Happy Birthday to Elliott Smith

Today, Elliott Smith would have turned 38. Were he still around, he might be readying the follow-up to From a Basement on the Hill. Or perhaps he'd be more focused on running the New Monkey studio, helping out L.A. musicians get their albums recorded in the highest quality while paying next to nothing. He might have married his girlfriend Jennifer Chiba by this time, and maybe they'd feel comfortable enough at this point to really start thinking about a family. Certainly, he'd still be focused on the charitable causes that meant so much to him, such as helping abused children find their voices through art.

Elliott made some great mistakes in his life, but what made up for that was the wellspring of compassion that he showed, to his family and friends, even to complete strangers, and to those who only knew of him from album covers and that voice on the headphones and that tiny guy sitting on a chair up on stage, not always getting every note right, but always getting the sentiment across perfectly.

When it comes down to it, were he still around, it wouldn't matter to some people, even those who love his music most, whether he was still recording new songs. We would just want to know that he's okay, because at this point he deserved it.

We miss you, Elliott. We're always going to miss you, and we still hope you're okay.

Lavender Diamond - Imagine Our Love review

Lavender Diamond - Imagine Our Love (2007, Matador Records)


Instantly, when I first heard the Lavender Diamond song "You Broke My Heart" I fell in love with it. That song just feels like the swelling of a heart until it bursts. After posting it on several message boards, I found that other people's reactions were either the same, or they vehemently hated it. Several gave stories about how terrible Lavender Diamond was as an opening act, I think for the Decemberists. Who knows which side you might come down on. In fact, I'm not even sure where Boone stands on them yet.

That song is not on this, their first full-length album, but Imagine Our Love does begin with quite a similar heart-thumper of a tune, "Oh No." This music is etheral, gorgeous and entirely heartfelt... and if for some reason or another, that doesn't translate to their live show, then fuck it. Just spin this album again, because it's a thing of beauty.

Handsome Furs - Plague Park review

Handsome Furs - Plague Park (2007, Sub Pop Records)


With Spencer Krug getting his kicks in with Sunset Rubdown and Swan Lake, the other frontman of Wolf Parade, Dan Boeckner, had some time on his has, and thus we get Handsome Furs, his new project with his fiancée Alexei Perry. The result is nearly as strong as Boeckner's efforts on Wolf Parades Apologies to the Queen Mary. "Handsome Furs Hates This City," for instance, comes across only slightly less catchy than "Same Ghost Every Night." Perhaps there's nothing on par with "Shine a Light" on this record, but it's still worth grabbing if you like the Wolf Parade songs that sound like they were being sung by Beck.

Mixtapes & Cellmates - A Retrospective review

Mixtapes & Cellmates - A Retrospective (2007, No Method Records)


Boone and I have both had an insatiable love for Sweden's the Radio Dept. for months now, so it's no surprise that I'm instantly head over heels for another Swedish synth-heavy pop band. It's in true spirit of bands like Joy Division that M&C can manage to create songs that are at once so reflectively mournful and dancibly catchy.

Here, their first two EPs have been collected on one album, so now's the perfect time to catch up!