One of my favourite voices and has made some of my favourite records. I know that we need to keep the art and the artist separate and all that, but what a shame to see him go so off the deep end like this.
https://invernesstouristboard.com/2025/05/04/king-creoste-in-inverness/
https://archive.is/qt9lD
Does anyone really believe that Chemtrails are a conspiracy? I’ve always assumed that no one could be that thick and those, like the sole commenter on the article so far, who ‘believe’ in them are just winding up the rest of us.
I have a Facebook friend who does, lots of this on his page.
Is it a double bluff ?
How about people like Wolf and Oliver, who obviously have some intelligence? Are they just monetising the gullibility of others at the expense of their own credibility, or has the mask eaten face? Or maybe they even believe the guff they disseminate, showing academic ability is not necessarily a defence against madness.
There was an excellent article about Oliver in the New European unfortunately it won’t post to here as its behind a pay wall.
An essence.
I only viewed one podcast about this topic – more because I’m an Adam Conover fan than anything else but he discusses this with Naomi Klein who had her own run in with internet bullshite and explores it in her book Doppelganger.
The Wolf questions posed at 19:50)
The link isn’t working for me. No idea why but I think I can ascertain the gist.
two separate links
1:
https://invernesstouristboard.com/2025/05/04/king-creoste-in-inverness/
2:
https://archive.is/qt9lD
Thanks Sal. Those links work.
Yeah my ascertainment of the gist was in the right ballpark. Parked it in the try to separate the art from the artist pile. That can be a pretty large pile if one pays too much attention to some of the behaviour attributed to artists of all stripes from many different time periods and from a variety of milieu. Some behaviour is of course extremely distasteful, I’m thinking of Eric Gill for example that it can get tricky but artists create art, that’s what they do, that’s an activity that is open to all people not just those who are deemed to be morally pure in heart, words or actions.
In the majority of time we don’t know the people who create the music so I assume they’re like me, they must like the things I like and have a similar worldview with no evidence behind my assumptions. That could be a personal failing of my own.
Parasocially I care about them (their output principally) in a way they could never care about me. I guess that is a consequence of mass media and putting celebrities, with disputed levels of talent but unarguable fame, on a higher level.
I would certainly find that the more outspoken they tend to be, particularly if railing obsessively on certain topics, the less I will find myself interested in buying from them and supporting them.
An odd case, this KC concert, it’s all seemingly come from nowhere. He felt so strongly that he had to come out and speak frankly, even if surely he knew his dubious claims would attract strong scepticism and ridicule.
Ian Brown had a similar Lockdown Adjacent (radicalised online?) Worldview and I have taken a similarly dim view of his career ever since, which seems to be undergoing a rather rapid decline, perhaps this is not a coincidence.
I like KC a good deal, but he seems in a current odd part of his brain. Even 15 months ago, there seemed evidence he had been sucking too long on old batteries, as an otherwise decent show was littered with casual self-destructs, so much so I wondered whether he was trying to get off his own escalator. He seems to be following a similar trajectory as Julian Cope took after tiring of being a hit pop singer. OK, Kenny has been plying his own idiosyncratic coalface for decades now, but he seems more than in a hurry to divest himself of his brief dalliance with the mainstream, for Astronaut meets Appleman, and to scour any much commercial acclaim from his coattails.
You’d think with his name he’d be sitting on the fence. Sniffing too much of his namesake etc etc.
Until 20 minutes ago, I’d never knowingly heard a note from Mr Creosote.
I have now, and have 2 items in the Amazon basket about to checkout … From Scotland With Love and I Des.
Question to those who knows these things: are these good choices, or should I be throwing some dosh at other offerings?
Vintage Quays. Diamond mine.
Keep Digging.
Very good choices. I’d also throw in Astronaut Meets Appleman, Diamond Mine and Kc Rules OK while you’re at it. Some of the finest music of the last 20 or so years. Am rather sorry to have to add him to the ‘separate the art from the artist’ pile.
Diamond Mine is one of the best albums ever made.
Second mention, and a hearty recommendation – it goes in the basket, and we await delivery
(looks like I have some further investment to follow)
Thirded.
Fourthed. (Forthed?)
I have a couple of King Creosote CDs, picked up in charity shops because I recognised the name from (I guess) an Uncut cover CD. Perhaps even a Word one.
Anyway, reading the OP has sent me back to listen to them. I am currently listening to Bombshell, which I am enjoying very much.
I am in the separate-art-from-artist camp in this case. Had I not read the OP I’d never have known that KC played Inverness a couple of days ago or what he said at the gig. As Matt said above, we don’t know the people or create the music we listen to and, while Yorkio has the absolute right to post what he wants to, I kinda wish I hadn’t read it … except that it has sent me back to listen to Bombshell, which I am glad about.
This is just awful. I absolutely love KC’s music and voice. However he crosses a red line for me in describing Alex Jones as “one of the good guys” That’s the man who orchestrated a campaign of slander and harassment against the parents of the children murdered in the Sandy Hook shooting, spreading the lie that they had faked their children’s deaths in order to further the woke campaign for gun control. Jones is his own unique brand of evil. Perhaps I’m over-reacting because I know what it’s like to lose a child but if KC really does think Jones is ‘one of the good guys’, it fills me with despair.
The contrast with KC’s humanistic music is jarring. To paraphrase Joan Baez, he sure don’t sound much like the records he makes.
The thing is, KC says he doesn’t have wifi or a smartphone. So how would he have come across all this batshittery? That gives me a grain of hope that it’s all just some strange joke.
I’m genuinely distressed by this in a way that I don’t think I would be by anyone else. Yes, I know it’s only pop music. But still.
If the daft sod doesn’t have WiFi or a Smartphone, it may be that he has a thing about radio waves/5g/etc. – he can still be on the Internet connected directly to his provider via an ethernet cable. I am imagining a very old Dell running Vista.
Honestly, the problem is that we often venerate people who are a bit odd in the music business, because the oddness also correlates quite a lot to creativity. KC is certainly very creative, an astonishing level of output although some of it is maybe not quite the work of a normal person. Probably shouldn’t expect him to have normal opinions, and indeed, he might completely change in another few months.
Basically: Eccentric Man behaves Eccentrically.
(and to be clear, I don’t like his current set of opinions at all…)
Not sure praising Alex Jones or Tucker Carlson can be whitewashed by calling it eccentric. Deluded is putting the very best spin on it.
I know, and I also find these people odious and problematic.
If you start not listening to musicians because they have terrible opinions you’re going to end up with a very thin record collection.
That said, the above doesn’t make the prospect of a King Creosote live show sound particularly enticing.
Agree with all the love for Diamond Mine – wonderful record.
Talking of musicians I would not like to meet, last weekend I picked up a 7″ single of Hand In Glove b/w How Soon Is Now? for 50p. Turns out it is an early 90s release to promote a greatest hits LP, and has the full almost 7 minute version of How Soon Is Now? It is also rather rare.
Anyhow, it is still great, and Moz is still a knob. These two thoughts can co-exist in my noggin.
I still love Hand in Glove and I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for that Derek and the Dominos album, but Morrissey and Eric Clapton and all the other chem trails/covid-denying/do-your-own-research types are clearly dicks and probably always were but that doesn’t really change the way I feel about their music. This feels very different. It seems incredibly patronising to consider someone with different opinions to yours as unwell, but in this case, I do wonder. I hope he’s got someone who can help him get through this.
I think artists who announce on certain subjects are always going to alienate some people – and possibly attract some others. Having read the stuff above about KC, I’m still going to be able to listen to his music but I think he might be less of a nice bloke that I would enjoy a pint with now.
Artists have to do something fairly significant to impact my view on them so that I would stop listening to their music. I do find, often, that as they out themselves as rupugnent, it fortunately coincides with quality control dropping off the cliff. Which helps with the new stuff.
Alex Jones is indefensively odious in my opinion, so it is somewhat jarring to hear that KC thinks he is one of the good guys.
Interesting interview here: https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/entertainment/5226289/king-creosote-keeping-cobbywobbles-dark-forces-at-bay/
In the light of the comments made at the concert it’s hard to avoid the sense of someone spending too much time on their own and ‘doing their own research.’
I’m now curious to hear KT Tunstall’s impersonation of Felicity Kendal.
I’m seeing him on Sunday night. Hope it’s just Music and little or no “chat”.
I wonder if he is confusing the US shock jock with the Welsh One Show presenter – must get confusing without context.
Apparently there might be an element of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5VaPQflLq0