http://pitchfork.com/news/56916-mark-ko ... m-onstage/



If I was in SF I might go check this out...

I'm smelling split single.

The War on The War on Drugs

Between TWOD and the city of Raleigh, Mark Kozelek is on a roll

I'll admit that I've never listened to them, specifically because I think their name is dumb.

I haven't listened to them either but now I want to.

And to think I bought both albums at the same time back in the spring. COSMIC COINCIDENCE BITCHES

D-Day!

Mark Kozelek, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down: http://www.stereogum.com/1709766/mark-k ... ses/essay/

http://pitchfork.com/news/56989-here-it ... k-my-cock/


why do people like this guy?

It's not the worst song but dude just seems miserable

I actually think this is pretty funny. Especially "hope they don't have lice".

I like him for the, presumably, very sincere and genuinely sad and pretty stuff he wrote and released, mostly over a decade ago. (Admiral Fell Promises is great, too.) I've had a hard time with his recent stuff, particularly Among the Leaves, but I've learned not to take any of it too seriously. There's some blatant misogyny and misanthropy that can be hard to take, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't relate to it on some level. Just not sure if it's the best idea or not to put that stuff out there.

But he's been just kind of putting it all out there lately and doing a lot more joke songs and dis songs and the like. This is maybe the most pointed of all of them, but for the most part there's no reason for anyone to take it seriously or as anything more than a roast.

I mean this is coming after selling T-shirts based on the whole "hillbillies" incident so I don't see why anybody would get all bothered about it, even if you're a huge War on Drugs fan. Some people can't help but just take everything at face value, I guess.

As far as him seeming "misrable"... I don't know. That's certainly debatable. You could say it's cause for concern that his output took such a big shift from seeming very carefully considered to just being whatever pops into head, laid to tape. Like he kinda stopped giving a shit. Could be a sign of very deep, troubling cynicism and weariness, or it could just be him getting older, mellowing out, and having fun.

But then, what do I know, maybe this is how you feel:
http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/515-sun-k ... -violence/

My miserable comment has less to do with this particular song or his recent output (I've only really heard Benji since Red House Painters), but the fact that he seems to be picking fights unprompted. The "hillbillies" comment at Hopscotch (which I happened to be at) is not an isolated incident when it comes to him antagonizing his own crowds. And as far as I can tell, all TWOD did was happen to get scheduled opposite Kozelek at a festival and have their sound bleed into his venue. Since then, he has made his initial comments, issued a non-apology, and written a SEVEN MINUTE song telling them to suck his cock. A lot of effort on his part for a one-sided beef.

So yeah, seems like he's miserable to me.

Plus, he said Chapel Hill instead of Raleigh in the song. Fuck that guy.

So he's the Lil B of singer/songwriters?

I'm just not sure how genuine these "fights" are, is what I'm saying. He seems to talk a lot of shit without any kind of filter, but the extent to which he's drawn these two incidents out, I think, is due to the amount of media attention they received in the first place. Like he never would have made T-shirts out of the hillbillies thing if that hadn't made headlines at Pitchfork and such, and I'm pretty sure the same thing goes for the War on Drugs comment. As you say, he's been saying stuff like this for a long time, but it was never making headlines on music sites until this year, for whatever reason, and because of that I think he's playing off of the attention. (It also kind of fits in with the lyrical themes of his last several records with the jabs at Nels Cline, etc.) He likes to provoke and antagonize people, and because more people are paying attention now, he's upping the ante. He probably wouldn't have given either of these comments - hillbillies or WoD - another thought if they hadn't been brought back to his attention via the indie media circus around them.

That's all fair. Maybe the fact that he keeps "upping the ante" because of the increased attention (due to indie blogs) is because he is bored instead of miserable.

Shoot, maybe he's having fun.

songwriters (and I'm just extrapolating from all the bands i've been in, dating one exceptional one, and being pretty good at it myself)
are not right in the head.

There's another article on Pfork by the girl from Perfect Pussy who has another take on things.

Yeah, someone should post a link to that in this thread!

i literally had no seconds to spare this morning! i only have a few to spare right now, which only gives me enough time to type out this excuse.

Meh. He's either just a miserable prick on an ego trip or he's fucking with the media which implies that he thinks most people are lemmings who will believe anything they read on the internet. Either way, it's not making me want to hear his latest album

The one of Christmas Carols? Yeah this "Suck My Cock" song seems like an odd precursor to that.



Or he just gives people way too much credit and thinks they'll go along for the ride and have a laugh at the whole thing?

And by the way, it is super weird to me that I'm going to the mat for Mark Kozelek because I have totally taken the other side in many instances, probably on this board. He is without a doubt a curmudgeon, a misogynist, and a misanthrope. In the past, in many cases, he has come across as contemptuous of his fans, and I have found some of his songs, particularly on the album Among the Leaves, to be so ugly and mean-spirited lyrically that I was unable to enjoy them. I was even kind of soured on him in general due to those for a while. But I honestly feel like this is something different, and I'm not sure how much more time and energy I can devote to discussing why.