Get ready to delve into The Music of Heatmiser. The Portland band best known as Elliott Smith’s pre-solo career springboard has announced a new rarities compilation arriving October 6th via Third Man Records, and a demo version of the track “Lowlife” is out now.
Heatmiser initially distributed The Music of Heatmiser — then a 6-song cassette — at local record stores and shows to promote the band before they released their 1993 debut LP, Dead Air. According to co-founding singer-guitarist Neil Gust, this longer package — featuring 23 additional demos, live tracks, rare versions, and previously unreleased songs — came together thanks to drummer Tony Lash.
“Tony found a bunch of forgotten recordings and started mixing them and sending them to me,” Gust said in a statement. “We were struck by the freewheeling energy of the band; you could hear how much fun we were having. In 1992 we could barely afford the studio so it all had to be done really fast. When we put the cassette together, we wanted it to start like a punch in the face. That’s ‘Lowlife.’”
Heatmiser has long offered Smith fans a look at a different side of the artist; while he famously issued devastatingly quiet acoustic songs in his solo career, his previous band played the kind of quick, electric indie rock you’d expect from a band in ’90s Portland. “Lowlife” was formally released on Dead Air, and its 1992 demo highlights the differences between the two acts: thrashing in and out in under two minutes, the track is a far cry from, say, “Waltz #1.” Check out its original recording, as well as a 1993 live performance of the song, below.
Pre-orders for The Music of Heatmiser are ongoing. The compilation comes in what has been a pretty good year for content-hungry Smith fans: In March, six albums recorded by the artist when he was still in high school surfaced online, and in April, a 1995 performance of “Clementine” from a bizarre Portland morning show went viral.
The Music of Heatmiser Artwork:
The Music of Heatmiser Tracklist:
01. Lowlife (‘92 Cassette)
02. Bottle Rocket (‘92 Cassette)
03. Buick (‘92 Cassette)
04. Just a Little Prick (‘92 Cassette)
05. Dirt (‘92 Cassette)
06. Mightier Than You (‘92 Cassette)
07. Can’t Be Touched (Cavity Search Single)
08. Wake (Cavity Search Single)
09. Stray (Cavity Search Single)
10. Dead Air (Demo)
11. Sands Hotel (Demo)
12. Mock Up (Demo)
13. Cannibal (Demo)
14. Candyland (Demo)
15. Still (Demo)
16. Man Camp
17. Laying Low
18. Bloody Knuckles
19. Father Song
20. Glamourine
21. Meatline
22. Revolution
23. Black Out (Live On KBOO)
24. Bottle Rocket (Live On KBOO)
25. Dirt (Live On KBOO)
26. Still (Live On KBOO)
27. Candyland (Live On KBOO)
28. Don’t Look Down (Live On KBOO)
29. Lowlife (Live On KBOO)
