and is the first Elliott Smith solo song to have a music video.
NICKOLAS ROSSI: This track seemed to be the most obvious to include here, because of its beginnings with Elliott and Ross’ friendship and future collaborations. It really helps tell us how this relationship began, so I thought it was important to have this song with the scene of making this first solo music video for Elliott.
KEVIN MOYER: I love the story about the hearse that we see in the video and also seeing Elliott fall when running along the side of the road.
ROSS HARRIS (directed the Elliott’s videos “Coming Up Roses,” “Miss Misery,” and Heatmiser’s “Plainclothes Man.”): The fall. Elliott and I went out to a lonely farm road next to a field of marigolds to shoot some footage. I asked Elliott to run with the guitar case while I filmed him from my station wagon with a Super 8 camera. I was driving and trying to film him at the same time so I had to keep looking at the road and then back at the camera. Super sketchy but we were alone on this road that maybe two cars drive on in a day. So on the first take I’m driving along and Elliott is running and I glance at the road and then back at Elliott and he’s not there. Just a cloud of dust. I look back and he’s on the ground having tripped and fallen. Back then there was no instant play back on a camera like we have now. I couldn’t be sure that I had even captured the fall so I put the car in reverse and after I made sure Elliott was not hurt I sheepishly asked him to do it again. He was up for it and he actually did the fall two more times. Totally eating crap each time. Really going for it. Incredible. Funny enough I used the first real fall. I had captured it in frame after all. That’s one of the reasons I hate writing video treatments. In my mind I know the best stuff is always going to be an accident or some unintended incident.
KEVIN MOYER: And tell us the story about the kid in the bush!
ROSS HARRIS: So while we were filming Coming Up Roses we used to go over to my neighbors basketball court and shoot a ball around and smoke joints. That’s where we came up with our plan for whatever we wanted to shoot for the video. At the time my neighbor had been kicked out of his house by his parents but instead of getting a place he just moved into a rather large bush on the property down by the basketball court. So we would visit him in his bush as well as shoot the ball. A couple years later I ran into Elliott at a bar in LA. We hadn’t seen each other for a while and we were catching up. The typical stuff. How’s the family etc. Elliott asked me with great concern about my neighbor and if he was still living in the bush. I told him that he had patched things up with his parents and was living in the garage. No longer in the bush but no quite fully back in the house. Elliott replied with genuine relief “Oh that’s great.” This was probably days after learning he was nominated for the Oscar. The height of his career and totally concerned for my neighbor, a guy he had spoken to maybe a handful of times, well being. He then asked me to direct the Miss Misery video.
“Baby Britain (instrumental)”
written and performed by Elliott Smith
October 17-20, 1996 // Produced by Elliott Smith
KEVIN MOYER: This was the basic track recorded for “Lucky Three” film by Jem Cohen with overdubs added by Elliott later.
NICKOLAS ROSSI: This soft instrumental was used to encourage a bit of a reflective mood from an interview with Elliott about managing his music and his bands. It felt like a nice piece to have in the background while he tried to answer questions about his band.
KEVIN MOYER: In one of the very early rough edits I suggested trying the alternate version of “Between The Bars” here – it’s a version that is done in a higher key, so it feels less somber and it starts with the sound of rain on a windowsill – but it didn’t work because it had too much going on. Since this “Baby Britain Instrumental” is softer and more introspective, I think it was the right choice and a much better fit.
LARRY CRANE: In “Lucky Three” Elliott played this instrumental that Jem Cohen used as intro music. It took me a while to realize it was the gestation of “Baby Britain”. I have no idea why he grabbed the solo acoustic guitar track and fleshed it out with overdubs, but he did and we have this lusher version. It makes a lot of sense to have it used in another film project. A lot of Elliott’s music works well in film, something Gus Van Sant obviously felt several years later with Good Will Hunting.
