“I wanted to give you disneyland”

All apolo­gies to Niina, who I know is a fan, but I really don’t think Patrick Wolf has proved him­self to be a ter­ribly good musi­cian. I also think he’s a par­tic­u­larly annoying human being–though I admit that’s an opinion based entirely on a couple of his emails and blog/message board posts.

Some P. Wolf his­tory: a couple of years ago he wrote a lengthy, bor­der­line inco­herent rant about the early leak of his debut album Lycan­thropy; a year or two later he did it again regarding the leak of his third album, this year’s The Magic Posi­tion, but this time with a more cal­cu­lat­edly world-weary tone. He’s fop­pish, dandyish, inten­tion­ally dramatic–his videos are pre­cious, carefully-constructed for max­imum whimsy fan­tasias and he seems to spend more time on his hair than A Flock of Seag­ulls in their prime. Internet reports indi­cate that he’s inspired a growing fashion sub­cul­ture of sim­ilar uber­hip­ster douches in the UK (and prob­ably some US hangers on). Other internet reports indi­cate that he’s “a twat.”

Long­time readers of Girl­pants will know that we’re not prone to making posts about things we dis­like. If there’s a record we’re not into, rather than bashing it we don’t post about it. The site is more about our love for good music than it is about any and every music-related thought that passes through our heads. That said, occa­sion­ally some­thing really obnox­ious comes down the pike and we (I) can’t resist com­menting on it.

Which brings us to Patrick Wolf’s recent mes­sage board post. Here it is, without any more preamble:

dear all…
I should never have read this.. I really shouldn’t.
I dont think when I was 16 and dreamt of releasing records there would ever
be so much crazy spec­u­la­tion about the person I am and that you want me to be.
I have become so tired of this behav­iour, some­times I wake up and have to do six hours
of inter­views before doing a show, then go straight to bed to sleep a couple of hours
to fly to a new country to be cross exam­ined in the same way.. I dont know what is left of
me some­times, some morn­ings i dont know how i get on the flight or even open my mouth to sing that night. If I choose after working since the early hours of a day and then pouring my heart out for an hour and a half that I really have nothing left to give.. that I cannot be a fake politi­cian and sign auto­graphs for an hour.. does this make an ass­hole?
because my drummer was causing argu­ments within my road family, taking seda­tive drugs before an impor­tant show in a city i really love, so much so he could not play the music I wrote, the songs that I have sur­vived on in the last six years… because I had to slap him to see if he was even CONSCIOUS on stage.… the fact that the only thing that got any reac­tion out his corpse hap­pened to be made of metal.. because all of this.. does this make me seem like I was on cocaine, or on some power trip? I was pissed off because this was just one more musi­cian or busi­nessman taking my good nature and gen­erosity for a ride… trust me, that moment onstage was the end of a long line of bad behav­iour that it would unfair to go into in public. Yes I was drunk, but It was one oclock in the morning after seven hours of inter­views.. i had been run­ning on about four hours of sleep a night for about two weeks… such is the joy of pro­moting a record. Anyway, I was having FUN until that moment. So was the rest of my band until we realised my drummer was taking the piss out of all of us and our hard work. I dont work with liars and I dont work with thieves.

I dont want to have to share this infor­ma­tion with you but so many seem so interested…

I have made a deci­sion, my final con­cert will be this november, a ret­ro­spec­tive with an orchestra in London. I am not sure wether there will be any­more public com­mu­ni­ca­tions after that, Infact I am pretty sure there will be none. Of course, this has nothing to do with my drummer.. but a cre­ative clock is ticking and I have many many projects to be cre­ating with my time left on this earth. I hope to share my last shows with you this year.

I have enjoyed making and per­forming music for you all, I have enjoyed trying to give a little hope
and inspi­ra­tion to the world. But I feel, espe­cially when I read all this and I go about my days that I have failed.
Im not seeking sym­pathy or empathy, god, I have to go find some­thing I love and am inspired by in this world again. Many of you will never know the amount of work and emo­tion that goes on behind the scenes for me and many of your other favourite artists or musi­cians and why should you? I wanted to give you dis­ney­land.. I wanted to give you a world at the back of your wardrobe, now im just feel a fool for both­ering.
I am in berlin today, i know I should never have read this, I dont know who any of you are, just strangers talking amongst them­selves,
and I wish I was stronger minded today, but i have to take enough bull­shit from other parts of the world for what I do and who I am without get­ting it from here.

Im going off for a walk now.. clear my heart and head. Thanks to all you with the intel­li­gence to see past the super­fi­cial chaos of the media and the var­ious ridicu­lous per­son­al­i­ties and char­ac­ters that have been painted around me over the years, the problem is, unfor­tu­nately many of you will never get to know the truth, but many will still spec­u­late, and play chi­nese whis­pers with inter­views and
opin­ions from the friend of a friend. This is nothing new to me, unfor­tu­nately, luckily I have always had a close set of dear friends that will always know me for who I really am, just as I do.

If I can give any advice, is, if any­thing, just listen to the music, watch the videos, read the lyrics, see the art­work, these are my com­mu­ni­ca­tions, not others.

still love x patrick

There are a number of things that bother me about this post, but before I get into them I’d like to state that I don’t think firing your drummer because he’s falling asleep on the job is in any way out of line. If a dude’s not doing his work, sure, get rid of him. How­ever, slap­ping him mid-performance and firing him in full view of the audi­ence is step one on the road to douchebaggery.

The main problem with this post is the enor­mous ego involved. Every other sen­tence refers back to Wolf’s own self-assigned genius, his mar­tyrdom at the hands of the recording process/record industry/media/fan cul­ture, or his gen­er­ally mis­un­der­stood nature. The entire post drips with the feeling of how put upon Wolf is to be such a celebrity (give me a fucking break)–Patrick, if you can’t handle inter­views and signing auto­graphs and trav­eling to shows, per­haps you should recon­sider your line of work? You’re hardly the first to expe­ri­ence the down­sides of being a recording/traveling musi­cian. It’s been a part of the game for going on a cen­tury now, and that’s not going to change any time soon.

His solu­tion is to stop touring. Fine. It sounds like he’s not cut out for it, anyway. How­ever, the idea that he’s playing up this igno­min­ious retreat from touring as a cul­mi­na­tion to an illus­trious career is pretty laugh­able. That he’s plan­ning his final show as a “ret­ro­spec­tive” (of three footnote-of-an-albums?) speaks directly to the kind of hubris involved in the enterprise.

Listen, Patrick. You’re 23 years old–you have plenty of time left. You’re clearly tal­ented. Take some time to your­self, find your­self, get a fucking grip, and maybe some of your “many many projects” will be worth hearing in a few years. I don’t doubt that your post was another cal­cu­lated ploy for atten­tion like the rest of your act (any press is good press, right?), and I don’t doubt that I’m playing into your hands by replying to it, but I feel it’s worth the risk to deliver this mes­sage: get the fuck over yourself.

Regards,
Ben @ Girlpants