elliott smith anecdotes

So i was going through the latest issue of SPIN magazine (September 07) and found an interesting section about Elliott Smith and a new photo book by Autumn de Wilde that's coming out about him. In it are some touching and funny anecdotes of Smith, and I thought I'd post them here. (If you don't know, Elliott Smith was a singer/songwriter who committed suicide back in 03 and was always one of those troubled yet beautiful souls.)

"He used to cut my hair when I lived in L.A., the last couple years, I guess. It was one of the few times he would be, for an extended period of time, in a good mood. I think he was trying to put on a happy face for his sister 'cause he was pretty down at that time. He would sit me down in the bathroom, and he would call it "Chez Pepe". He'd get into this fake super cheesy French accent, like a sleazy French hairdresser. So we'd have beers and put on really good music, and he'd cut my hair. He wanted to give you a haircut that didn't look like you got a haircut, and it was supposed to be imprecise. I liked the aesthetic. He would only cut four or five hairs at a time -- it would take hours. It was hard to book time because we both knew it was such a commmitment, so it was rare that he had an entire evening to blow on a haircut. We would listen to Supergrass and the Beatles a lot, just joking around. Everyone always complimented me. I'd say, "Well, these are special haircuts, not available to the public." I couldn't cut my hair for, like, six months after he died because... I couldn't have anyone else cut my hair. He was always my hero, strangely, which is sort of weird to say about your brother." -- Ashley Welch, Elliott Smith's younger sister

"I spent two weeks in Silver Lake [in Los Angeles] in August or September of 2002 finishing up [the Postal Service's Give Up] with Jimmy Tamborello and hanging out with Jenny Lewis, who I had invited to be part of the record. We were hanging out and recording, and we went to get food at this little burrito joint in Los Feliz, one of those places where you can't sit inside and there are three tables out front. I remember going in and ordering some food, and there was thhis little jar where every week you could put your name in, and if your name got picked, you could get a free burrito. There was a sign behind the jar that said BURRITO OF THE WEEK, it said, ELLIOTT SMITH. I remember looking up there and being amused for a couple of reasons. Number one, that this seminal, brilliant singer/songwriter would do something that anybody off the street would do, like, you'd see this jar and think, "I'm going to write my name on this card like everybody else and win a free burrito." I just had this kind of funny image in my head of him going into this burrito joint, thinking if he's going to go there and put his name into a hat to win a free burrito, he probably goes here fairly frequently, you know? I just wanted to be there so badly. I wanted to see him see his name on the board, that he'd won a free burrito, and just knowing that even though he was in a bad way, he'd be happy that he won a free burrito. Everybody likes to win stuff." -- Ben Gibbard