Mark Linkous has passed today from an apparent suicide. I don’t know any more details but I’m sure you can find them pretty easily. I stopped reading after that. There has been only one other time I felt similar to how I do now. It was when I was eating breakfast in Durango, Colorado and found out Jeff Buckley was gone.
The reason I wanted to post something about this is because I want to understand why Mark and his music always meant so much to me…and others as well. Maybe some things just happen at the right time and working in a record store in the mid-nineties was fertile ground for my open mind. Everyone at fingerprints in Long Beach seemed to be a fan of Sparklehorse. We listened to the debut album Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot too many times to count then went back and tried to collect earlier singles. When subsequent albums were released we played those excessively and waited for used copies to come in on CD so we could get them for four bucks. Sparklehorse was mostly Mark’s studio creation and touring was rare… if at all.
A few years back Sparklehorse played Austin City Limits Festival and they were the one band I wasn’t going to miss. As expected I got up close and had the biggest smile on my face. Later that day Shelby from Fresh and Clean, who has helped Mark, brought him by the ice cream truck to say hi. We see a lot of artists being at festivals but this was one of the rare times I started to gush about how much his music has meant to me. He seemed appreciative and enjoyed his ice cream.
It was with great sadness that I found out Mark had passed away today. My condolences go out to those who were close to him. I only got to spend a few minutes with him but have spent countless hours listening to his music. I urge you to listen to more Sparklehorse. It could just be something that fit with the times but I think it goes beyond that. The songs will live on and I doubt I’ll ever get tired of listening to them. As sad as some of his music was, there always seemed to be something uplifting about it. I hope you feel the same
http://www.lala.com/#artist/Sparklehorse
Photo by Crash
