Hear Mark Kozelek’s New Diss Track “The Ottawa Blues Fest Is Run By Inbreds”
Last week, Sun Kil Moon was booked to play the Ottawa CityFolk Festival, but Mark Kozelek canceled his performance at the festival in the midst of a feud with promoter Mark Monahan. On Sun Kil Moon’s touring page, Kozelek wrote that the show had been “cancelled due to unorganized promoters,” posting links to articles about past problems at Ottawa’s festivals. In an interview with The Ottawa Sun, Monahan talked about the cancelation, saying that Kozelek had canceled his set after issuing a “profanity-laced ultimatum” when he decided that the festival organizers had been emailing him too many times about the show’s setup. Last night, during a Sun Kil Moon show at Toronto’s Opera House, Kozelek had his revenge.
Reader Eric Jette wrote in to tell us that Kozelek debuted a new song with the self-explanatory title “The Ottawa Blues Fest Is Run By Inbreds.” Kozelek explained that the song is his version of Cheap Trick’s “Dream Police” — significant, since the stage collapsed during a 2011 Cheap Trick performance at Monahan’s Ottawa Blues Fest — but that his version of the song had new lyrics. Some of those lyrics: “They’re emailing me about carrots and celery backstage / Every single night, it’s driving me totally fucking insane / Those inbreds who work for the promoter, man / He’s got a pet cat, and it’s his biggest fan.” Also: “They’re emailing me about guestlists and such / Every single day, as if I give a fuck.”
The song also aired out The Ottawa Sun (also “run by inbreds,” apparently) and calling the reporter who wrote the story the newspaper’s “best little whore.” And at the end of a verse praising everything Kozelek likes about Canada, he called Ottawa “the worst Canadian city of all.” Jette made a live recording of the performance (thanks, Eric!), and you can hear it below.
Jette writes, “Earlier in the show, he asked if anyone was at Ottawa CityFolk and apologized for not being able to be there. He really wanted to see the Sheepdogs play in the rain (very sarcastically) and hear Van Morrison sing like he had marbles in his throat.”