Music

Mark Kozelek attacks Ottawa with new song during latest tantrum

by Jeremy Mersereau

I didn’t wanna have to be the one to say it… but Mark Kozelek doesn’t seem like a very nice guy. With every new story that comes out, the Sun Kil Moon singer-songwriter seems less like a legit dude railing at the world’s bullshit and more like a person who ruins every party he’s invited to, kind of like the indie-rock Livia Soprano.

This time, Kozelek is taking aim at the Ottawa CityFolk fest for being disorganized… which is fine, but Kozelek then went on to debut a new song in Toronto on Monday night, called “The Ottawa Bluesfest is Run By Inbreds.” Tell us how you really feel, dude.

“The Ottawa Bluesfest Is Run by Inbreds” recounts his issues with the festival; everything from being emailed about catering to being emailed about stage directions. Most of the hate focuses on the Ottawa Bluesfest promotion team, but Kozelek also takes shots at The Ottawa Sun, Alanis Morrissette, and an even bigger target: Towards the end of the song, Kozelek takes aim at the city of Ottawa as a whole, and gets the entire Toronto crowd to sing that Canada’s capital and fourth-largest city is indeed run by inbreds. This, uh, may not alleviate the rest of the country’s Toronto hate. It’s not all negative towards Canada, though. Kozelek cites his love of the East Coast, Seth Rogen and Neil Peart, as well as making it clear that the Toronto and Vancouver shows are run by “really smart folks,” as opposed to inbreds.

Last year at the Ottawa Folk Festival, Kozelek started his much-publicized feud with The War On Drugs, resulting in diss tracks, hurt feelings, and press galore… all due to sound issues. This year’s Kozelek Tantrum™ deals with the entire festival (which has been re-dubbed Ottawa CityFolk) itself, which Sun Kil Moon was scheduled to play last week but then dropped out of. A note on Sun Kil Moon’s tour page says the performance was cancelled “due to unorganized promoters”, and comes complete with links to the stage collapse that occurred during a 2011 Cheap Trick performance.

Worrying about your personal safety if you’re going to perform at a festival with stage collapses in their immediate past is one thing, but most musicians would stop at cancelling the performance, citing their concerns, and moving on to the next date. Not so Mark Kozelek, who decided the best course of action was to write about his experiences with the festival, and perform it in concert two nights later.

For his part, Ottawa CityFolk promoter Mark Monahan told The Ottawa Sun that “because we have multiple people contacting him about transportation and catering and stage management, he’s suggesting that we’re disorganized,” and that “this hasn’t been an issue for any other bands.”