I’m exploring my long-held theory that the part of Heatmiser I liked best was not the Elliott Smith part, but rather the Neil Gust part. It would be good if I’m right, because Neil Gust is still alive and playing music, while Elliott Smith is, well, hm. I’ve been listening to this album on shuffle with all the Heatmiser albums and a couple of songs from another No. 2 album, so I can’t really say what it’s like yet. So far, though, I’ve noticed a couple of really hooky songs, one that had me totally rocking out while waiting for the train. Can’t ask for much more than that.

I’ve had all three of these disks on heavy rotation since I first heard them, almost five years ago. So many of the songs get better the more I listen to them. There are a couple I can’t listen to on the subway, though, because I’m prone to bursting into tears when I hear them.

There’s a love song on there for everyone.

And it’s not bad, so far (I just finished chapter 2), expect that there was one sidebar on Google that annoyed me.

From a proofreader’s perspective, I have to say that this is one of the cleaner manuscripts I’ve encountered—pretty well-prepared MS, unterrible writing, and intelligent typesetting. A pleasure, really, . . . if I hadn’t waited until after the due date to start work on it.