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

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