Ben Folds appeared on a Canadian radio station recently and called The Happiness Project of Charles Spears, from Broken Social Scene, “bad spa music.” It turns out Torquil Campbell, front man of the band Stars, was listening to Canada’s CBC that day and was angered at Folds for dissing his buddy, Pitchfork reports. In a now-deleted MySpace post, titled “Ben Folds is an A**hole,” Campbell writes:
“I just heard Ben Folds, who many of you prolly have never heard of because you don’t waste your time listening to sh*tty 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 f*ckin’ 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 A**HOLE 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 A**HOLE.”
TwentyFourBit added those stars to the Stars singer’s post to protect our younger readers. Pitchfork notes that it is a bit unusual for a member of Broken Social Scene, a band that is sacred to most hipster critics, to call Ben Folds a hipster, but we think he was probably just quoting Seinfeld.
Your move, Mr. Folds.
**** Update: Campbell now claims the post was not written by him. Here’s his response:
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 f*ck 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