In case you haven’t paid attention to music news lately, you probably know Sun Kil Moon. That’s a shame, because the album Benji is a haunting piece that has made its worth known throughout all of 2014. However, most of singer/songwriter Mark Kozelek’s attention, as of late, has been due to trashy tabloids, and the vast majority of these headlines were brought on by his own doing. When I covered Sun Kil Moon’s set, Kozelek was in a calm place. He had just been ripped apart online for calling his North Carolina a bunch of “fuckin’ hillbillies”. He claimed that he was a nice guy to us, and he didn’t seem so bad. He still doesn’t seem that bad even now, but he’s still besmirching his own name, especially during the year that would have finally made him a big name. Either way, after the Toronto show, he started some more drama with the band The War on Drugs. During a festival the two bands played at, Kozelek showed his dissatisfaction with The War on Drugs’ set leaking into his own, as both bands played at the same time. With some negative words thrown, there has been an online back-and-forth for a little while now. This lead to what seemed like an apology from Kozelek.
It wasn’t an apology, and he was quick to debunk the articles stating he had retreated. If anything, this misunderstanding fueled him to challenge The War on Drugs to write a pair of songs about one another: Kozelek’s project Sun Kil Moon would write “War On Drugs: Suck My Cock” while The War on Drugs would write “Sun Kil Moon: Go Fuck Yourself”. It’s only been a few days, and the Sun Kil Moon track is out. No rebuttal has been made by The War on Drugs yet, but to be fair, I think a lot of us need some time to digest the actual continuation of such a silly series of events. You’d expect a sloppy song, but instead we get a seven minute song that almost sounds like something that could have been on Benji. The key word in that last sentence is almost, because War On Drugs: Suck My Cock is a song that is just so bizarre and yet it kind of works. The lyrics are beyond basic, and this is a song by Kozelek: A man who learned the ways of pure blunt lyricism. Of course, the song attacks The War on Drugs, accusing them of having greasy hair, being the whitest band ever and commenting on their beer commercial guitar lines. Kozelek also insults the North Carolina crowd again and also a blog writer that bashed him (to be fair, whoever bashed him thought his name was Sun Kil Moon, according to Kozelek. If this is true, then that is pretty poor).
With the silly lyrics, the song somewhat works because it almost sounds like Kozelek is poking as much fun at himself as he is at everyone else involved. With Benji being a confessional album that spills all of its secrets because of its fear of death, this song may be dealing with popularity and the spotlight in the same inexperienced fashion. He claims that he met The War on Drugs and that they were “nice” in this song, so perhaps the band is on good terms with Kozelek. When I saw Sun Kil Moon in Toronto, Kozelek seemed to have a very dry sense of humor, but he never seemed like a man of arrogance. Maybe a lot of the cynicism directed towards him is due to his intentions being lost in translation, but either way, he has truly brought most of the tabloids on himself. With War On Drugs: Suck My Cock, he has provided magazine after magazine with magazines of ammunition. There are so many lines that can be used against Sun Kil Moon that it’s seppuku at this point.
Yet Kozelek sits with a guitar and plays an eerie tune. The contrast between the encroaching music and the purposely-stupid lyrics is monumental. The music itself, from the layered guitar arpeggios to the actual vocal melodies, is actually really well composed. There are even legitimate guitar solos that aren’t corny for the sake of parody. That’s where the real shame lies here. There is a real song here truly capable of something great. Even if the song attacked the same events, if it had done so in a more professional way, the song could have actually worked. Instead, we get a song that tries to be the be-all-end-all of the schoolyard fighting between Kozelek and the other kids. This self aware song (that pinpoints when “there’s more” after the guitar solo and when the song will just fade out at the end) is also unaware of whether or not it is trying to be funny or to be the bigger man. The self mutilation here is kind of magnificent in a way, but, oddly enough (for a song that insists a band fellates his penis), this song could have made its point ten times stronger with the chilling potential it already has. Rather, the song reiterates the views we already knew Kozelek has, and it stands in the home-free zone during tag and teases. There’s a stunning depression behind this mockery, but it’s still mockery, and that stunts both this song and Kozelek’s possible and eventual breakthrough.
