Ah shit, Mark Kozelek done a disgraced wank beast style rape-dozy

[Twit 2]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/17/singer-songwriter-mark-kozelek-accused-of-sexual-assault

Fuck sake. I think it was well-known he is a difficult character but looks like he's a rapist and all.

Absolutely love his music, what a bummer.

[bgmnts]

People laugh/look down on me for Rush being my favourite band but they'll never be cancelled for bad rapey shit. It makes me happy I can enjoy their amazing music in peace.

[peanutbutter]

This was covered in the Killers thread already, you should've known to check there first.

[Chedney Honks]

People laugh/look down on me for Rush being my favourite band but they'll never be cancelled for bad rapey shit. It makes me happy I can enjoy their amazing music in peace.

Same with me and MJ.

[BlodwynPig]

Same with me and MJ.

Gotta be Glitter for me, Bosto.

[Twit 2]

This was covered in the Killers thread already, you should've known to check there first.

I don't even know what a Killers is.

[El Unicornio, mang]

"Carry My Ohio" is one of my favourites, I did always get a bit of a sleazy vibe from his interviews though, bragging about his tour conquests and such.

[rue the polywhirl]

I always liked the record he did with Jesu. I wonder if that will be reissued as Jesu/ with all trace of Kozalek from the album cover and the music expunged. I wonder if he'll just forget about the new album and strum out a rambling, rustic-sounding letter of apology as his new spotify single.

[peanutbutter]

Honestly amazed a whole weekend has passed without him managing to somehow make things infinitely worse for himself with some aggressive tirade of a response. It seems virtually guaranteed to happen eventually.

[PaulTMA]

Honestly amazed a whole weekend has passed without him managing to somehow make things infinitely worse for himself with some aggressive tirade of a response. It seems virtually guaranteed to happen eventually.

https://www.sunkilmoon.com/index.html

[rue the polywhirl]

If the accusations do stick he could always re-emerge as Wan Kil Moon.

[scarecrow]

It's mad to think that the interminably detailed accounts of the minutiae of his life were fabricated. Around fifteen recent albums, all alibis. His next one was recorded during lockdown, so there's no time lag anymore. I predict a follow up release dealing with the accusations and the dissolution of his relationship with 'Caroline' by December and I'm worried I'll A) listen, and B) find it compelling.

[Cuellar]

Just saw this on the Guardian - I'm sure this came up years ago too. Always thought he was a sleaze, as you say

Sunshine in Chicago makes me feel pretty sad
My band played here a lot in the '90s, when we had
Lots of female fans and fuck, they all were cute
Now I just sign posters for guys in tennis shoes

Tomorrow I'll get up at a quarter after nine
No itching or burning like I got the other time
My back it fucking hurts but otherwise I'm fine

mate

[Cuellar]

Some brilliant songs mind

[Twit 2]

I genuinely think "Gustavo" is one of the greatest songs ever written.

Trouble is, people can be sensitive and poetic and a rapist. People can care about a Mexican immigrant and not care about a woman they're harming. People eh? Cuh.

[grainger]

Some brilliant songs mind

Are those lines quoted above genuine lyrics? Even with the content aside, that's far from "brilliant" writing.

Edit: sorry, wasn't trying to be confrontational. I'm just staggered by those lyrics, stylistically.

[Twit 2]

Willed artlessness. Stream of consciousness. Usually a style people move into when they've proved themselves in more poetic, sculpted writing. He's a pretty diverse and prolific artist both lyrically and musically.

[ProvanFan]

People laugh/look down on me for Rush being my favourite band but they'll never be cancelled for bad rapey shit. It makes me happy I can enjoy their amazing music in peace.

They rape their instruments though

[Cuellar]

Are those lines quoted above genuine lyrics? Even with the content aside, that's far from "brilliant" writing.

Edit: sorry, wasn't trying to be confrontational. I'm just staggered by those lyrics, stylistically.

Yeah they're genuine lyrics. As Twit says he's moved into a sort of deliberately formless rambling style of writing in recent years, although the lyrics quoted are from a time just before that.

Anyway, I stand by the statement 'some brilliant songs' - I don't necessarily include 'Sunshine in Chicago' in that. A song is more than just its lyrics.

[ProvanFan]

I'm afraid of the dark
Especially when I'm in a park

[Crabwalk]

His cuntishness has swamped his talent for many years now. I hope he's sent down.

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

Loved his stuff up to the point at which he started putting what sounded like improvised "What I did at school today" stories to music.

This sounds like a pearler

In 2015, he referred to Guardian journalist Laura Snapes as a "bitch" who "totally wants to fuck me" in an improvised song during a London concert.

[Twit 2]

Lost Verses, though.

[Annie Labuntur]

People laugh/look down on me for Rush being my favourite band but they'll never be cancelled for bad rapey shit. It makes me happy I can enjoy their amazing music in peace.

I won't tell you what 2112 originally referred to.

Or A Passage to Bangkok.

[peanutbutter]

I genuinely think "Gustavo" is one of the greatest songs ever written.

Trouble is, people can be sensitive and poetic and a rapist. People can care about a Mexican immigrant and not care about a woman they're harming. People eh? Cuh.

I always think Carissa on Benji captures an awful lot about him. It's super touching and compassionate and shows real emotion for the figures involved, but he also barely knows them and is using their real life pain to fill in a narrative he's made up in his head, then he's directly throwing out shit like "I wonder which of you is responsible for her death?" that seems pretty callous. He's sensitive on a conceptual level, but doesn't give a shit about people very much beyond that is the general vibe I get.

There's another song on that album where he's at another family funeral and claims the whole family went into a "trance" when he picked up a guitar. Somehow found the image pretty hard to buy and it was a weird way of bringing the attention onto himself given the topic of the song. "the funeral was sad and all, but I fucking killed it with the live show afterwards"



He's built up such a huge reputation of being a colossal prick that he could probably uncancel himself with his fanbase via even the slightest of apologies or acknowledgments that he needs to grow a bit.

[shagatha crustie]

^ Great take, he's clearly capable of feeling and expressing deep emotion but theres too frequently an added misanthropic 'everybody else sucks/is stupid' edge.

I've lost count of the amount of songs which seem to obliquely be about encounters with female figures in hotel rooms and on tour - not just the more explicit stuff of the diary like recent albums, but songs from Ghosts, April and Admiral Fell Promises too. Damn shame to taint those beautiful tunes.

I buried my first victim when I was nineteen
Went through her bedroom and the pockets of her jeans
And read her letters that said so many things that really hurt me bad

Used to love that verse but it just sounds proper creepy and incel-ish now doesn't it?

[holyzombiejesus]

I always had them/ him down as a second rate American Music Club/ Mark Eitzel. Don't know if that's fair but fuck him anyway.

[The Mollusk]

Never really trusted this dickhead. Always came across like "I feel emotions on a deeper level than most people and that gives me license to be a complete cunt to whoever I want". Following these allegations it seems that sentiment extends to sexual abuse so he can get fucked for all I care.

[Puce Moment]

Kurt and Elliott showed how this was done you whiney old perv cunts.

[Twit 2]

I suppose this has made me re-evaluate his songs. For example, "Gustavo". Mexican dude does his house up on the cheap, they hang out lots, Gustavo gets busted, asks Kozelek for $2500, K's like nah mate. Presumably he's not mega rich but he's been a pro musician for nearly 30 years, very successful for the last decade or so. 2500 is probably chicken feed. "Really I don't give much thought to Gustavo". Absolutely fits the pattern of using people's life events and emotions for his own purposes and income.

And yet. When "April" came out I sat on a rooftop in Spain looking out over the white roofs and blue ocean and felt a lifetime of accumulated melancholy bleed out of myself, mix with his music and drift off into the sky: somehow the mood he created matched perfectly with everything I was feeling, just bittersweet transcendence that was almost painfully truthful, real and vital. Whatever cuntitde and falshoods he also peddles, as an artist he also made me feel alive in a way that very few things have with the same force.