Here’s my salon.com piece on Elliott Smith’s magnificent “Roman Candle” record, which turns 20 on July 14, 2014. (LINK)
“Peaches and Me”
Here’s my piece on Peaches Geldof in the Spectator (LINK)
I really adored her and miss her.
Torment Saint: The Life of Elliott Smith–OMNIBUS of links & reviews (UPDATED, 12/1/14)
I wanted to post something comprehensive, now that I have a day to myself. What follows are links to articles, reviews, excerpts, and stories, all in rough chronological order. I’ll update these every now and then, as new stuff comes in. (UPDATE: Dec 1, 2014)
•LA Times Review HERE
•Rhett Miller review in Bookforum HERE
•”To Elliott, With Love.” My essay on why and how I wrote Torment Saint HERE
•NME, one of top music books of 2013 HERE
•Buzzfeed, one of top music books of 2013 HERE
•My Salon piece on “Roman Candle” turning 20 yrs old HERE
•Evening Standard (UK), music biography of the year HERE
•Oregonian story by Jeff Baker HERE
•Willamette Week cover story HERE
•My Huffington Post piece on Elliott’s poetics HERE
•My Bookish piece on why we can’t stop listening to Elliott HERE
•Interview with Alex Cohen of LA’s KPCC HERE
•LiveWire radio, episode 230 (at 16:30 mins). I’m interviewed, I read from the book, plus “Between the Bars” HERE
•Podcast of my interview in Ireland with Nadine O’Regan HERE
•Interview with Paul Page, Ireland (Part I HERE; Part II HERE)
•Review, SunGazette HERE •Review, the Patriot Ledger, MA HERE
•Radio review, RTE, Ireland HERE
•Pop Matters review HERE
•Feature story in The Independent (UK) HERE
•Me driving around Portland (video) pointing out Elliott landmarks HERE
•Mojo Magazine: “Brilliant, raw fuel for Schultz to add carefully collated detail and song deconstruction to explore a man in harrowing free-fall toward his 2003 suicide” (4 stars)
•Vanity Fair Magazine, “Hot Type” pick: “Elliott Smith gets the wake song he deserves in Torment Saint”
•Caught in Carousel review by Paul Gleason HERE
•Totally Dublin, story/review HERE
•Review in The Examiner HERE
•Review in Paste Magazine HERE
•Review, Record Collector Magazine (4 stars) HERE
•Review, Slug Magazine HERE
•Review, Rain Taxi HERE
•Review, Eugene Weekly HERE
•Interview at rockfeedback HERE
•Publisher’s Weekly, starred review HERE
•Long excerpt from the book at Slate HERE
•Another excerpt at Port Magazine HERE
•Article and interview at “don’t forget the songs” HERE
Thanks to all who have read the book and written to express their congratulations. It’s so gratifying to put your life into something and hear that people find it compelling. Most of all, it is a testament to Elliott and the enormous appeal of his spectacular music. (photo below by the talented Marina Chavez) 
More TORMENT SAINT stuff
Torment Saint, Elliott Smith bio–New Stuff
New Bookforum Review by Rhett Miller
Once a complete link becomes available, I’ll add it in here (LINK). Meanwhile, I’m so grateful for a truly sublime Rhett Miller review of my new Elliott Smith biography, Torment Saint, in Bookforum. An excerpt: “William Todd Schultz has written his own kind of love song–an account of Smith’s life that does full justice to his memory and the impressive legacy of his art… TORMENT SAINT is both a persuasive reckoning with Elliott’s inner demons and–much more important–a full appreciation, and celebration, of his undeniable genius.”
1st Review, TORMENT SAINT: THE LIFE OF ELLIOTT SMITH
Starred Review, PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY. Especially gratified to see the final sentence, which summarizes one of my chief aims all along:
“Schultz brings to his work a deep understanding of how inner and outer landscapes can affect unique and sensitive artists… But no matter how dark Elliott Smith’s story gets, Schultz never loses sight of the beauty of his music.” PW, starred review
“Torment Saint: The Life of Elliott Smith” (Bloomsbury, October 1, 2013
Some advance praise. I’ll add reviews as they come in.
“This is an epic poem to a true musical anti-hero, a tale as complex, dense, and poetic as Elliott himself, complete with harrowing details of every stop in his heart-rending artistic odyssey.”
—Amanda Palmer, songwriter, performer, artist, most recently on Theatre is Evil, with the Grand Theft Orchestra
“William Todd Schultz knows that the music is the key to understanding Elliott Smith, but he doesn’t settle for what the songs alone will tell him. In Torment Saint, the author goes deep, crafting an engrossing tale of a troubled young man with a great gift whose complexity rendered him a puzzle to his ardent fans and even his closest friends. Schultz does a valiant job of putting the pieces together, through intensive research and insightful analysis. That Torment Saint is the definitive final word on such a brilliant artist should be viewed as a triumph. Filled with beauty and pain and clearly put together with tremendous care and deep respect, this is the book Elliott Smith deserves.”
—Mark Baumgarten, author of Love Rock Revolution: K Records and the Rise of Independent Music
“Schultz’s Torment Saint offers a candid, heavily researched and truly empathetic look into a troubled genius’s life. As someone who knew Elliott Smith, I was grateful for the whole life arc and the connection of dots. It’s a sensitive and inquisitive look at a beautifully talented soul.”
—Sluggo, guitarist for The Grannies
“Schultz personalizes and universalizes Elliott Smith. His balance of authorial distance with compassion is unsurpassable. All of the tiny details are rendered with great skill to form a moving, compact encyclopedia for those of us who knew Elliott Smith personally and those who did not.”
—Nelson Gary, author of A Wonderful Life in Our Lives
1st Blurb
Some kind words from Nelson Gary about Torment Saint, my Elliott Smith biography, out October 1, 2013:
“Schultz not only personalizes and universalizes Elliott Smith, but illumines the many dimensions we all have within ourselves: father, son, brother, mother, daughter, sister. These points of identity are shown through Torment Saint not to be as contradictory as they may seem or even at all. The brilliance of the author has many manifestations, but it is at its finest in making the sides of personality cohere singularly. The authorial distance balanced with compassion is unsurpassable in Torment Saint. All of the tiny details are rendered with great skill to form a moving, compact encyclopedia for those of us who knew Elliott Smith personally and those of us who did not. Torment Saint is an amazing read for anyone who would like to know the human personality better, including her or his own.”
“Lucy in the Mind of Lennon”
One of the very best psychobiographies I’ve ever read—and I’ve read too many—is out soon, by Tim Kasser. The focus is the song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”—whose opening still gives me serious chills—and John Lennon’s conscious and unconscious reasons for writing it. Don’t miss this one if you enjoy studies of art and inner lives. Get it HERE.
William Todd Schultz 
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