A Short Column About Music 3.12.09: Heatmiser - Mic City Sons Posted by Andrew Moll on 03.12.2009
As his solo career was beginning to take off, Elliott Smith's band Heatmiser released a mid-ninties indie rock classic.
Thank you for coming and reading A Short Column About Music. I'm finishing up this column at work and I have to say, it's not much fun doing that, but at least I'm not spending my personal time on the column. Instead, I'm technically getting paid to write it. (OK, I'm getting paid to do other things, but still.) On a completely different note, I'll let you all know now about something I have planned in a couple weeks. I don't want to say what it is quite yet because I have to figure how I'm going to do it, and whether or not it's a good idea. But, if all goes well and I realize what exactly I want to do, then it'll be a good time for everyone involved.
Heatmiser - Mic City Sons
Released: October 29, 1996
Tracklisting:
1. Get Lucky
2. Plainclothes Man
3. Low-Flying Jets
4. Rest My Head Against the Wall
5. The Fix is In
6. Eagle Eye
7. Cruel Reminder
8. You Gotta Move
9. Pop in G
10. Blue Highway
11. See You Later
12. Half Right
It may just be me, but I find it interesting to see where some of my favorite artists came from, and how their careers started. For years, one of my favorite singers has been Elliott Smith, the famed talent who dies much too young. In my looking around for more music from him, I discovered Heatmiser, a mid-1990s Northwest rock band, and I immediately heard great things about their album Mic City Sons and it ended up being almost as good as much of the work Elliott Smith would produce later on, and it's a must-listen for any Elliott fan, and any fan of great rock.
At Hampshire College in 1992, Elliott Smith and Neil Gust met and decided to form a band and began playing shows together around the school. The two would eventually move to Smith's hometown of Portland and recruited Brandt Peterson to play bass for the band, which they called Heatmiser. Peterson would play on the band's first two albums, Dead Air and Cop and Speeder before leaving and being replaced by Sam Coomes, and they also added Tony Lash to play drums. But at this point, Smith released his first solo album, called Roman Candlein July 1994 and it wasn't long before Smith began getting known for his solo work. That only continued with his next album, which was self-titled in released a year after the first. Years, later Smith would say he wasn't happy with the early Heatmiser work, believing it was too loud and not indicative of what music he liked. That, combined with the growing success of Elliott's solo career led to increased tensions in the band, and it was with that tension the band began recording their third album, called Mic City Sons.
The album kicks off with "Get Lucky", a basic rocker with a bit of a strut to it. Smith takes lead vocals on this one and the whole track has a good deal of confidence behind it, which is not something people always associate with Elliot Smith. Gust provides frequent backup vocals throughout the song, but this is Smith's song and he sounds defiant when singing "So take what you expect/And put it in reverse/See which one of us/Bangs the cymbals first," before getting to the repeated chorus of "We're taking you to pieces." The track is full of swagger as well as Smith's trademark penchant for pop melodies. "Plainclothes Man" sounds more like what one might expect from an Elliott Smith song and it also stands as one of his great lyrical achievements. He starts off singing "You're everybody's second home/Always trying to get me alone/An easy way to lose it all/Always there when all else fails/Over by the west side rails/But I don't really need that now/I never really did anyhow/I only really needed alcohol/Something that'd treat me okay/And wouldn't say the things you'd say." It's a delicate song with the band providing the proper amount of emotional weight to Smith's voice and lyrics. It's a dark and melancholy song , and at the end it builds to the moment where Smith sings "I remember, I remember why I dream in black and white." The final chorus follows, with Smith singing "Goes to show my continual decline/They say that I'll recover/My love of her/Once in a while/But I don't know/I don't think so/I don't think so," with Smith resigning himself with the last lines. This is the album's standout track and one of Smith's best compositions, with is really saying something.
"Plainclothes Man"
Gust makes his first appearance on lead vocals on "Low-Flying Jets" and there are clear differences between his approach and that of Smith. He can be just as prone to bouts of pessimism and melancholy, and while he also has a great ear for melody, Gust doesn't have the tenderness or delicate quality that made Smith a legend. That doesn't mean Gust's contributions aren't good; in fact they're necessary to the album in order to keep it from being an Elliot Smith album. "Rest My Head Against the Wall" is one the album's best tunes, a tale of cruising for sex in public bathrooms that ends up being more charming than creepy. Backed by a country influenced guitar riff, Gust sings "I don't know when I lost my nerve/And I started a routine/And I walked across this corner/Pinned my eyes to a shirt/Cause I'm scared of being seen/Locked myself in a stall/Rest my head against the wall." There's a bit of a edge to this and other Gust songs that aren't always present in the Smith material so that provides a nice contrast, but at the same time there are major similarities. It's not difficult to envision Smith writing lyrics like "And I'm not sure/That I've ever had the nerve/Cause I've always felt like an easy kill/But I'm pretty sure/That I'm never going to know/If I'm his kind of pill/Unlocked the stall and wandered off/Left my number on the wall."
The slow and dreamy "The Fix is In" follows and features Smith's soft voice being backed by some lush instrumentation. It definitely sounds like something that would have fit perfectly on Smith's later album XO. Smith sings from the perspective of someone helping a friend through a breakup, as he utters the great line "She got ice she don't want anyone to break." The fuzzed-out guitars help give the song its dreamy state, and drummer Lash also does a great job on this track. Gust picks up the energy next on "Eagle Eye" and it has a definite punk influence, and even has a couple starts-and-stops that are Fugazi-lite. It's not a great song, but a fun two minutes that helps to keep the pace of the album from staying stagnant. The next song, "Cruel Reminder" follows the same path, but does it even better than "Eagle Eye." Gust sings "Got a gallon of blood squeezing thru my chest/And the closer I am to you the thicker it gets/A knife in the back and stuck in one place/With a pat on the back and a slap on the face/Keep trying to see from a better position/It's no good/And it never really makes any difference/If it could." The song has quite the aggressive tone to it, and Gust sings his lines with a great amount of agitation, most notably the last lines: "Sick of having my hear right all over my face/And the backseat drivers taking my place/Got me staring at you eyes dropped like lead/It's a cruel reminder and it's all in my head."
Smith's groovy ballad "You Gotta Move" is next and it features many of the qualities that made Smith a star, with his soft voice and smooth melodies. The guitars also provide a good crunch as well, just to make sure that the song never turns into a sappy ballad. Not that that would be an issue for a person with the songwriting skills of Elliott Smith, but it's nice to hear different aspects to his songs that weren't always heard on his solo records. His aforementioned voice is lent to a song written by Gust, entitled "Pop in G" that's next on the album, and it's another one of the standouts. Gust wrote a damn good rocker with this track, but it takes on a whole different quality with Smith's voice instead of his own. Instead of a more gruff song, it ends up sounding like a radio-friendly hit with Smith's more pop-style vocal to go along with the catchy riffs. Lyrics like "It's a cold blooded style/Never was worthwhile/You're as good as they come/But you're such a fucking trial," resonate with Smith's voice behind them. When the self-conscious guy with the soft voice is calling you a "fucking trial" it probably has more of an impact than if it had been screamed at you full force.
After Gust's solid, energetic rocker "Blue Highway" we get two more examples of why Elliott Smith is so highly regarded as a songwriter and is so fondly remembered. First is "See You Later" and there's an immediate sense of sadness to the song through Smith's voice and lyrics. The backing is simple but effective, since it lets Smith take the stage with his killer melodies. He starts off singing "You got a choke chain/Made out of nightrain/To keep your memory down/In quicksand from the main man/To drown everything out." The lyrics to this one are simple and direct, none more so than the chorus of "See you later/See you later/If I see you at all." Smith was always great at creating interesting and layered compositions, but many of his best works came when he let his natural talents take over. He was almost unparalleled in his era when it came to telling stories, and since he had such a knack for pop melodies, when he just let them be, the results were almost always memorable. That formula is what made the last song on the album a classic as well. "Half Right", a hidden track, features Smith on acoustic guitar with minimal backing and he delivers another one of his great lyrical performances. In the second verse he sings "Would you say that the one of your dreams/Got in you and ripped out the seems/That's what I'd say." Few were better at writing about (presumably) personal experiences and making them relatable to anyone listening than Smith was. The final lines of the song are as emotional as any you'll ever hear, and it they certainly evoke feelings that we've all had at some point. Smith sings "'Cause when I talk to you on the phone/Well it's just like being alone/It's not half right/It's not half right." With lyrics like that, it's no wonder than Smith ended up meaning so much to so many people.
"Half Right"
Heatmiser was somewhat unheralded in their time, and even now they aren't mentioned much in discussions of some of the great indie rock bands, but for those that have discovered their music, they stand as one of the 1990s best acts. While much of the band's notoriety comes from the fact that one of their members became the greatest singer-songwriter of his generation, their work still stands on its own. And Mic City Sons isn't all Elliott Smith, as Neil Gust provides some great moments as well, and the band as a whole works very well together. The band suffered through internal strife around this time and broke up around the time of the album's release. Gust would form the band No. 2 while Cooms would join Quasi, but it was Smith that enjoyed the most success post-Heatmiser. His next three solo albums, Either/Or, XO, and Figure 8 were all critically acclaimed and earned Smith a sult status with his amazing abilities. Unfortunately, Smith also dealt with drug issues, and he suffered with them until his 2003 death, due to stab wounds to the chest, although it was never determined if they were self-inflicted or not. While his death was tragic, Smith's work is magical and memorable, and Mic City Sons is a large part of his legacy.
