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Mark Kozelek |
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The Ottobar
Baltimore, Maryland
12.13.03 |
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review by Doug Sell
The music of Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon) is sensitive, beautiful, and comforting in the way sadness can often be. Because of this, Kozelek routinely gets painted as a dour, fey man. But clearly there is a surly and sarcastic bad-boy side to this sad-core prince. Just as he took the stage at Baltimore's Ottobar rock club recently, an adoring fan sent out a sexy cat-call whistle his way. Instead of shying away sheepishly, Kozelek lifted up his sweater to reveal a flabby belly and said, "Somebody's whistling at me? Really? With all this f**king shit happening right here? I don't think so." Kozelek's brash candor and sailor's tongue may not fit with fans' image of a moody, romantic songwriter, but it makes him real — complex and flawed — just like the rest of us.
Prior to Kozelek coming on stage and flashing his lazy gut, opener Lisa Cerbone kicked off this early evening show ("EIGHTIES MAYHEM: A night of '80s music & movies" was scheduled as the primetime entertainment at the Ottobar) with a pleasant set of church-mouse-quiet folk. Cerbone is a Maryland resident and Kozelek produced and played on her third record, Ordinary Days. In comparison to Cerbone's twinkling soft delivery, Kozelek's thick wooly blanket of a voice filled the cavernous rock club. From the opening notes of "Salvador Sanchez" (found on Sun Kil Moon's Ghost Of The Great Highway), those in front of the stage and upstairs in the side balcony were rapt with attention. Kozelek's deep, seemingly effortless singing is so wondrous and powerful (especially live) that he could sing words from Helen Steiner Rice greeting cards and it would still shatter your heart, no matter how snobby and jaded you are.
Because it had been almost two years since Kozelek last toured, he was no doubt using this short solo trek as a way to shake off the rust from his stage performance and get reacquainted with older songs prior to the official Sun Kil Moon tour that's in the works for 2004. As such, the set consisted of songs from nearly every entry in his catalog, including a handful of tunes from the new Sun Kil Moon record, which features members of Red House Painters and American Music Club. Kozelek reached back to 1993's pair of self-titled Red House Painter releases with "Helicopter," "Down Through," and the classic "New Jersey." Other Red House Painter numbers included fan favorites "Summer Dress" and the minor hit "All Mixed Up." Kozelek's gorgeously sparse rendition of this Cars song made the chorus of "She said, leave it to me / Everything will be all right" feel desperate and pleading, not reassuring.
Just after serenading the crowd with "Rock 'n' Roll Singer," a song found on Kozelek's unbelievably stunning all-AC/DC covers record, What's Next To The Moon, a crowd member yelled out "Japanese" (in reference to the song "Japanese To English"). Kozelek stopped tuning his guitar and fired off this acidic retort: "Yeah, ok, and then I'll play 'Mike,' 'Copter,' 'Park.' Sound good, uh?" poking fun at the fan by naming only single words from other song titles. It was hard to tell if he was seriously miffed or not; regardless, this sarcastic, funny comeback was trademark Kozelek.
For the encore, Kozelek requested and received a barstool, looking more relaxed and comfortable once he sat down. "Where's the after-party at? I'm lonely," he asked sneeringly before starting into "Duk Koo Kim," the ten-minute centerpiece of Ghosts Of The Great Highway. This haunting epic features hypnotic, spiraling fret work and carries one of Kozelek's most stark lyrical lines: "I'd rather leave this world forever, baby / Then let life go the way it's going." As the cold Maryland evening gave way to colder nighttime, Mark Kozelek proved to anyone in the crowd who thought he was just a sad-hearted sensitive that he's more complex than that. He can also be out-loud funny, sardonic, crude, and a bit of an ass. It's this dichotomy that makes him such an interesting and fascinating artist.
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