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| War On Drugs at Hopscotch Festival, 9/4/2014 |
I'm pretty sure this post is going to be misunderstood. I like The War On Drugs, a lot, but due to other commitments, I'm going to give away my ticket to next week's show at The Tabernacle to either the first person to email me or the person who gives me the best reason to give it to them. My choice.
But already, I've gotten ahead of myself. I saw The War on Drugs last month at the Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh, and they played a great set, playing well past 2 a.m. The next night in the same theater, I saw anger bear Sun Kil Moon have his by now well publicized breakdown on the same stage, resulting in anti-Moon graffitti on the sidewalks of Raleigh and later attempts by Mark Kozelek to pass it all off as a joke, including selling t-shirts with his tirade printed on them.
Apparently, some people never learn. According to the usual sources (Pitchfork, Brooklyn Vegan), Kozelek was recently playing at some festival somewhere, and got upset that The War On Drugs were playing too loudly on another stage. He allegedly told the audience that the band sounded to him like generic beer-ad guitar or some such thing, and said The War On Drugs could "suck my cock."
Now he's apparently back to the "it was all just a joke," denial phase, and to show what a swell guy he really is and how he can even laugh at himself, he's released a song called War On Drugs, Suck My Cock.
The first verse talks about the War On Drugs feud, while the second recounts the Raleigh incident. For some reason, he identifies the city as Chapel Hill, either because it works into the rhythm scheme better than Raleigh, or because he didn't even know where he was or he doesn't know the difference (tell me what the difference is between Oakland and Berkeley again?). But other than geography, it is a pretty accurate description of what I saw that night, although I wouldn't go so far as to classify the audience as "hillbillies" and the Lincoln Theater didn't actually smell particularly bad.
What's most interesting to me is the third verse, where he talks about some "spoiled-bitch rich-kid blogger brat" who got offended and posted pictures of the anti-Moon graffiti. I'm not so vain that I think that this song is about me, but I did post an account of the incident on Blogspot with pictures of the graffiti, although I'm hardly the only one. But if that's as harsh as the blow back gets, I can deal with it. In any event, Pitchfork thinks the reference is to a writer at Raleigh's Indy Week, although I don't know how they could know that from just the song.
But anyway (and here's where I'm concerned that I'm going to be misunderstood), none of this has anything to do with why I'm giving away my War On Drugs ticket. The Sun Kil Moon song hasn't changed my opinion about them (although it does have me reconsidering Sun Kil Moon).
I've already seen The War On Drugs about three times and each show was great, but I've seen them just last month (at Hopscotch) and while I wouldn't mind seeing them again, that same night Courtney Barnett is playing her first show in Atlanta, with San Fermin opening, and I bought tickets to that show, too. So rather than see TWOD for a fourth time, I'm going to opt to see Barnett instead and give away my ticket, free, to anyone who wants it.
I'm not convinced I even have any readers here, except possibly my friend Lesley down in Griffin who's also going to the Courtney Barnett show, but if anyone does see this and wants the ticket, just contact me at shokai.atl@gmail.com and I'll email the ticket to you. As stated earlier, the ticket will probably go to the first (only?) responder, but in the unlikely event that I get multiple requests, the ticket will go to the person who most makes me want to give it to them (hint: humor works better on me than guilt).
Good luck, and enjoy!
Any takers?
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