UPDATE: Stars' Torquil Says Ben Folds Rant Is a Fake
UPDATE: According to Stars' publicist and a MySpace blog post from the man himself, Torquil Campbell had nothing to do with the MySpace bulletin dissing Ben Folds. He writes:
hello everyone-
we don't know who put up their rant against ben folds here.......could have been anyone i guess.........but we don't know what the fuck all this is about... We do love charlie spearin............don't really know ben folds work...........anyway, i find it exciting that i dont even have to know whats going on to be contreversial..... i am now going to change the password on our myspace......i have to say, whoever you are, you've really got my style down!
wow, torq
As far as we know, Campbell still stands by his diss of our own Ryan "Numballs" Dombal, however.
Wow. Somebody really needs to buy Stars frontman Torquil Campbell a punching bag or a Bop It or something. Because otherwise the glammed-out Canadian indie pop singer will keep venting his rage via MySpace posts, and nobody needs that. First he let loose a classic now-deleted MySpace rant against my esteemed Pitchfork News colleague Ryan Dombal ("Ryan Numballs," if you're Campbell) after Dombal had the audacity to drop a 7.4 on Stars' In Our Bedroom After the War. And now Campbell's wrath has found itself another target: 90s alt-pop dorm-room staple Ben Folds.
The beef started when Folds, appearing on the Canadian radio network CBC, referred to The Happiness Project, the horrendous weirdo-soundscape solo album from Do Make Say Think/Broken Social Scene manCharles Spearin, as "bad spa music." But Spearin is Campbell's boy, and you do not fuck with Torquil
"hi guys...well i know i'm gonna regret this, but i can't help myself. I just heard Ben Folds, who many of you prolly have never heard of because you don't waste your time listening to shitty mid nineties m.o.r. lite grunge, calling my friend Charles Spearins' BEAUTIFUL new record "bad spa music" on the CBC. BEN FOLDS! insulting CHARLES SPEARIN! is he fuckin' nuts? you come to our country and insult a national treasure on the radio? CHARLIE SPEARIN????? the most beautiful talented soulful brother in the whole world? a guy who has written some of the most influential, sublime music this side of heaven? WHo has just completed the Happiness Project, one of the most original and uplifting pieces of music i have EVER HEARD? Ben Folds, ladies and gentleman, is an ASSHOLE for dismissing this extraordinary tribute to life and love as 'bad spa music'. It makes me wanna......well you know.....kick his scrawny, washed up hipster doofus ass....but instead, i encourage you all to write to his myspace (he could use the visits) and imbed charles' music in your message so that every time some refugee from the nineties wants to hear their favourite ben folds ditty, they get charlie instead. i've said it before, and it feels right, so i'll say it again; BEN FOLDS IS AN ASSHOLE. Campbell's boy when you're on Canadian radio. Here's Campbell's reaction, sent out via MySpace bulletin titled "BEN FOLDS IS AN ASSHOLE":
xo love and hate torq@stars"
If you will, take a moment to savor the delicious absurdity in someone with Broken Social Scene connects derisively referring to a guy who wrote songs for the movie Over the Hedge as a "hipster." But that isn't even the best part: Where Campbell refers to Folds as someone "who many of you prolly have never heard of because you don't waste your time listening to shitty mid nineties m.o.r. lite grunge." Oh snap!
Who would've thought that one of our finest purveyors of uber-dramatic heart-on-sleeve synth-rock would also turn out to be one of our greatest MySpace name-callers? God bless you, the internet.
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