All The Best, Issac Hayes - Mark Kozelek: Review
is a San Francisco based singer/songwriter who fronted two hugely acclaimed slowcore bands in Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon before a major change in his sound came just a few years ago. Since Mark switched to a predominate spoken word almost stream of consciousness style songwriting in 2016 he has split critics down the middle regarding his music as he has prolifically dropped albums with a number of collaborators and under a few different names.
Review by Lavender:
If my consistent praise towards Mark over the past four years has been any indication of my standing regarding the split in opinion on his new music, I am firmly in the camp who loves it. Year after year Mark has dropped some of my favorite records like clockwork from Jesu/Sun Kil Moon to Common As Light And Love Are Red Valleys Of Blood, Mark Kozelek and even just 6 months ago with Joey Always Smiled we have never been short of good Koz projects over the past few years. I thought his re-up collaboration with Ben Boye and Jim White earlier this year was decent but I have to say I was excited when he announced new music was coming soon, and solely under his own name for the first time since 2018's self-titled hotel recordings project. All The Best, Issac Hayes is the next in an ever growing line of projects from the Kozmos that I really enjoyed.
This record has a very strong lyrical theme which makes it a much more rewarding experience than you average 90 minutes of Mark's music. From the very first song here up until the 21 minute goliath at the end of the album we are following Mark on tour through Canada where he is both sharing his experiences as they happen in real time as well as recounting previous trips to various Canadian cities that span the entirety of his musical career. San Francisco is a great start to the record where Makr gets Kozeleking right away with the opening lines referencing his need to stretch more. Mark does some pretty meaningful meditating on eating meat, animals and the environment that reminds me of one of my favorite tracks from last years I Also Want To Die In New Orleans the song Cows. Mark has a pretty interesting conversation with someone who asks what his music sounds like and he comes up with Nick Cave and Neil Young, This whole track is delivered over some really pronounced piano that gives the song almost a dreamlike quality that is intoxicating. This record is almost entirely dominated by piano based instrumentals and they do a great job of appearing when necessary and providing a steady pretty background to the more narrative driven moments.
Vancouver is the beginning of our tour across Canada and I do have to admit that the first part is a little bit slow as we wait for Mark to get on his plane but once he enters Canada the record pretty much never looks back. He discusses some meta emailing with Petra Haden with whom he released a collab project last year and ultimately ends up music over whether or not he should retire from touring which properly scared me into making sure I see him one more time before that happens. Calgary is up next the Mark runs into trouble right away as he has difficulty finding a place to eat, followed by difficulty getting an iced tea that isn't sweet and finally some difficulty finding a drug store that sells exactly what he's looking for. In between all of that he manages to strike up conversation with a drug dealer and gives him some pretty genuinely funny advice in what turns out to be a great anecdote. During his search he also manages to freak a lady out by asking her if she has ever tried meth which also made me laugh quite a bit the first time I heard it. At multiple points on the song Mark muses about whether Canada has an alcoholism problem before ultimately apologizing about it. The last story the track has to offer is a really funny moment where Mark plays a show the same night as Nickelback then gets mistaken for a member of the band the next day while he's getting a hair-cut.
Next up on the tour is Winnipeg which opens up with the introduction of Mark book of Payphone photos which gets revisited a few times across the rest of the album. Mark takes a minute to point out his relation to homeless people and why he chooses to live in San Francisco over anywhere else. He compares the point of view to Muhammad Ali's famous decision not to fight in the Vietnam war. The track changes pace instrumentally from here as we jump back into the present and gets some classic Mark Kozelek hotel stories as he orders extra blankets and makes a note of nearly every interaction he has with hotel staff. Mark gets into a pretty detailed discussion of police brutality and racism with what seems like some Canadian hecklers before putting them in their place in regards to the which country is worse debate. My favorite track on the record by far is its beefy 15 minute mid-point Ottowa. Mark has three stories to tell about each time he has been in Ottawa before and they are all interesting. The first details an ex of his named Kathy and her mothers passing that interrupted the trip and tour. The second is a show that actually goes poorly at a festival where one of the stages collapses. Mark has pretty specific memories from the Death Cab For Cutie show getting cancelled and even a conversation he has with Ben Gibbard about it. It's the third story that I think a lot of people will gravitate to because it references a beef that Mark Kozelek has with a pretty famous modern indie act. Mark breaks down the time that The War On Drugs were playing a really loud set that interrupted his performing of songs from Benji and Adam's response to the incident on Twitter after Mark talks shit about the band live. Mark then precedes to record his legendary diss track War On Drugs: Suck My Cock and the rest is history. The track ends with the reading of a letter from a fan who clearly has a strong admiration for Mark's music and has personal experiences with boxing that make for a really engaging read. Clearly Mark felt similarly as it is included here on my favorite song on the album.
The next track is actually called Buffalo Valley Rest Area Smith County Welcome Center and the track starts off with a shot directly at me as Mark is in Asheville. He tells stories about how much he enjoys the city and even references specific places that I recognize which definitely got to me more than I like to admit. It gets even better when he compares this to Nashville a town he seems pretty skeptical about including a Kid Rock diss before he has a bit of a messy show there. The audience clearly isn't engaged with him and after he hilariously heckles them a little bit he has a funny exchange with a kid who comes up on stage and finds a way to dunk on Kenny G for a great second half of the track. Highway 81 sees Mark showing some uncharacteristic love for the south before taking a very characteristic shot at Donald Trump. The song is a little bit less thematic and reads like a diary entry of things he experiences but even in that regard he stumbles onto a really interesting observation while eating at a Japanese restaurant. He muses on how different it was touring years ago and that there would never be a Japanese restaurant in a southern town in the 90's as everyone was obsessed with things being american owned. Unfortunately the song does end on a slightly patience testing story where Mark misreads somebody's T-Shirt and takes nearly a minute of songwriting to unravel the story of him realizing his mistake.
The next track is the huge 21 minute Los Angeles the longest song he has dropped since last years Bay Of Kotor. The song is mainly centered around a big boxing match Mark is attending at the Staples Center with some background stories like his fathers declining health and his payphone photo book going on in the background. Mark gets invited down to the broadcast booth to speak with the friend who got him the tickets in the first place and has an altercation with some particularly rude security. Mark is introduced to boxed Ray Mancini who is also from Ohio and there is a later funny moment when he describes how impossible it is that his father isn't even impressed by this fact. Later on in the song we finally get an anecdote of the moment in 1996 where Mark meets Issac Hayes and gets him to sign a guitar care. This is a brief story but hearing the album title dropped was a moment that I have to admit I really enjoyed the first time around. The closing moments of the song feature a literal trip down memory lane for Mark as he recalls moments like filming for the Cameron Crowe movie Almost Famous and makes some references to Katy of Red House Painters iconic Katy Song. The closing track November almost feels like settling back into the usual world of Mark as he slows down from touring and his vacations to return home. I think this song could be placed on a lot of Mark's other records cleanly which makes it a pretty cool outro for a record that has a pretty strong focus to its storytelling content.
All The Best, Issac Hayes sees Mark Kozelek recounting some of the most notable stories he has experienced in his music career aside the new experiences he is having as he tours Canada, parts of the east coast, and then returns home. He does this over piano instrumentals that are sparse but consistently beautiful and a fitting companion to the songs when necessary. While it can be funny to see what thoughts Mark stumbles into now and then on one of his more rambling records he is at his best on albums like this. Not every moment of All The Best is riveting but when all 90 minutes of the record are said and done I can't help but think it is one of the fuller and more enjoyable experiences I've had listening to a record in 2020. 8/10
Album Cover Review by Tyler Judson: This image is cool as fuck. I don't think it's strong as a cover though. It really has nothing that links the strong serif type to the image and it has no subject that jumps out at you and proclaims that it's interesting. This is a time when you need to know that it being a good photograph doesn't make a good album cover. 4/10
For more of the Koz' check out my review of his last collaborative record here
