I guess I'll just get this part out of the way right now rather than try to build uncertainty into a narrative so I can cut the legs out of it with a surprise unequivocal conclusion.
Mark Kozelek is a huge asshole. It is a fact I'd have been happy never to learn, but this past Friday night, at his Hopscotch Music Festival set at the Lincoln Theater in downtown Raleigh, my fellow attendees and I got our faces rubbed in it.
I don't think I'm violating this blog's credo by writing about my experience in coming to this conclusion. Until I learned what a self-important diva douchepump he is Friday, I might have said he was my favorite songwriter. I've done 4 year end best-of lists on this site, and three of them have named a record of his. In my 2010 list, where I ranked
Admiral Fell Promises number 4, I called myself "an unrepentant Kozelek fanboy." (I hate people who quote themselves, but I'd like it noted I only do it when it outs me as the drooling halfwit that I am.) But wait for this one -- the "Kozelek" playlist on my itunes, which has
Red House Painters,
Sun Kil Moon,
Desertshore, solo, collaborations, and the live albums he puts out every couple of weeks, has 312 songs (all paid for -- i.e., no scarfing from friends, because none of my friends listen to this asshole). That's 26 hours of freaking Kozelek. It's 6 more songs, and 14 more hours, than my Robert Pollard playlist.
Maybe you haven't heard what happened Friday at the Sun Kil Moon set at the Lincoln. By mid-day Saturday it was making the rounds online, starting locally at the venerable
IndyWeek, which reported, accurately, that before Kozelek had played his first note, he said, "everybody, all you fucking hillbillies, shut the fuck up." If you go to that link, you can click on a recording of it on someone's instagram account. It actually splices two distinct unpleasantnesses together, making them sound like a single rant. In fact, after the first song, he threatened to quit, claiming not to care whether he got paid or not. He started bitching about trying to do "really delicate" musical things and needing to hear the others in the band -- all valid, no doubt, but conveyed with such poindexterish superiority and patronizing contempt that I, who had been looking forward to this set more than any other of the festival, had to stifle a hurl before muttering 'give me a fucking break' (very, very quietly, to be sure). By this time I was experiencing traumatic remorse at having left in the middle of a facemelting performance by
KEN Mode so I could be on time for the abuse.
Now, I don't want to make it sound like I'm this bent out of shape about being called a fucking hillbilly. It should be pointed out that, technically, those of us from this general region are really more redneck than hillbilly, but now I'm the pedantic asshole, aren't I? After a couple of songs, Kozelek could see he had completely lost the room, and claimed to have been joking about the fucking hillbilly stuff. Frankly I believe him. Although tons of his songs are about all the European places he's traveled to for performances, and all the beautiful women he's seduced with his brooding faux-diffidence and melancholy charm, his latest album is deeply prosaic and earthbound -- its beauty inheres in these things. Despite showing himself to be a diva artiste this weekend, Kozelek never has seemed to be trying to convince us of any sort of literary sophistication or privileged upbringing. In any event, I went to college in the midwest, where being a southern redneck could be put to great use in nearly any situation in your day. No, I learned long ago not to be reflexively offended by such epithets, especially coming from a guy who's not ashamed of his own humble origins.
Old Mark did piss off quite a few with the fucking hillbilly remark, but that's not what got my shorts all bunched up about him. For me, it was seeing this great artist reveal himself as lacking any sense of humility or appreciation for the people who have put him where he is in the world. I had sensed some of the resigned contempt Kozelek has for much of his audience before this night -- his lyrics lamenting signing posters for guys in tennis shoes; much of the crowd banter on his recent live album recorded in Milan, but I got that. I'm Kozelek's age, and I can empathize with the notion that being an itinerant singer-songwriter is much more fun when you're a twenty-something guy than a late-40s guy. But seeing Kozelek berate a stage tech because of sound issues, and then lash into the crowd for lacking proper reverence for the moment, including threatening to quit after one song -- it was just a massive disappointment. Kind of like Charlie Bucket when Wonka (at least the Wilder version) told him to go screw himself because he'd gone in that bubble chamber or whatever that thing was.
The ripples from this little squall spread surprisingly wide (and quickly), and the recriminations have flowed back with equal force. The Kozelek apologists have blamed the entire matter on Hopscotch logistics, saying that scheduling this set in the traditionally rowdy Lincoln Theater is akin to displaying the Faberge eggs at an interstate Bob Evans. Friends, that is horseshit. The Lincoln is a music venue, and an excellent one at that. Bands play there, and the people who go see those bands change, depending on the band. I've seen the National play there, and I've seen Corrosion of Conformity play there, and I bet that I was one of maybe 5 people who was at both of those shows. From time to time they have gentle bands play there, and no one gets hurt, other than maybe some hurt feelings.
The fact is that this was a festival set -- and that's a fact that appears to have been lost on Mark Kozelek. Because this was a festival set, it meant that Sun Kil Moon was one of six bands playing at the 12.30 a.m. time slot. Thousands of fans with weekend passes would be going to these six shows, and many would be unfamiliar with the bands. With an album widely expected to be on many of the year end best-of lists, it's easy to see why Sun Kil Moon might be a favorite among uncommitted festival-goers, regardless of where he was told to play. That Kozelek decided to go out of his way to be a complete dick to all these fresh-faced, slightly drunk (it was late) would-be-initiates is not the fault of the Hopscotch brass (who put on a terrific festival) or the chimerical "Lincoln Theater crowd."
Kozelek clearly doesn't like festival crowds because they don't properly prostrate themselves (i.e., very quietly prostrate themselves) before his overwhelming genius. Seems like henceforth he should avoid festivals for that reason. He was able to make do this weekend though. Halfway through the show, two-thirds of the alienated crowd had staggered out of the theater into the warm embrace of the Raleigh night, leaving only mindless sycophants and bewildered morons (like me) to witness the episode lumbering to its sad end. Those in the exodus were wondering what on earth they could have done so wrong as to have provoked that old man on stage to treat them in such a way. Don't worry, Raleigh. Sleep tight. You didn't do anything wrong. That old man's just an asshole.
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