For a long time, I had trouble getting into Elliott Smith's work with his previous band, Heatmiser. I don't know what I was hoping for, but it didn't quite scratch my itch for more Elliott Smith. Then, I finally made it to their last album, Mic City Sons, and I recognized the song "Half Right." It's a slightly jazzed up, full band version of my favorite sombre acoustic song on New Moon, the posthumous Elliott Smith rarities compilation. Through the Heatmiser albums, you can trace a transition from the more prevalent hard rock that was popular in the '90s to something more personal that would lead Elliott to his solo career. So I cobbled together Elliott's Heatmiser songs into a mixtape that could sound like an Elliott Smith album.
