Sun Kil Moon

The BAREZZI festival has,over the last two decades, managed to attract many major artists to the province of Parma as part of the area’s celebration of Giuseppe Verdi and live music, but getting Sun Kil Moon to perform is a triumph and master stroke.
Tonight, the cavernous Auditorium del Carmine in the heart of Parma city centre, hosts one of America’s most genial contemporary singer songwriters, Mark Kozelek . Born in Ohio, 57 years ago, his body of work in projects such as Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon and as a solo artist has led to the making of over 30 albums. His stream of consciousness lyrics,no holds barred, lay down a template that can entice, then captivate a listener, often involving great musical collaborative performances such as with his Red House companions Anthony Koutsos and Jerry Vessel, right up to the most recently released and brilliant album, a joint effort with Hungarian Jazz trio Amoeba. Prolific certainly, but it’s the standard with the bar set high that amazes especially as a wordsmith.
Tonight he is playing solo under the Sun Kil Moon moniker. The crowd is kept waiting outside,on this rather cold autumnal evening, a typically poor Italian organisational style, so it’s just as well I had a swift bourbon before i queued.We take our seats in the Auditorium, everyone awaiting something unique to happen and the stage has our undivided attention.

Strangely the opening song ‘Bees On Echinacea’ has Mark singing along to a piano based backing track which completely confuses the crowd into thinking that a sort of karaoke gig has been organised. Just polite applause follows and after an awkward silence he introduces himself as he picks up his guitar, takes his time to tune it and then suddenly starts up “I watched the film The Song Remains the Same” and all is well with the world. His demeanour on stage is strange, and interacting with the crowd is still both uncomfortable and difficult it seems, even after so so many live gigs under his belt.Time is taken up after each song retuning his guitar and flicking through his songbook as he seemingly decides what song to play. But the delicate touch of his very distinctive and technically excellent playing and the soft gentle timbre of his voice is very endearing . His lyrics are what pull you in; wearing his heart on his sleeve as he dissects family, love, relationships and life on the street as he moves through different cities ; it’s more poetry than song lyrics if you get my drift. Suffering pain from a bad back tonight,he decides on the spot to put down his guitar and recite a couple of spoken word essays: “Calgary” and “The Jesus and Mary Chain” which could be a deal breaker in a club, but in this austere auditorium a bond is created with this receptive crowd, as he helps explain the various innuendos and quirky lyrics.
Still a song like “Dogs” is just in a league of its own. To get an idea if Sun Kil Moon could be a welcome addition to your life I would suggest listening to this song. It might be disturbing, exhilarating, sensual, sordid or all these things but it it is not Ed Sheeran that’s for sure.
As I left the auditorium and walked back to my car , I knew for sure that his work as Red House Painters will always remain central to my musical being and that even if Sun Kil Moon will be revisited rather less,I am glad to have managed to share an artistic event with the man, Mark Kozelek,himself.