I am he as you are he

I had the good fortune of seeing the late Elliott Smith at a very intimate acoustic show at the late EJ's here in Portland circa 1997. Smith spent the pre-show hour sitting at the bar sipping beers, chatting with a couple of friends, and while I am rarely star struck, I refrained from approaching him for fear of saying, "you….good….really….thanks." He seemed so darn ordinary, in the most wonderful way, like my very talent friends who fix cars seem ordinary and my brilliant musician friends who do carpentry seem ordinary. I love extraordinary most when it comes in an ordinary box. (Prince being a notable exception.)

As the place filled up, I was struck by the number of people who looked like Elliott: black jeans and black t-shirts, pale skin, dyed-black hair under wool knit caps, a little legion of junior-league Elliotts, either consciously or subconsciously emulating their hero.

A similar phenomenon could be seen at The Hold Steady show I attended last year, the crowd featuring a disproportionate number of unkempt, doughy, curly-haired young men who appeared to have gone to the Craig Finn modeling school. Then think of an early Madonna show, where teenage girls mimicked her underwear-as-outerwear style of dress with stunning accuracy. (Much to the delight of teenage boys like me.) The same was true of Joni Mitchell in the 1970s, U2 in the 1980s (every U2 fan I knew went to Goodwill to buy a long winter coat like the band sported on War), Alanis Morisette in the 1990s and so on. (It's also true at a Guided By Voices show, but I don't think that's emulation so much as a shared disregard for so-called fashion.)

I was reminded of the Elliott show by a young man on the bus this week, a pensive-looking introvert who seemed to be on his way to a Heatmiser-themed costume party. I recalled the show, Elliott opting to set up on the floor instead of the stage, everyone sitting on the floor around him like school kids gathering to listen to the teacher at story time, the opening notes of "Speed Trials" bringing an appreciative smile to everyone's face. From where I sat, it was wonderful.

But I wonder what it looked like from where Elliott sat. While I've been blessed to play in bands that had a few loyal followers, none of them seemed to see us as fashion icons. It seems to me that it would be disconcerting to sit down in front of a crowd and find a whole bunch of people wearing Bill Reagan costumes. (I'm not even sure what that would look like: a few dozen smiling men who had gone of their diets and committed to a palette of earth tones?) It's an odd display of affection to display evidence of morphing into your hero's physical form, as if attempting a strange form of alchemy that turns tattered black t-shirts into gorgeous blue chord progressions.

Perhaps that's why I like people who look ordinary: If someone doesn't look like someone else, then they probably look like themselves, something true. No wonder others would want to emulate them.