[Below this text are images showing Laura Snapes beeing all smoothie with my French 'agressors']
Hey Mark,
It was summer 97 when 4AD invited me to check Tarnation at the Monarch... at a time when 4AD’s
press officers were always happy to communicate!
I was standing there at the
upstairs stage with my +1, a summer flu, and you came to me asking if you had to
pay an extra percentage for the orange juice you were buying. I thought my
fever might have been really severe to hear such strange “request”. I probably
stuttered “extra percentage?... you don’t
have to tip!” as if you were an ET! You got me out of my silence eventually,
adding you were from “California...
United States, Where are you from?” My strong French accent betrayed me...
I repeated silently “California, United States”! “No, this is London here, UK, prices are straight forward”.
You had just landed in UK and
were off to Sweden the day after for a gig. I had heard of Red House Painters (RHP),
even listened to the music, but had no idea what you looked like. Handsome, no!
Charismatic and funny, perhaps. That night you insisted on me going back to your
hotel or sleeping at mine. I could barely open my eyes and went back to mine
after giving you my landline.
You promised to call on your
return from Sweden and you did, stayed at mine and went off to Phoenix Festival with another woman
onboard your tour bus: I had to understand you were famous and many women
wanted to be with you constantly and you had to be careful because women can
stalk...
The thing was that you were just
a one night stand to me, a guy who confessed intimate details on his life out
of the blue and I listened. I was not in love with you and I couldn’t interview
you because the music mag I wrote for had no interest in RHP. I could have included an extra festival on my summer list, but
hell, I was busy doing other stuff... I decided you were a bit OTT on your “all
women want me”!
Anyway, you had 4AD send me a package of all your CDs
which they did but not so happily as you were changing label, came back to mine
after Phoenix Fest and went back to California... United States.
For a man who was pestered by women
constantly, I have to say I found it weird you left long messages on my answer
machine, thinking about me, writing something about me... sending me postcards
from California... I never called your home or wrote back. I just liked you in
some sort of ethereal and ephemeral way, like a ghostly figure... nice when
materialised!
The music business in UK didn’t
really make it too easy for women, we were tolerated but we would still
struggle to get a photo session or interview an artist: getting a record in
order to review it was always easy though!
In summer 98, you played at The Garage and I was on your guest
list: you even left a backstage pass for me. There was some sound issue and you
kept saying nonchalantly “what the fuck’s going on” on stage, keeping your
cool! Backstage, you talked about Cameron
Crowe’s Almost Famous in which
you were featured and all your women troubles. You knew I was a journalist and
yet you went on saying things that I could have written. Back in the street with
your band in the late hour, you were surprised I wanted to shoot off to mine...
on my own. “Mysterious and impalpable”
you ‘sentenced’ me! I am a good listener... I don’t remember you asking me
anything about me!
Yesterday, I was intrigued when
Tim Jonze retweeted
Laura Snape’s piece in
The Guardian “
Mark Kozelek told 1900 people that I want to fuck him.
Here's why you N E V E R fuck with me or any female writer”. On her piece,
here,
you say “
“Listen to your elders. I’m 48
and I have wisdom. I’ve seen girls laid out on the street with an ambulance
picking them up because they are crossing the street with those stupid
headphones on.”
” I will not
comment on the “
girls” bit “
being picked up...”, it’s bad enough to
read it, but “
elder” and “
wise” in the same line when you go
onstage in London, UK and spit on a woman who is just trying to do her job! As
passionate as she might be, you make her stand accused in front of a
Barbican audience because she actually
cares about your music... and she ends up being treated like a whore who wants
babies with you? Is this what “ageing” is all about?
Mark, I am surprised that with
the experience you have in the music business you still haven’t realised that
in 2015, women are still getting slagged off in that business and we keep
receiving so many polite “nos”, no
matter what we can / want to do. If she has tried so many avenues to meet you
and interview you face to face, do you think the only reason is because she
wants to get pregnant with you? Could it be because she wants to craft
perfectly a Q&A with emotions? Could it be that you are actually insecure
about meeting a young and pretty woman... and you can’t hold it... at your age?
Do you realise how disturbing it
might be for her then to even talk about it? Having to write about it?
On many occasions, I have tried different
avenues to get to interview someone when a press officer is “voicing” his protégé’s
refusal. This is what we do often, we journalists, we women! We also stand
accused of not reporting properly whatever fucks some artists fancy to say. We
take a lot of shit from people we actually admire when we want to share the
love!
If a man had tried to do what Laura did, what would you have said
onstage?
"He wants babies with me?"
sybillecastelain@yahoo.co.uk
@sybillebbldnrbt
