Elliott Smith & Heatmiser - Mic City Sons (Elliott Smith Edition) (1996)
Heatmiser was founded in Portland, Oregon, in 1991. The two main singer-songwriters were Smith and Neil Gust. The two of them were friends, as well as being roommates for several years. 1991 was the year that grunge started to make it big up the coast in Seattle. Thus, at the time, there was a lot of incentive to ride the popularity of the grunge sound, and that's what Heatmiser did. The band's first two albums in particular, "Dead Air" in 1993 and "Cop and Speeder" in 1994, really rock in a way that can sound shocking for those only familiar with Smith's later acoustic-based style. They were heavily influenced by bands like Husker Du and Fugazi.
Heatmiser found a lot of popularity in Portland, and performed there practically constantly. But their albums came out on an indie label and didn't make much impact elsewhere. At one point, they played a laudromat in Cleveland, and their entire "audience" left when that person's laundry was finished.
Smith later dismissed the band's music as "loud," and complained that being in Heatmiser changed the songs he was writing at the time into "loud rock songs with no dynamic." Furthermore, in a later interview, he said of his time in the band:
"I was being a total actor, acting out a role I didn't even like. I couldn't come out and show where I was coming from. I was always disguised in this loud rock band. [In the beginning] we all got together, everyone wanted to play in a band and it was fun, then after a couple of years we realized that none of us really liked this kind of music, and that we didn't have to play this way. You didn't have to turn all these songs you wrote into these loud... things. [...] It was kinda weird – people that came to our shows, a majority of them were people I couldn't relate to at all. Why aren't there more people like me coming to our shows? Well, it's because I'm not even playing the kind of music that I really like."
In 1994, Smith released his first album, "Roman Candle," in a drastically different, semi-acoustic style. His solo career soon began to find a growing audience. Then in 1995, he released a second solo album in that style, "Elliott Smith," and his following continued to grow even more.
However, while that was going on, Heatmiser was working on their third album. The band's other main singer-songwriter, Neil Gust, was going through a similar musical transformation, moving away from a punk and/or grunge influenced rocking style to a more melodic one. Their 1996 album, "Mic City Sons," was a big musical leap forward, in my opinion, and many other people agree.
For instance, here's part of the album's AllMusic.com review, by Michael Frey: "The quartet's finest and final album, 'Mic City Sons' features a decidedly more pop feel than its predecessors and marks Smith's maturation into the role of the band's visionary. From the opening notes of the swaggering, bass-heavy 'Get Lucky' to conclusion of the album with a soothingly soft hidden track ['Half Right'], 'Mic City Sons' is an outstanding collection of diverse and invigorating tracks. Songs like 'Plain Clothes Man' and 'You Gotta Move' exhibit the interplay of soulful, smooth vocals over gentle guitar strumming that has been so evident in Smith's solo work. The Gust-penned tunes, like 'Cruel Reminder' and 'Eagle Eye' are more rugged and aggressive, but complement Smith's songs brilliantly. ... Despite the success Heatmiser's members have achieved since their disbanding, it's unfortunate that this collective decided to split up just when they had reached such a creative peak."
As that review points out, Gust's songs are very good. One should hear the original version of this album, with an even number of Smith and Gust songs. But, in my opinion, it's also nice to listen to this Smith-centric version. The first seven songs here are from the original album. The remainder are from a deluxe edition released in 2025. That edition also contained two demos, but I didn't include them because they were full-band demos that didn't sound that different, and they were of songs from the original album.
It would have been really interesting if Heatmiser could have kept going, along with Smith's solo career. But Smith's growing popularity basically made that impossible, especially due to some record company intrigue. For their third album ("Mic City Sons"), the band signed with a major label, Virgin Records, for the first time. Smith later explained what happened next:
"It was kind of ridiculous to carry it up to a certain point and then drop the ball or the bomb, like quitting the band right after we had signed to Virgin. I was the guy who made that gravy-train crash so to speak, and it was a gravy-train at the time. The breakup happened almost immediately after the contract was signed. I watched myself put my paw in the bear trap on that one because there was this clause about leaving members. In the event of the band dissolving, any members could be kept to that contract with or without their consent under the same terms. They didn't pick up Neil's option, only mine. It turned out to be a fucked-up situation because they said the reason they had signed Heatmiser was that they'd been hoping this [the breakup] would happen - or something to that effect. They said that right in front of Neil and I couldn't believe it."
Basically, the record company didn't want Heatmiser to succeed because they were only interested in Smith's solo career material. A 2018 article about the band by the Oregonian newspaper commented that "at some point in [late] 1996, the band fell apart. 'Mic City Sons' was released on a smaller Virgin sister label, Caroline, and slipped into the world quietly." In my opinion, the album really is a lost classic, be it the original version or this Smith-centric version.
This album is 43 minutes long.
01 Get Lucky
02 Plainclothes Man
03 The Fix Is In
04 You Gotta Move
05 Pop in G
06 See You Later
07 Half Right
08 I'm Over That Now
09 Burned Out, Still Glowing
10 Everybody Has It
11 Christian Brothers [Rock Version]
12 Untitled Instrumental
(all tracks Heatmiser)
