Sparklehorse - classic or dud(e) - RIP Mark Linkous 2010

Then I realised that Mark Radcliffe's tastes weren't necessarily that great :).

Just imagine what they'd be like if Linkous acted like Jim Morrison on stage! Actually, don't. No do! Don't! Well, only if you want to.

RIP Mark Linkous.

Shit!

Though I haven't listened to them in some time, I still have a soft spot for his second and third albums. Guess I'll dig out Wonderful Life tonight...

RIP

Oh no! Really? How? Link?

fuck

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2010/03/06/sparklehorses-mark-linkous-takes-own-life/

oh shit :(

never heard the last couple of albums the first 2 are great. this is really sad

this is terribly sad

my favorite song was 'chaos of the galaxy/happy man' and this makes it even sadder

Dammn. RIP, Mark.

oh man..

listening to Sea Of Teeth right now, very sad. dont know why, but this news is really making me hurt, full of heartache. poor sad dude, i wish you the best and turn down my atheist covers to hope there is something better out there for you.

la lechera, totally..

It's a hard world for little things. RIP.

RIP. Loved the first three albums.

("Sea of Teeth" is one of my favorites, btw.)

weird radiohead/sparklehorse cover of wish you were here just popped up on my sparklehorse playlist and its bumming me out.

Oh nuts :(

I feel damn silly for crying. But I fucking. So there. Mark, RIP. Wish you are finally in a happy place.

Holy shit, what the fuck is going on? RIP. It's a Wonderful Life is a tremendous record.

Aw, fuck no. I thought he was one of those guys was indestructible. The album he did last year with Danger Mouse was really good which makes this seem even worse.

'who was indestructible'

FUCK this is sad :(

i have an enormous enormous attachment to the first 2 albums, especially Good Morning Spider

I really need to stop dropping tears on the table. This is god damn sad.

I never spent a great deal of time w/ Sparklehorse's records tbh but (a) they were one of about two non-dreadful things I saw at a, well, dreadful V Festival several years ago; (b) I had that line "I want my records back / and the motorcycle gas tank I painted black" in my head for no real reason the other day (what song is that? It's a great line imo); (c) dude seemed like a good guy with an interesting worldview so yeah RIP

Man. Sparklehorse.com still opens with a link to Kristin Hersh's fund raising page for Vic Chesnutt's family.

xpost: that's a line from Spirit Ditch, btw.

Thanks, yeah I knew it was one of the early ones

terrible terrible news.
good morning spider is a true classic as is most of his wonderful work.

it's funny, I'm not sure when the last time I put a Sparklehorse album on, but I know that lines from "Hundreds of Sparrows" or "Ghost of His Smile" or some other song would pop into my head at least once a week anyway. His stuff really got in my bones and stayed there.

Yep, so many classic couplets that stick long after listening
"I wanna be a stupid and shallow motherfucker now
I wanna be a tough skinned bitch but I don't know how"

Aw man, this is sad. Both Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot and It's A Wonderful Life are just totally synonymous with my late teens. Partly with being a big emo mess but also really fun times in the countryside looking at beautiful scenery - those first two albums still really remind me of both.

As time went by I think I lost the need for that sort of music in my life but I'll definitely be playing them both again today. At the age of 17 the first album felt like the most fragile and beautiful music I'd ever heard.

I just discovered how the man killed himself. Apparently he lived for anotehr three hours after a gunshot wound which left extensive facial and cranial damage. FUCK. I am now even sadder knowing how much he must have suffered even in those last hours. He suffered from not only depression but also migraine attacks. Although I haven't contemplated suicide, I know how horrible it is to have migraine attacks. You literally do want to crawl under the ground only have blackness around you. RIP, dude, we'll miss you.

Matt, you were 17? Christ, now I feel like an old woman here. lol

I just discovered how the man killed himself.

I wish the sites where you read that (De Morgen & HLN, right?) still had moral standards, but they don't anymore, so fuck them for thinking the public needs to know the gruesome details. I certainly didn't need to know.

I was surprised that HLN even mentioned his death but after reading the ghastly article, I wish they hadn't.

HLN & De Morgen are part of the same group now, so they share some of their articles. (= RIP De Morgen)

Yeah I really didn't need to read that.

Really, Stan? DM and HLN are of the same group? Almost as sad to hear.

Sorry for getting quite a long way off topic now, but yep! http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Persgroep

those first two albulms blew my mind. the song about loneliness catching up with you in a service station bathroom, those surreal catchy tunes like rainmaker and happyman, damn he was great.

theres a heaven and theres a star for you, RIP

Given what I've known about his life beforehand, it's not the most surprising news in the world. He was like Elliott Smith with a bit of slightly redeeming black humour lyric-wise. Anyway, Vivadixie and Good Morning Spider were major rekkids for me way back when and still stand up. RIP.

Aw man, this is sad. Both Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot and It's A Wonderful Life are just totally synonymous with my late teens. Partly with being a big emo mess but also really fun times in the countryside looking at beautiful scenery - those first two albums still really remind me of both.

As time went by I think I lost the need for that sort of music in my life but I'll definitely be playing them both again today. At the age of 17 the first album felt like the most fragile and beautiful music I'd ever heard.

― Matt DC, Sunday, March 7, 2010 7:10 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is totally me to a T, too. i don't have a lot of passion for mopey depressive music, but when i did really need some at 17, which is really when everyone could use some, Sparklehorse was amazing. i almost feel guilty for being a tourist in the sadness he lived with all the time, but he was sharing a lot more than just that feeling, the music was brilliant.

Listening to Good Morning Spider again now and just remembering how gorgeous and frustratingly short Box Of Stars (Part One) is.

I always figured his somewhat paripatetic nature was an attempt to outrun his (various, well-documented) demons. So sad. But I also sense that, unlike someone like Elliott Smith, Linkous wasn't the type to push friends and family away. Like Vic Chesnutt, he struggled, but knew what he was struggling for.

"Box Of Stars (Part One)" is awesome, my favorite 30-second song ever.

i've been listening to a lot of sparklehorse again recently after not for a few years so this seems even more shocking to me. I think all four of the records are completely classic and he's one of those survivors who I really respected, staying on a major label somehow while I'm sure he sold absolutely nothing, making incredibly intricate songs with weird instruments and a strange combination of lo-fi/hi-fi recording styles. I only got to see him live twice since he hardly ever toured, both times were awesome, the albums are awesome, lousy news to wake up to.

pretty girl
milkin a cow
oh yeah

RIP, such an endearing nerdy guitar geek guy.

He was the first guy from his family who wasn't a coal miner, just like Derek Zoolander.

Oh no! RIP. I'd been hoping after the Dangermouse collab that we'd get to hear a lot more from him after he'd been relatively quiet for some years.

Both Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot and It's A Wonderful Life are just totally synonymous with my late teens. Partly with being a big emo mess but also really fun times in the countryside looking at beautiful scenery - those first two albums still really remind me of both.

Totally this for me except with vivadixie + Good Morning Spider. The perfect music for being sad in a beautiful landscape.

We were both standing
In your mother's living room
Sweating up a storm in that
Terrible month of june
And the sweat rolled down your cheek
And into your mouth
I knew this must've been a dream
cause your mother would never let me in her house

Knowing this makes the end of "Shade and Honey" (where the strings come in) sound that much more bittersweet and conclusive.

ugh, this is ridiculously sad. i actually thought that he had kind of beaten his battles w/ depression to some extent ... saw him play in the summer of 1999 with Mercury Rev, and he seemed like an oasis of calm in what was a pretty difficult period in my life. RIP.

man just heard this from a friend.. like everyone here those first 2 albums meant a lot for me in my teens. RIP dude

really pissed at my computer for not wanting to rip Vivadixie today

goddam, as if this guy's music wasn't sad enough already

Fuck. RIP.

I only ever owned/listened-to Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, which I enjoyed at the time. Always meant to check out the earlier records, but never seemed to get around to it.

"Maria's Little Elbows" is killing me right now.
For context, when Good Morning Spider came out, I was 24. I was working at a record store/waitressing/barely getting by. I'm positive I recommended this record to some sad bastard teenagers. I remember listening to "Happy Man" like 1000x in a row.

Now it's 10 yrs later and everything is completely different, but it's also sort of not. I'm still a sad bastard on the inside sometimes.

RIP.

So sad.

Terrible news.

Never understood why Sparklehorse never got more credit. Damn shame.

Listening to 'Good Morning Spider', some achingly beautiful songs.

this is very sad.

R.I.P. dude

the first time i heard this band i had gone to see jesse sykes open and had no idea who they were. they opened with 'painbirds' and my jaw just dropped. i've been a huge fan ever since.

i'm so sick of goodbyes

:-(

i only knew this guy's music in passing but this is terribly sad--rip

probably in the minority, but I think It's A Wonderful Life is his best overall album. Not a bad song on it. Going to put up an amazing live show from 2003 on my blog shortly.

yeah i definitely don't hold IAWL in the same regard as the first two albums, but it's definitely really good nonetheless, "Comfort Me" is the shit.

with you on that Tyler

geez so sad

i love the first three albums and the fourth one was good. read somewhere that the new album was almost done, damn. i even had a chance to see Sparklehorse in San Francisco once, very sad news.

RIP Mark

OK, I posted that show over here: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/
Not for the faint of heart, though ... made me cry anyway!

dude seemed like a good guy with an interesting worldview

a worldview filtered through morphine pills and adultery-induced cognitive dissonance does sound pretty interesting

Holy shit. :( This is awful news.

That is unbelievably sad. Another favourite songwriter of mine has killed himself. At least now he can jam with Nick Drake, Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain, Elliott Smith, Vic Chesnutt...

Totally this for me except with vivadixie + Good Morning Spider. The perfect music for being sad in a beautiful landscape.

I actually meant Good Morning Spider. It's A Wonderful Life was the first one that didn't really engage me.

As time went by I think I lost the need for that sort of music in my life but I'll definitely be playing them both again today. At the age of 17 the first album felt like the most fragile and beautiful music I'd ever heard.

^^^^

man this happened in knoxville. and he was supposedly building a studio here. makes it kind of twice as sad for me, it would have been great to have him in town.

Colin Greenwood with a tribute.

:(

He shot himself in the heart in an alley outside a friend's home, said his manager, Shelby Meade. Lt. Greg Hoskins of the Knoxville Police Department confirmed that the police responded to a call at 1:20 p.m., and that Mr. Linkous was pronounced dead at the scene.

I don't really care what exactly happened - he's dead and that's what's sad - but heart or head, what is it?

Uh...

For someone who's making a show of being disinterested or outraged by the gory details you're doing a good job of bringing them onto this thread.

^

I know. Sorry. :-( Really.

I was just following the link posted. But I know I am not being consistent. So again sorry.

Patti Smith with another tribute

Beautiful session for Spin in 2007: http://www.spin.com/articles/watch-sparklehorses-intimate-set-spin

man this happened in knoxville. and he was supposedly building a studio here. makes it kind of twice as sad for me, it would have been great to have him in town.

― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Monday, March 8, 2010 1:21 PM (7 hours ago)

He had been here forever. He had a year-long or more gf (friend of mine) that he was constantly scaring with overdoses and he was often at backroom - a bar in my neighborhood. i thought he was a heartless jerk to be cheating on his wife and dragging his gf through drug problems.

oh dear

Horrible, how your poor innocent friend was apparently unaware of his wife and totally taken advantage of by this evil man.

No. I thought she was pretty fucked up for participating.

oy, i know nothing about the guy's personal life, but apparently I want to keep it that way.

this is very sad news, I was just listening to the second album last week (after some dude was eulogising it on another thread and having not listened to it for about 10 years) and it is still remarkably beautiful music

Hadn't heard of him in years. His music was a perfect companion on my highschool years when I was a proto emo struggling with pubescent depression. I'm hearing 'eyepennies' right now and my chest feels very cold.

What is it with this investigative journalism? Oooh, now he did it after receiving a disturbing text message.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iT6ceh9L_ixUa2SuS8ntI-k0QZbQD9EAM66G0

iirc they really haven't found much in their investigation if they're still using the term "friend"

He was at Scott's house - the other Sparkledude who lived in Knoxville. According to Scott's ex-wife he had just said he was going for a walk and would be back in two minutes.

I started a thread about the first Sparklehorse album if anyone would rather discuss his music than dredge up the dirty details of his death: Sparklehorse - Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot poll

some dude re: being 17---Good Morning Spider was totally engrossing to me around then

oh geez and i didn't even realize i have it in iTunes---probably haven't listened to it since freshman year of college! ten years!

RIP u_u

fuck this news is ruining me

agree with spirit ditch tho

and then fuckin tears on fresh fruit rips it open

cow is making me cry

Oh shit, just heard this news. Fuck me. Fucking hell. Seriously, Good Morning Spider is such a massive album for me. Fuck this...

miss this dude

^^
listening to the last one
i hope we hear some more of his songs, sometime/somehow
so ... frustrating?, that a guy i saw play these great shows & stuff isn't around any more doing his thing

i picked up the 'good morning spider' reissue this past week and it's like, i know the dude was depressed and all and his lyrics were sad already, but songs like painbirds, chaos of the galaxy/happy man, sick of goodbyes almost bring me to tears in the wake of his tragic end

reissue?

apparently it was reissued on vinyl this year

Oh, vinyl. Right on., I was getting all psyched for one of those 'deluxe' jobs with bonus tracks.

My advice would be to avoid the reissues. Poor quality noisy digitally sources pressings. Annoying.

can't really listen to this guy since he died. way too much of a bummer.

Only four days left for this crowd funded documentary - $ 4,000 to go

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-sad-beautiful-world-of-sparklehorse

Miss this guy

me too

Periodically, a song of his crops up on a mix cd I'm playing. I get a quick thrill wondering when new music is coming from him, then remember.

Never listened to Sparklehorse before, but I plan on it after reading this fantastic story... http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/9745-the-sad-and-beautiful-world-of-sparklehorses-mark-linkous/

his albums are all wonderful, have a hard time ranking one over any of the others.

prurient I know but I hate that everything says "well he got a text" and no one has ever said what it was. I assume it's from his wife but what could it have possibly said.

beautiful and sad story.

for some reason i had never really made the connection between Chessnutt's suicide and Linkous'

as for the text, i think it's not thát imported, a lot of things could and would have triggered him someday. :( I think. (as severely depressed as he was)

No mention on this thread of the song he co-wrote with Susanna Hoffs for her 1996 s/t, "Enormous Wings." Great tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BvuhkVVwJA

oh yeah that is a great song, I forgot about that. that's a very good album actually.

kinda bums me out that Linkous is dead, because I imagine he would've played a part in Lynch's new Twin Peaks series. Hearing that waiting room song in EP. 8 made me think of "It's a Wonderful Life"

Anyways, he's utterly classic.

faves: distorted ghost EP, it's a wonderful life, good morning spider, dark night of the soul w/Lynch and his production work for the first A Camp (Nina Persson) album.

totally going to listen to A Camp tonight now, had forgotten that even existed!

sktsh, hope u like it :)

Just found dark night of the soul. Just the regular edition, which doesn’t have the nice photo book by Lynch but a condensed inlay instead. Great record

Anyone want to suggest a Top 10/CD-R?

I have a kind of fixed idea of the Sparklehorse/Linkous tracks that mean something to me ... and wonder if I'm missing anything?

In the realm of b-sides/non album stuff, I always thought his covers of “Galveston” and “Dark As A Dungeon” were up there with his best album tracks.

Anyone want to suggest a Top 10/CD-R?

I have a kind of fixed idea of the Sparklehorse/Linkous tracks that mean something to me ... and wonder if I'm missing anything?

― djh, Friday, March 22, 2019 3:57 PM (three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

i was kind of casually putting together an artist playlist because i've had sparklehorse fever for the last few weeks. i will probably do more like a top 20 or 30 because jfc i love so many of his songs, i've realized.

a video for the sparklehorseheads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI5Z38CoOsc

has anyone watched the recent doc This Is Sparklehorse?

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thisissparklehorse

reluctant to spend six bucks to watch it on vimeo until i hear a positive endorsement or two.

i haven't, but i would also like a review. from the trailers, it seems to be a kind of cookie cutter interview with people who knew him talking about how he was a genius kind of doc, which is not my favorite kind of thing to watch. but i'd watch it anyway, i suppose, if it's about sparklehorse

posthumous album on the way, compiled by his brother matt
https://pitchfork.com/news/new-posthumous-sparklehorse-album-announced/

This album is very good but doesn’t Every Star supercharger sound exactly like Lights Are Changing by Mary Lou Lord?

I just discovered that was a Bevis Frond cover (lights are changing)