Elliott Smith

Which came first, "MTV Unplugged," or the tendency for singer-songwriters to do solo acoustic tours? Ostensibly, these artists (usually guys) say they want to explore pure songs without the production distractions that may have made the songs popular in the first place (personally, I can't separate the genius of Elvis Costello's early work from the contribution made by the Attractions). But I suspect the real reason is that some singer-songwriters are tired of hauling a band around and sharing decisions.

Elliott Smith, the Portland, Ore.-bred singer-songwriter who shot to semistardom when his song "Miss Misery" was nominated for an Oscar several years ago, has more credibility as an acoustic solo performer since his songs are, for the most part, quiet and uncluttered. But despite his slacker demeanor, Smith is also a perfectionist. It's a quality that served him well when he was an indie troubadour but since moving to the majors this perfectionism has translated into production filigree; things like strings and overdubbed backing vocals and lots of atmospheric reverb.

In any case, Smith's songs aren't "folk" by any stretch of the imagination. His strengths as a pop melodist are complemented by a sophisticated guitar style, and as he proved on his last Japan tour, when he was backed by the two-person band Quasi, he knows how to arrange. Most of Smith's boosters, critics and fans alike, say they love him for his sweet, strangled vocals and bitter, sad lyrics, but without his sharp musical sense he'd be simply another moody young man.

At the Liquid Room, his voice was strangled less by emotion than by phlegm, perhaps owing to a cold that, he hinted, had turned into pneumonia. "I have to take this pill now, but it's not for fun." The medication may have affected his motor skills, too: While musical sophistication is Smith's strong point, tonight it was getting in the way. The fingers weren't making it through those tricky runs. Several times he opened up the show to requests -- something a solo acoustic performer can do easily -- but half the titles shouted out he either couldn't play or couldn't remember.

The audience, bless its heart, was with him all the way. When he apologized for blowing the intro to "Coming Up Roses," a girl in the front row yelled, "It's OK, it was close." The mistakes made the show special -- you could say they made the show more Elliott. They didn't even mind when he asked someone in the audience to "tell a story" while he retuned his guitar for the next song. After he played the song, he asked for another story because he had to tune down again. It was a perfect illustration of both the advantages and hazards of flying solo.

Two nights later at Astro Hall in Harajuku, two other musicians from the Pacific Northwest put on their own acoustic show and had similar problems. However, Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, better known as the Posies, exude a jokier, more exuberant vibe to go along with their purer brand of pop. After Auer brought a song to an abrupt halt with a botched chorus, Stringfellow, the more voluble of the two, looked out at his adoring fans (like Smith's, mostly young women) and said, "Are you guys totally sober? Usually our audiences are drunk. They never notice."

Unlike Smith's, the Posies' music sounds as if it should be performed by a band. Played on matching acoustic guitars that often sounded tinny and brittle in the tiny venue, the songs lost most of the distinctive qualities that made them appealing as rock songs on record.

What did make the show appealing was the harmonies. As indirect musical descendants of late British Invasion bands like the Hollies ( a reputation that won them a gig as replacement members of Big Star when Alex Chilton decided to revive that legendary band in 1994), Auer and Stringfellow sing in clear, bright, almost matching tones: the Everly Brothers of grunge.

At first, the prerogatives of solo gigging seemed to be to the audience's disadvantage. "I don't mean to sound crass," Stringfellow said early on, "but who's coming to tomorrow night's show? That's when we'll play the hits. Tonight we're playing the obscure stuff." Terms like "hits" and "obscure stuff" are difficult to differentiate in the case of the Posies, but the crowd clearly didn't dig it.

It was a joke. In fact, the duo played for more than two hours and covered a wide range of styles and moods ("Hit 'em with depression," Stringfellow urged his partner as they tuned between songs, "and then get 'em with redemption in the end") from their whole career, which, though long, isn't exactly bursting with recordings. "We don't look that old," Stringfellow commented, "but we actually have a box set out."

They, too, took requests during the long encore. Though Stringfellow professed to being sick and sloshed with cough medicine, he sounded fine, and if he hadn't drawn attention to the mistakes, no one would have noticed, drunk or not. Unlike a true solo artist, who has no one to blame but himself if he messes up, the Posies have each other to point fingers at, which they did.

But even their stripped down sound requires timing and cooperation, so they obviously had rehearsed. Consequently, they didn't refuse any request for a song on the grounds of not remembering it, though when somebody suggested "Apology," Stringfellow looked worried for a second and said, "I don't know. We haven't played that song for three whole weeks."