sun kil moon?

why

is the nels cline hating a joke?

What do you have against Nels Cline? This is the second time you’ve brought him up in one of your albums. Has he tried to retaliate? Do you secretly like him?

Honestly, I don’t know anything about him. I saw Wilco live only once, in New Orleans, and on TV once. I decided to name off a bunch of guitarists I liked, in the chorus of “Bramble,” but then thought it would be more dynamic if I named a few I hated. The thing is, I don’t hate anybody. His name just rhymed with whatever came before it, and people laughed. So on Benji, I did it again. I do things twice, sometimes, like how I did “UK Blues” and “UK Blues 2.”

i dont understand why someone would hate this record, unless you dont like mark kozelek's music. and if thats the case, then why the fuck are you listening to it?

I can understand someone loving ghosts and not liking this record

he also mentions Panera Bread twice and his uncle twice on this record

that is fantastic

i have a little trouble reconciling the deep-redneck trash-burning uncle and the presumably exurban panera bread flirting dad. maybe they are from different branches of the family. kozelek cosmology. also this record is great.

I don't know where you're getting "exurban" -- it says elsewhere on the record that he was an eighth grade dropout. Panera Breads are everywhere. You see truckers getting coffee at rest-stop starbucks. I feel like you're speaking from kind of a narrow idea of what a working/middle class family might look like.

i dont understand why someone would hate this record, unless you dont like mark kozelek's music. and if thats the case, then why the fuck are you listening to it?

― everyday sheeple (Michael B), Tuesday, February 18, 2014 11:24 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can understand someone loving ghosts and not liking this record

― the Norwegians are leaving! (Sufjan Grafton), Tuesday, February 18, 2014 11:25 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah within the Kozelek world this record is very distinct, even if the MK/Desertshore record was a direct "warm up" that lead to it.

AFP and Benji are so similar on the outside but are so very different in context.

Some people have been pointing out the Newtown song as the weak spot of the album, but I think he does something kind of neat with it that relates to a larger theme of the record. When he talks about the Norway killer, there's a great moment where he says "they didn't really care, but I did (pause) cause I got a lot of friends out there." At first you think "but I did" is a self-righteous thing, but it's actually about his personal connection to the tragedy. In the same way, he writes about Newtown not because he heard it on the news, but because a fan (from Newtown I think) wrote to him and asked him to pray about it, so once that connection was made he felt compelled to do something. It all ties back to the line in Song Remains "whenever anything close to me at all in the world died/ To my heart, forever, it would be tied." Same force that motivates him to write a song for the second cousin he didn't know well, and for his dad's friend who he spent the day with.

he doesn't rap on ghosts

Yeah I totally read that song to drive the concept that we shouldn't let moments of tragedy leave our thoughts even when time has passed or something happy is happening to us personally. As a way to stay grounded? Not necessarily to keep depression perpetual throughout our lives- which a Kozelek non-fan might joke.

can't stop listening to this

― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 18 February 2014 15:20 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Same. So good.

I love the short, descending string melody (mandolin?) in Carissa - it's like he gave her her own "theme" as part of the eulogy.

sry it's nylon string guitar

i tried to listen to this in the shop but somehow i think there is a maximum of kozelek albums you need in your life and i have surpassed it. in the end it is always the first ep and the rollercoaster album i come back to. his vocal delivery on the new one really turns me off. he has completely given up singing, it is not even sprechgesang anymore here. and i am not too interested in his personal stories.

they have panera bread at truck stops?

http://linktown.wcnc.com/biz/panera-bread/amherst/oh/44001/15641266

it's even in ohio. story checks out.

http://img.groundspeak.com/waymarking/82ec9715-e9d8-44d0-9dab-4491465ef816.jpg

http://www.mightysweet.com/mesohungry/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/03-Panera_Ohio.jpg

is that a picture of heaven?

it is so beautiful.

lol

"Whut the hell is a Panera Bread. I'm hungry, I'mma go keel me a possum"

serves the possum right. they're super-gross.

xp wait is that supposed to be someone from Ohio?

no it's supposed to be someone's ridiculously wrongheaded idea of a "redneck" in the 21st century

ah, i get it now

nels lived in SF for ages I'm surprised he doesn't know anything about him.

i also took the noodly guitar stuff after "i hate nels cline" to be parody

which would require some familiarity

I have no doubt he knows him better than he lets on, but I doubt there's any big story behind it

mark kozelek auditioned for wilco in 2004 when he was beaten in a crossroads-style guitar battle with nels cline

I just figured he was a good figurehead for muso guitarists within his relative musical universe, and also his name fits lyrics well.

It's funny to say "I'm no Nels Cline" because of the particular position Nels Cline occupies. It's better than saying "Yngwie" or something like that.

i work at it every day, and i can bake a mean pumpernickel. but i'm no panera bread.

so "Ben's My Friend" is basically kozelek's remix of "Semi-Charmed Life"

I don't mean this as an insult, but you could basically write "RILY: Eels, Soul Coughing, Everlast" about this record and it wouldn't be wrong

Indie rock fans in being confused about what "rapping" sounds like non-shocker. I mean, I can't help but immediately dismiss any praise or criticism for this record that says Mark is "rapping".

Most of the criticisms of this record are suspiciously just criticisms of the one song they actually heard (Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes)

i have heard the whole thing and i wish he would write or sing a vocal melody and would edit himself enough so that the syllables of each line didn't spill over bc it's so awkward and diaristic. i don't think this unedited linear and mundane approach really produces the novel apprehension of death or whatever that people seem to be responding to here. for instance on carissa he spends a lot of time outlining his intentions for the song (honor someone he barely knew and engage with the intricacies of her life and death), and imo the song does nothing except outline itself over and over. i'm sure that's what kozelek wants out of his own music at this point but i can't get with it. the songs are unearthly long and are powered by half-composed ideas. it's exhausting.

I think we're both victims of confirmation bias- clearly there are vocal melodies in some cases and vocal melodies are lacking in others for example. I totally agree there isn't as much craft overall and lyrically it's all first-draft-journal-entry but the approach as a whole is really doing a lot for me. Reasons why have been explained upthread better than I would right now.

i have heard the whole thing and i wish he would write or sing a vocal melody and would edit himself enough so that the syllables of each line didn't spill over bc it's so awkward and diaristic. i don't think this unedited linear and mundane approach really produces the novel apprehension of death or whatever that people seem to be responding to here. for instance on carissa he spends a lot of time outlining his intentions for the song (honor someone he barely knew and engage with the intricacies of her life and death), and imo the song does nothing except outline itself over and over. i'm sure that's what kozelek wants out of his own music at this point but i can't get with it. the songs are unearthly long and are powered by half-composed ideas. it's exhausting.

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Thursday, February 20, 2014 4:28 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't understand what you mean by "sing a vocal melody" -- how are the vocal melodies of these songs not "vocal melodies"? I realize some songs, like Carissa, are more "talky" but otoh there's "I Can't Live Without My Mother's Love" or "Micheline." As for "editing" himself, I just think you are mistaking artless style for artlessness, because if you listen to the songs enough they seem pretty well thought out individually and as an album.

I can't really argue with you about Carissa because the things you don't like about it are part of what I like about it. But I do think you're missing some of what's going on in the song, in that (1) the song is very much about why he wants to go back to Ohio and go to the funeral and find out more about Carissa and narrated at the point when he hasn't done so yet, and (2) there are some subtle details about her that tell you a lot, like the fact that she got pregnant at 15 and was an RN at 35 -- a wild child who managed to turn her life around as a (presumably) single parent.

Which Soul Coughing album sounded like this? Must be El Oso b/c I never heard that one.

that could be it--el oso is from 98 which is right about when panera bread began their national expansion from their humble beginnings as a st louis-area bakery chain so that checks out (SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA)

"El Oso" is spanish for "The Bread Bowl"

I think the distinction about whether you like this album or not as a Kozelek fan is whether you interpret this record as him trying something new vs. him not trying at all.

Indie rock fans in being confused about what "rapping" sounds like non-shocker. I mean, I can't help but immediately dismiss any praise or criticism for this record that says Mark is "rapping".

― an enormous bolus of flatulence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, February 20, 2014 4:10 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

Huh, so even though I had a Red House Painters CD back in the day, somehow I never got around to checking out Sun Kil Moon. This Ghosts of the Great Highway is pretty great, isn't it?