The Misery Machine - The Life & Tragic Death of Elliott Smith | "Mr. Misery" | Romanticism of Self Harm in the 2000's

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

This week, Drewby and Yergy discuss the life and death of Elliott Smith, who was an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and lived much of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he first gained popularity. Smith's primary instrument was the guitar, though he also played piano, clarinet, bass guitar, drums, and harmonica.  Smith was a drinker and drug user. He was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and major depressive disorder. His struggles with drugs and mental illness affected his life and work, and often appeared in his lyrics. In 2003 at the age of 34, he died in Los Angeles, California from two stab wounds to the chest. The autopsy evidence was inconclusive as to whether the wounds were self-inflicted or the result of homicide. At the time of his death, Smith was working on his sixth studio album, From a Basement on the Hill, which was posthumously completed and released in 2004. We discuss some of the theories surrounding the case, specifically the evidence that has circulated that his then girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba may have allegedly had something to do with his death. We also discuss the state of the music scene at the time, and how his music and the music of others may have influenced the romanticism of self harm and abuse among fans during the early 2000's. Join Our Facebook Group to Request a Topic: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 Support Our Patreon For More Unreleased Content: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast Discord: https://discord.gg/kCCzjZM #podcast #documentary #truecrime  Source Material: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Smith https://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/mar/19/popandrock.elliottsmith https://drownedinsound.com/news/8767-elliott-smith--coroners-report-posted-online-happy-ending-release-shelved https://youtu.be/AzfQ7bZgQtc https://justiceforelliottsmithcom.wordpress.com/

I'm Drewby and we're at the Garmin building in Yarmouth, Maine. And this week we're doing a case that was very popular in my teens and still gets talked about to this day. That is the death or really the life and death of Elliot Smith. Yes, we thought this was a pertinent one to do as the 17th anniversary of his death just passed this past week on the 21st. Yeah, it's a very interesting one because even though his death is thought to be as suicide, The LAPD actually still has a case listed as undetermined. Yes, it's still an open. It's still an open case according to the LAPD.

If you're listening on YouTube, please hit like and subscribe. I think by the time this drops will have 1,300 subscribers. Thank you so much for everybody. Let's help us out so far. And if you could hit that like button and subscribe and the bell notification, that goes a long way to help us out. Without further ado. The case of Elliot Smith.

Stephen Paul Smith, best known as Elliot Smith, was an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and lived much of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he first gained popularity. Smith's primary instrument was the guitar, though he also played piano, clarinet, bass, drums, and harmonica. Smith's parents divorced when he was six months old. He endured a difficult childhood and a troubled relationship with his stepfather. Smith stated that he may have been sexually abused by his stepfather at a young age, an allegation which his stepfather has denied. Smith began playing piano at age nine and at 10 years old began learning guitar on a small

acoustic bought for him by his father. At 14, Smith left his mother's home in Texas and moved to Portland, Oregon, to live with his father, who was then working as a psychiatrist. It was around this time that Smith began using drugs, including alcohol, with friends. After graduation, Smith began calling himself Elliot. saying that he thought Steve sounded too much like a jock name and Stephen sounded too bookish. In 1991, Smith graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts with a degree in philosophy and political science. After he graduated, he worked in a bakery back in Portland with a bachelor's degree in philosophy and legal theory.

While he was at Hampshire, Smith formed the band Heat Miser, named after, what is that, the Frosty, the Snowman. No, it's Year without Santa Claus. Yeah, year without Santa Claus, the Snowmiser, Heat Miser. After graduation, the band began playing around Portland, Oregon in 1992. So what I understand is that he met the other guitarist at Hampshire College, and then they both relocated back to Portland. So around this time, Smith worked a number of odd jobs around Portland, including installing drywall, spreading gravel, transplanting bamboo trees, and painting the roof of a warehouse

with heat reflective paint. He was also on unemployment for a period of time, which he considered a artist grant. begun his solo career while still in heat miser and the success of his first two releases created distance and tension with his bands by this time smith's already heavy drinking was being compounded with the use of antidepressants in 1997 smith was selected by director gus van sant to be part of the goodwill hunting soundtrack smith recorded an orchestral version of between the bars probably his most known and popular song with the help of composer danny elfman for the movie he also contributed a new song titled Miss Misery and three previously released tracks.

The film was a commercial and critical success and Smith was nominated for an Academy Award for Miss Misery. I'd say with some circles, Miss Misery's is more popular song. I'd say it's arguable for sure. We'll kind of get more into that a little bit later. Yeah, for sure. But around this time, Smith signed to a major record label DreamWorks records. Smith fell into depression, speaking openly of considering suicide, and on at least one occasion,

made it a serious attempt at ending his own life. While in North Carolina, he became severely intoxicated and ran off a cliff. He landed on a tree which badly impaled him but broke his fall. Smith then relocated from Portland to Brooklyn and then to Los Angeles in 1999, taking up residence at a cabin in the Silver Lake section of town where he would regularly play intimate acoustic shows at local venues like the Silver Lake Lounge. The final album that Smith completed, which was called Figure 8, was released on April 18th of 2000.

Album art in promotional pictures from the period showed Smith looking cleaned up and put together. An extensive tour ensued, bookended by television appearances on late night with Conan O'Brien and the late show David Letterman. However, Smith's condition began to deteriorate as he had become addicted to heroin around towards the end of the figure eight tour. Around the time he began recording his final album, Smith began to display signs of paranoia, often believing that a white van followed him wherever he went. He would have friends drop him off for recording sessions almost a mile away from the studio, and to reach the location, he would trudge through hundreds of yards of brushing cliffs. He started telling people that DreamWorks was out to get him.

During this period, Smith hardly ate, subsisting primarily on ice cream. He would go on without sleeping for several days and sleep for an entire day. So Smith's song Needle in the Hay, up there, one of his most well-known songs. It was included in the Wes Anderson, 2001 dark comedy film, The Royal Tenenbaum. during a suicide attempt scene. Isn't that one of your favorite movies? Smith was originally supposed to contribute a cover of the Beatles Hey Jude for the film, but he failed to do so in time.

So Wes Anderson had to use the Mutato Musica Orchestra's version of the track instead, which I'm unfamiliar with. Anderson would later say that Smith was, quote, in a bad state at the time. We're going to have to sit and have a Wes Anderson marathon because there's so many that you should see and I really think you'd like a lot of this film. I saw a life aquatic, but I was in my teens and I was half asleep at the time I saw it. And I think that's the only Wes Anderson movie I've ever seen. It's a really good movie.

So Smith's Live shows during 2001 and 2002 were infrequent, typically in the Pacific Northwest or Los Angeles. There was concern over his appearance and performance. His hair was uncharacteristically greasy and long. His face was bearded and gone. And during his songs, he exhibited alarming signs of memory loss. At other performances in San Francisco that month, the audience began shouting out lyrics when Smith could not remember that. I had read that a while ago. I mean, clearly when you're on the internet in the early 2000s, the information is suspect or not as easily obtainable. But I had read that about him. And I didn't realize it was that bad.

At a concert on May 2nd in Chicago, Smith was on stage for nearly an hour but failed to complete half of the songs. Smith's performance was reviewed as, quote, undoubtedly one of the worst performances ever by a musician. So in the face of this, he had attempted to go to rehab several times, but found that he was unable to relate to the popular treatments for people with substance use disorders that used a 12-step program. In 2002, Smith went to the neurotransmitter Restoration Center in Beverly Hills to start a course of treatment for substance abuse disorder. Smith attempted to reestablish his credibility as a live performer at two sold-out acoustic concerts in 2003. Before the show, Smith scrawled Callie the Destroyer in large block letters with permanent ink on his left arm, which was visible to the crowd during the performance. After his 34th birthday on August 6, 2003, he gave up alcohol. Not only this, according to friends, up until his death, he was increasingly trying to quit more things cold turkey, ranging from red meat to heroin.

In cigarettes. And yeah, and cigarettes as well. Very hard. So imagine even if you don't have any sort of experience quitting some of these things, I'm sure you can reason what it would be like to quit all of these things at once. His final show was at Redfest at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on September 19, 2003. The final song he played live was a cover. It was long, long, long by Beatles.

Smith died on October 21st, 2003 at the age of 34 from two stab wounds. to the chest. At the time of the stabbing, he was at his Le Moyne Street home in Echo Park, California, where he lived with his girlfriend at the time, Jennifer Chiba. According to the neighbors, the couple were fighting very loudly. Cheetah alleges the two are arguing, and she locked herself in the bathroom to take a shower. Five to ten minutes later, Chiba heard him scream and upon opening the door saw Smith standing with a knife in his chest, she pulled the knife out, after which he collapsed and she called 911 at 12.18 p.m. Chiba performed CPR with the health. help of a dispatcher. Unfortunately, Smith died in the hospital. His time of death listed as 1.36 p.m.

When questioned by the police, Chiba pointed to a possible suicide note left on the kitchen table, written on a post-it note read, I'm so sorry, hyphen, love Elliot, God forgive me. The name Elliot is misspelled as Elliott with one T in the coroner's report of the note, but it's not actually misspelled on the post-it note. This is a common misconception about this. When this happened, I remember a bunch of people saying, oh, it's obvious he got murdered because the suicide note, his name was spelled wrong. No, that was just an error on the coroner's report. So despite all this, Smith's death was reported as a suicide.

However, the official autopsy report released in December 2003 left open the question of homicide. And I've read the autopsy report. I think we can include some screenshots of it. They say it's undetermined. It's officially undetermined. I mean, they'll say the official. cause of death is exanguation, lots of blood, but they did not officially rule it a suicide on the autopsy report. So according to Pitchfork, record producer Larry Crane reported on his

tape-bought message board that he had a plan to help Smith mix his album in mid-November. Crane wrote, I hadn't talked to Elliot in over a year. His girlfriend, Jennifer, called me last week and asked if I'd come to L.A. and help mix and finish Smith's album. I said, yes, of course, and chat with Elliot for the first time in ages. It seems surreal that he would call me to finish an album and then a week later kill himself. I talked to Jennifer this morning who was obviously shattered and in tears, and she said, I don't understand he was so healthy. The coroner reported that no traces illegal substances or alcohol were found in Smith's system at the time of death,

but did find prescribed therapeutic levels of antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, and ADHD medications including colanzapam, metazepine, admoxatine, and amphetamine. Forgive me if I didn't say any of those correctly. There were no hesitation wounds, which is unusual considering hesitation wounds are very typical of suicide by self-infliction. Due to the inconclusive autopsy ruling, the Los Angeles Police Department's investigation remains open to this day. So never lost for an opinion. Courtney Love called it the best suicide she had ever heard of. Of course.

Of course. I mean, I love Whole, but she can be rather brash at times. Although killing yourself in this way is uncommon, according to the LA coroner's office that dealt with Smith's death, less than 4% of suicides from 2001 to 2002 were due to sharp-forced trauma. And those were generally wrist-slashings. Yeah, the vast majority are wrist-slashings. Yeah, so some cases will report people having turned the knife sideways and then plunging it between their ribs. This is an extremely painful way to die and is a last resort for people who no longer care about themselves. So this isn't going to be a really common way people do things.

Yeah. So he didn't shove it in his ribs. He actually shoved it into his chest. And from what I read, it did damage to his heart. It's quite an unusual way. I mean, again, it's not out of the realm of possibility. But this is the only suicide that I've ever read about that was performed this way without hesitation marks.

No. And usually people doing that are going to be squatted down and kind of do it up. through the rib cage. Yes, that's correct. They'll fall on the blade. They'll basically use their weight. However, he did this standing, allegedly. And we go into this later, but it should be noted that there were, according to the autopsy

reports, looks like defensive wounds on his arms. That looked fresh. Some people contest this for certain reasons. We'll get into that. According to some of Smith's friends, he indeed, he may have tried to kill himself in this way before, possibly in 1997. His producer, Larry Crane, remembers Smith showing him a pretty bad scar on his chest. When he moved to New York, he told another friend that he spent his nights walking along the

empty subway tracks. Within weeks of Smith's death, rumors began to emerge that painted a markedly different picture of his final months. Smith, it was alleged, had not kicked drugs at all, nor was his relationship with Cheba as idyllic as it had been suggested. What I found to be a very, very helpful resource, I came across a YouTube video, which we have linked in the show notes. This person named, and I think it's Allison Kamis, it could be Allison Camus, if it's pronounced the French way, like Albert Camus, the famous French philosopher. She also has a site, Justice for Elliott

Smithcom.com.com. And there's a lot of good information here. Some that I had read, when I was a teen because when I found out about this, the autopsy report went up on the smoking gun pretty quickly. There was some wide suspicion on his girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba, given things on the autopsy report and given some things that Elliot's friends were saying. And I can't say this for certain, but I remember at the time that I feel like the case was originally, and this is when I was a teenager, at least reported or ruled as a suicide, but then the case was reopened. and it's still open now. And I think it should be open. And we're going to go over some reasons as to why there are some suspicions around Jennifer Chiba and why it's quite possible that Elliot Smith may not have actually killed himself.

So Chiba holds an MA in clinical art therapy and is a licensed marriage and family therapist. LMFT. Yep. First receiving this license in 1995 and it's been renewed. several times since then. An email was sent to Robin Smith Gerardo, who is the assistant director for human resources for five acres, which is a school for abused and damaged children where Chiba had worked at as an art therapist for some time, according to a 2004 article in Spin magazine. So Gerato stated that all of our direct care staff, including therapists, are trained in

CPR and first aid. Gerato goes on to state that we cannot prove that Jennifer Chiba received first aid trading annually, but looking at the place she worked, it seems that it would be the case. It is a state requirement, especially when working with damaged children. So this email was sent by Allison K. Amos. She has record of that. So a lot of the things listed are on her site, on her YouTube video. And I'll say at front, she is alleging to have spoken to a lot of Elliott's friends and family members under the condition of anonymity. So keep that in mind, but I have all the references in the show notes. So knowing that she's trained in CPR, she is a therapist. She's not a paramedic, but she is trained in CPR. She's still a health care

worker. She should have some knowledge about health care work. And I don't want to shame somebody because I think a lot of people in a moment of pure panic might just pull the knife out in the situation. But I would put slightly more responsibility on somebody in her position to know that pulling the knife out tends to be what killed somebody. And the autopsy report confirms that the immediate cause of death is a sanguination. He bled out within about an hour. Alison Kamis says in her video, it's always possible to think she removed the knife in a moment of pure panic, but what killed Elliot is the removal of the knife as he lost all his blood. You know, it's, it's hard to argue that fact. Allegedly a close family member who from my observation appeared to want to remain anonymous

wrote to this YouTube channel stating, quote, Jennifer told me that her call for an ambulance was delayed because her cell phone wasn't working properly. I had talked with Elliot on a landline a few days before he died, end quote. And so I found this very strange because this is 2003. Most people had landlines then, vast majority. Cell phones were not a very widely popular thing, nor were they incredibly useful. I don't believe we had gotten to a point where people were,

just ditching their landlines for cell phones. No. And I personally did not get my first cell phone until 2006. It was a monochrome Nokia phone and it was bad. Yeah, I mean, I had my first cell phone in 2004. Mind you, people had them prior to that, but they were phones that you had to put minutes on. And if you were going to have a plan one, they were very expensive in the reception's terrible. So the first ones that were somewhat okay were around when I got mine.

I had a Kiosera Phantom. And at that time, places that I lived, I still had a landline because it was generally a little bit cheaper. It's just strange. If there was an issue with the cell phone, why wouldn't you grab the landline? That's something I find strange. So there's some interesting questions posed from all this. And why was the ambulance truly delayed? Especially in Echo Park, where, from my understanding, it wouldn't be difficult to get first responders out there. Why didn't she call 911 the landline?

why did she remove the knife? And how was she able to see that there were two cuts on Elliot's chest immediately? So in one of the videos that we watched, she actually states that she wrestled him on their balcony. Yes. So she has given conflicting statements of what happens. So from a minor perspective, she has said that she locked herself in the bathroom because they were fighting. And another time she said she locked herself in there because Elliot was out of touch with reality in some way. And sometimes she said she went in there to take a shower. The other one, she said she went in there just to cool off. Slight differences. Now, here's where the big difference is.

The big difference is that she said she heard Elliot scream. She walks out of the bathroom to see his back to her. And he turns around, she sees the knife in his chest. In another story, and I think this was the more recent account when I saw this interview, because she looked a lot older. She talked about how that happened, but then he ran to the balcony, which she thought he was doing to throw himself off and had to wrestle him onto the ground. And that's why the call was delayed. I don't know why there is a difference, such a stark difference in my opinion, of accounts, but that should be noted. So in 2003, Jennifer Chievo was in a band called Happy Ending, and they were a four-piece alt-rock band from Los Angeles.

It appears they were assigned to ORG records, or at least had to deal with them, to release a single. So ORG from our research appears to have been a small indie record label run by Sean Worrell, which is now defunct. According to Sean, it was all buzzing and looking exciting, and everyone was talking about their packed LA shows. We were all ready to put out the single here at ORG. He went on to say Jen's boyfriend Elliot Smith had been working on the recordings and we were talking about falling up the debut with an Elliot happy ending split seven inch and well we sadly know what happened next with Elliot. The recordings have been put to one side and the band are no more. A split seven inch is a seven inch record and quite common in indie scenes, hardcore scenes, screamo scenes. You'll have two bands that will contribute one or two songs and they will both fit on a seven inch record.

They're called split albums. and I've always had an appreciation for things like that. I have tons of them. Most of them are, most of mine are the locust and milk banana. I also own that one. It was funny when I was looking through your records, I'm like, I own this exact split. I think I have one with an albatross as well. You have an albatross?

Yeah. Buddy of mine saw an albatross. I'm very jealous. I, anyways, Sean went on to declare that, quote, Smith wasn't the easiest person to work with because of his problem. The worst thing ever to happen at happy ending was Elliot getting involved. The project was becoming more and more tense before Elliot's death. Some people described Jen and Elliot's relationship as kind of a Sidnancy situation.

It was certainly getting very difficult for us and the rest of the band to work with the two of them. End quote. Apparently, according to Friends, the production of the single became the focus of all of Smith and Cheva's relationship problems. allegedly, allegedly, according to Allison Kames's video, they had talked with different people who were around Shiba and Smith at the time and they alleged domestic fights and even abuse between the two. Allison Kameis posted this from an anonymous musician

who claims to have known Jennifer Chiba very well. Quote, not a lot to say about his death. Jen was definitely crazy. She dated our keyboard player before Elliot. She had issues. Some fascination with knives. I have my doubts about the suicide. The thing is that he sang about suicide so everyone assumes.

Last I saw him at the health food store, he was doing great, end quote. When asked about the fascination with knives, the anonymous person in question responded with, quote, she liked to threaten people with them, end quote. And I have read that allegedly people from Riloh Kiley and even Ben Folds have seen Chiba Strike Smith, allegedly. none of this is on record. A sound engineer who worked at Elliott's studio said that one day, Elliot came back to his studio after two or three days blaming a fight with Cheba as an excuse.

He had just assumed he was coming off a drug bender. After getting him to cool down, he said that Cheba had chased him around the apartment with a knife. This person said we completely discounted it at the time because he was not quite right, but after he died, I immediately called my friend in L.A. and reminded him of the story.

And to this day, we wonder what the truth is. There were also claims that Elliot was going to leave her and plan to break it to her on October 21st. The problem with a lot of these, and they're all on the site, you can read them, you can read more, I encourage you to do it. But the problem is that none of these people want to speak on record. And Alison Kamis laments this fact in a comment on the YouTube channel stating that she'd include the names if she could, but unfortunately nobody wants to speak on record and who could blame them. also alleged by anonymous source through the YouTube video was that Cheba told me around 2002 that if she had to, she would have Bobby Heckscher, who was the frontman of the warlocks, a band Cheba played basin, she would have Bobby Heckscher knock her up to keep Elliot with her.

Again, all through anonymous sources. The full coroner's report was released confirming that Elliott Smith was stabbed in the chest and not in the stomach. That was originally what was reported he was in. deed stabbed in the chest. When the report was released, a statement from Chiba was made, and it stated, quote, up until now, I've chosen to remain silent because I want to maintain some sense of privacy for Elliot and his family and myself in this really difficult time. But I want people to know that I'm not keeping quiet because I have anything to hide. If I was a suspect, I would have heard from the investigators, for one thing. Another is that his sister and his

parents and everyone close to him know the truth, so I'm not worried about it. The media are just looking for some sort of sensationalistic angle that will sell their publications. In my mind, there's no question of what happened and there's no need to put that kind of spin on it, end quote. So Chiba was allegedly bought a one-way ticket to Hong Kong by an ex-boyfriend after Smith's suicide,

but did not take it when she found out the police were not coming after her. She did eventually end up spending a fair bit of time overseas. She currently works at Maryvale, a residential treatment program for girls in Rose Meade, California, and she also runs a private therapy practice. I'm not making this as an accusation. I just wonder if this ex-boyfriend was Rivers Como from Weezer,

who she dated on and off for a very long time. And he was kind of obsessed with her. He wrote many songs about her even after they broke up. Yeah, Pinkerton, the Pinkerton album, that has a couple songs about her. He has even openly said that he made a song about her in the face of Elliot's death because he wanted to, like, be there for her or something,

like that. But didn't know how to. Yeah. Rivers Como is very problematic. Yeah. I, in my opinion, yes. He is somebody that I feel like if he was doing the things that he was doing nowadays instead of 20 years ago, it probably would have gotten called out pretty easily. Yeah, Rivers would be canceled right now. That's my opinion. That's my opinion. Okay. I, and I'm not going to go into truly why I think this, because there's not a lot of well-documented evidence about this. I'm choosing my words very carefully here. Just if any of some of these things are true, in my opinion, I don't think it would fly today. He's now married and has kids, and I haven't heard anything sketchy about him since.

But regardless. So shortly after Smith's death, a fan memorial was initiated outside Solutions Audio, the site, at which the cover of the figure ape album was shot. Farrell messages to Smith were written on the wall and flowers, photos, candles, and I find this disrespectful. Empty bottles of alcohol mentioned in Smith's songs were left. So in lyrics, he talks about alcohol, like Johnny Walker and things like that. And knowing that he was an alcoholic, I just think leaving these bottles of alcohol, very disrespectful.

I understand the place it's coming from. I don't think anyone's doing this maliciously, but I just don't think that. a little gross. I don't think that's an appropriate thing. Unfortunately as well, the wall's been a regular target for a graffiti, but it's regularly restored by fans, thankfully. So following Smith's death, his estate license songs for use in film and television products such as One Tree Hill, The Girl Next Door, Georgia Rule, and Paranoid Park. In a March 2009 interview, Larry Crane stated that Smith's estate was defunct in all rights previously held by Smith are now in the control of his parents. Crane went on to say that his parents owned the rights to

with Smith's high school recordings, some of the heat miser material, all solo songs recorded until his 1998 record deal with DreamWorks Records, which is now universal, and from a basement on the hill. Which is the record released posthumously after his death that he was working on. On July 30th, 2004, Chiba filed a lawsuit against the Smith family for 15% of his earnings, which is over $1 million. She claimed that she and Smith lived together as husband and wife, and that Smith had pledged to take care of her financially for the rest of her life.

and that she worked as his manager and agent from around 2000 until his death. A state labor commissioner ruled her claim as manager to be invalid, as she had worked as an unlicensed talent agent under California's Talent Agency's Act. The case made it to the California appellate court in October of 2007, but it was defeated two to one. She but could potentially appeal the case in the Supreme Court of California. And to my knowledge, she has not appealed it. And she has since also filed a lawsuit against the lawyer

that was in charge of this lawsuit. Suing him for legal malpractice, I don't completely understand what the basis was there or what exactly happened, but I do know that lawsuit was filed against her attorney. According to an October 2013

Spin Magazine article, a reflection at the 10-year anniversary of Smith's death, Smith was, quote, a sick man without his medicine during the last 31 days of his life when he was not only sober, but had all,

also giving up red meat and sugar. In that same article, Chiba recalls thinking, because if it wasn't clear, this was an interview with her, okay, you're asking a lot of yourself, you're giving up a lot at once. Chiba further explained that, quote, anyone who understands drug abuse knows that you use drugs to hide from your past or sedate yourself from strong, overwhelming feelings. So when you're newly clean or coming off the medications that have been masking all those feelings, that's when you're the most vulnerable, end quote. According to Spin, a local musician who claimed to have known Smith said, The people who try to intervene,

they're good people who genuinely care about you. But they don't know what you're going through. Do what you need to do. According to the musician, Smith had adamantly dissuaded him from suicide. So I don't know. I enjoyed Smith's music. It was pretty good. But I think at the time, I didn't like his fan base.

Yeah, I had issues with that too. So when he became more popular, a lot of it, unfortunately around here was after his death. I was in my early 20s and it really seemed to resonate with the younger crowd who at this time had discovered my space and every girl who claimed to like him's name was Miss Misery. Yeah. And they started to fetish, I've said this before in another video, but they all started to fettersize depression in suicide and that whole time period in the early odds was just obnoxious. He was used as a mechanism to basically glorify. suicide. And abuse. And abuse and drug addiction and things like that. And I think around this time,

there was quite a bit of bands doing that and quite a bit of teenagers who... I mean, you don't, you can always be some sort of moody teenager. I was a moody teenager. I wrote really... I just think it was a lot worse in our day. What? Well, in your day, which was before social media, there wasn't social media when I was in high school. It was like some people got an invite to live journal, but not everybody had it. It wasn't until I graduated. That was easier to get into Live Journal. Yeah, because I just made mine. I just sign up and I got it. You couldn't before. It was like invite only when I was in high school. And I only knew one person who had one. And then after high school, I was able to get one. But we all just like would make our GeoCities pages that were all moody and ridiculous and write our Gothic poetry about how we were all depressed. And, you know, some of us would cut ourselves. But it seems in the social media era, which was after I had our. already graduated high school and was an adult living on my own.

It seemed like all of these teenagers and young adults were all obsessed with this. And it seemed like self-abuse started like, or like cutting. Yeah. Start to be glamorized. And it got even worse than that. I remember the whole scars are sexy comments. Yeah. And you'd see the aim profile pictures, the live journal profile pictures and it just shows

someone's wrists with scars all over it. And it would just be like scars are sexy. I'm like, what? It was just really bizarre. bizarre because, I mean, theoretically, I was in the correct age group that should have been into this shit, but like I just wanted to, I just wanted to listen to my 80s music and do my thing, but this is what was popular at the time. And everyone was so pretentious. I was instantly turned off by this. One, I didn't find suicide to be a thing to be glamorized. I mean, already at a young age, I was dealing with people who had either made attempts on their own life or were very close to it. I had a lot of people close to me struggling with mental health. And I was just so bewildered. I was so bewildered.

Like, it's one thing to, you know, be struggling with these things and finding comfort with other people that are suffering through the same thing. I'm not talking about that. It just really feels to me like more people were self-harming then. And platforms such as this were kind of opening more people up to it. And I don't have any data in front of me. So forgive the conjecture. But when I talk to young people nowadays, I don't hear about many people self-mutilating anymore or doing things like that.

It was incredibly, and I mean incredibly common when I was in middle school, high school, even towards the end of elementary school. I don't hear that anymore. I really don't. And I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I'm not saying it doesn't exist. but I just feel like... I think there was a portion of it that were doing it literally for attention and thought it was a fashionable thing to do. Yeah, I mean... Because it became fashionable to be depressed.

And let's... I know like what Yergy just said is going to make some people be like, what do it for attention? What did you just say? No, listen, listen, okay. Not everybody that self-harms is doing this for attention. Some people do things to either feel included or... It's a coping mechanism. Or to cope.

I'm just saying that I think more people considered and embraced this outlet because a lot of people were doing it. Whereas normally, maybe these people wouldn't have cut themselves, burnt themselves, anything like that. I knew so many people doing it. And some of the justifications, like, I was just so shocked and I was disgusted at the time of stuff like this. So like, I remember bright eyes came out and bright eyes was big and I struggle with bright eyes. I think one of the only real bands that I was really into off of Saddle Creek Records was cursive. But Bright Eyes, I like some of his songs, but I really struggled with his fans. And probably one of his most popular songs at the time was a song called Lover I Don't Have to Love.

And this is a song about the narrator is saying that they have been hurt so many times. So they don't want a lover that they have to love. They want somebody that they can get drunk and have sex. So, okay, fair enough. You want to make a song like that? Again, you're an adult. you've probably gone through some stuff, you're probably feeling that way. So why are there a ton of 13, 14, 15 year old people posting this stuff,

lamenting about the failures of love life and how they just want this type of lifestyle? Like the lyrics are, I want a lover I don't have to love. I want a boy so drunk, he doesn't talk. Where's the kid with the chemicals? Like this is, this is not something, a preteen, or somebody in their mid-teens should really be feeling or thinking that their life is so defeated, their love life is so in ruins that this is what's left for them. And I'm not saying that like, because maybe somebody will come on here and be like,

well, I had that situation. Sure, I'm sure some people did. But for the bulk of teenagers that were putting that in their aim profiles, their MySpace, their live journals, it seemed like a bit much. So why am I saying all this? I'm saying this because I think people were really embracing, really embracing. There's always like generations and groups of kids that embrace being tortured artists and things like this. But I think that that generation that I was a part of embraced it to a very, very unhealthy extent.

And I think a lot of people ended up developing habits that were a lot harder to kick because they were surrounded by other people doing such habits. and it seemed like it was trendy at the time. There were popular kids doing this stuff. And at the same time, I know that you say that Connor Oberst and everything, you know, is a grown person can sing about whatever he wants to. But he has to understand, too, that he has a fan base of little girls who think he's so cute. Well, at the time, like, it is a little problematic. At the time, like, when he was getting big, I don't think he was in defense of Connor Oberst.

Okay. And I'm not going to defend him too hard here. but... Because he is a bit of a jerk. I mean, I've heard he's kind of a jerk. I don't know. I've also heard he's very nice. I've heard mixed reviews.

But to defend Connor Oberst, when you're in Omaha and you're just making music, you think it's not going to go anywhere. I don't think you're really thinking, I'm going to market myself to teen girls. I think he was just writing what he was writing, which wasn't much different than his earlier stuff, which I liked a lot more. Did it get more mature as he got older? Yeah. because he got older.

I think he was just self-expressing and he just happened to get big and that audience happened to be teenage girls. So I don't really want to blame him for that. This is true. I'm being kind of a jerk here.

But I just had such a seething hatred for like all this just foolishness that was going on. And the fact that, so like Spin Magazine, I read it back then quite a bit. I had a subscription to it. They really,

really, really glamorized what was going on with Saddle Creek records out in Omaha. Yeah. Nothing was going on out in Omaha. And they're like showing I'm like all drunk having this lavage like picnic with like you know coners there and everything. I'm like get out of here. Get out of here. Emogame.com which made fun of the third wave second third wave emo.

Seen at the time it was the site called emogame.com made by I think his name is Jason Oda at a starving ice productions. In the opening scene you hear the line from I think it's burst in bloom from cursive saying this is the latest from Saddle Creek and it's just Tim Casher and Connor Oberst line in a warehouse with a bunch of beer bottles everywhere and I always that's how I picture Omaha, Nebraska. I know people are going to come in here

and hate me for that, but I just want to say me is 15 year old, not knowing anyone from Omaha. That was just my thing. But yeah, Saddle Creek was like the thing. And it was so pretentious. It really was.

And a lot of the bands, in my opinion, weren't that good. I like Curse of a lot. I like Commander Venus, which Connor Oberst was in. But even there was like problems with cursive because I mean like Tim Casher kind of sung about beating your lover.

Your lipstick to smudge deer, let me wipe that smirk off. You know, like, you know, it was a different time. It was a different time. It was like glamorizing. Like we're saying,

self-harm, suicide, abuse, alcoholism, drug addictions. Yeah. Like in a way that, yes, it's been mentioned previously in music, but the generation really hung on to. I think we're just kind of circling back.

and talking about the same thing at this point. We are, but I think it's important to, and maybe people think this is a rant. Well, for one, this is a rant. Well, this is at the end of the episode. But why I think this is important to talk about is because when Elliott Smith was big, it's important to outline what was the temperature like for the scene then for kids. What was the fallout? What was the impact on the music scene on society?

From my perspective, even growing up in a small town. what was that like after his death? And I will tell you, while this wasn't the sole factor in making things like this, it definitely contributed to it. And a lot of people romanticized his death and everything else that went along with it, it just created a bad time. That's the word I was looking for. Romanticize wasn't so much fetishize. There was fetishizing, too.

Like, scars are sexy. Romanticize was the word I was more looking for. So thank you for using that. And this is not to say that, like, I don't like Elliot's music. As I said, I do. I also love wealth. I love Wes Anderson films. Yeah.

I think that it's great that his music was featured in it. Absolutely. I'm glad that he had the success he did. Yeah. Even though it might have led to his undoing, unfortunately. Just some of his fan base in the early odds, not so much. Yes. And just the fan base surrounding that scene of music in general.

I think we can leave it at that. Yes. Okay, we won't go too long about this because, you know, we're getting up there in time. But really wanted to say that if you made it this far, please hit like and subscribe if you're listening on YouTube. We appreciate that so much. I think by the time this comes out, we'll be at 1,300. Again, so grateful for all of this and really excited to see where this goes going forward.

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