Category Archives: remembrances

Stories and recollections about Mark from friends, fans and family

Sparklehorse Documentary “The Sad & Beautiful World of Sparklehorse” Bows…

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Congratulations to filmmakers Alex Crowton and Bobby Dass, and writer/narrator Angela Faye Martin on the recent premier showings of their excellent documentary on the life of Mark Linkous. After premiering the film at the Chattanooga Film Festival in Tennessee, and the iconic 40-Watt club in Athens, Georgia, a gala screening is set for June at the Union Chapel in London. For those who did not participate in the crowdfunding campaign and who would like to get copies, the team is currently working on a distribution plan, so stay tuned. In the meantime, more info is available on their Facebook page… sbw_sparklehorse

5 years…

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…ago today we lost Mark. It’s hard to believe so much time has passed. It’s taken a long time to come to terms with his loss. Mark was many things. A very talented musician. A gifted composer both in terms of melody and lyrics. His ability to evoke deep emotions from his economical use of words was one of his extraordinary talents. And his skills crossed over into the technical aspect of music making. He was a skillful producer, engineer, and almost a magician at times, taking outdated recording technology, things he found in junkyards and fixing them and giving them new life as a way to help create his unique sounds. And by all accounts an extraordinarily kind, gentle and humble man.

But on the 5th year anniversary of Mark’s leaving us, we’d like to focus less on mourning his loss, and more on celebrating his life. To that end, we’ve compiled a tribute to Mark that we hope you’ll all enjoy. We scraped high and low for photos. One or more of yours may show up here. And if so we hope you’ll forgive our appropriating the various images we’ve found to help memorialize Mark today.

 

makers…

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I’ve been listening a lot lately to a record that I have rediscovered recently. It’s called “Makers”, by a Seattle-based singer/songwriter named Rocky Votolato. As far as I know, he had no association with Mark, but this record, to me, tell’s Mark’s story. It is a record rife with loss, hurt and pain. And of yielding, at last, to all the overwhelming dark forces that gather in the minds of those that suffer as Mark did. It’s not a happy record; and for some perhaps a tough listen. But it is also very empathetic, and soothing. It is, to me, a balm. Perhaps it makes it easier for me to understand what happened almost 4 years ago. For those seeking some solace, as the anniversary of Mark’s passing draws near, you may find some here…

makers

http://www.rockyvotolato.com/

 

“White Daisy Passing”

Time’s arrow…

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Wow, can’t believe it’s been end of July since we had a post here. A thousand pardons all. Sometimes real life and day jobs (not to mention technical snafus involving glitchy laptops) tend to interfere with our outside interests, and it can become hard to find time to devote to running the show here. But no more excuses! We’ll try to stay on top of things a bit more in the coming weeks.  And for your listening pleasure today we have a cool rarity to share with you: A recent contact email reminded us of the Sparklehorse show at Berbati’s Pan in Portland, Oregon in November of 2001, I show that I myself was fortunate enough to attend, and also the one time I got a chance to meet Mark. Our reader, Dan, presented Mark with a painting that night. He recalls:

“…I met Mark and gave him a painting inspired by “It’s A Wonderful Life”. The painting was given to him at Berbati’s Pan around dinnertime. I returned later than evening to see Sparklehorse perform with their white lily’s all around and there in the middle of the stage with a spotlight on it, the painting I had given Mark…”

Very cool stuff Dan.

So from that illustrious night, we present a live Sparklehorse cover version of the Guided By Voices’ classic “Smothered in Hugs”, hope you dig it…

Smothered in Hugs

in memoriam…

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We present a small excerpt from Frank Stanford’s The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You, a work said to be highly influential to Mark…

…
I got a zero on the test a big red F with a circle around it the question was
what do you know about current events I put down
I know Elvis Presley lives up the street ten houses
I know my sister’s godmother is Louise Fazenda
I know my mother stayed in Hollywood with her and Hal Willis a long time ago
I know she is secretly an actress
I know she went to the Rose Bowl with Clark Gable and Carole Lombard
I know they played oh johnny oh johnny how you can run
tennessee got beat
I know captains courageous
I know Gary Cooper’s name is Frank
I know morocco mata hari lives of a bengal lancer sgt york the mark of zorro
the gaucho we saw it in a tent
I know streetcars of desire and all the Tarzan
moby dick gunga din midsummer night’s dream was like me
I know I have read all those mens’ books that we had
I am a fugitive from a chain gang the crazy piano player red slippers
I know the girl feeling the kiss in the mirror
I know the bracelet on the wrist in the tomb
I know the horse head nebula in Orion
I know the elders
I know Wallace Beery is not Pancho Villa
I know the melody of the song sung in the boat
I know mother has an opera Don Juan the lover
the sleep in the tree daddy makes us live like the crew in a shack or a tent
I know about the history and culture of Europe and America
I know how the carpetbaggers and scaliwags brought the colored people to town
head down over a horse
I know the rich are the only ones that had any good old days
I know the black swan
I know the pas de deux
I know drunk women shooting their husbands on Saturday night
I know what is under the cloak
I know the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi
I know the iai the daito the shoto the yoroi doshi the tanto
I know forty seven wave men came from the left to the right
I know the disgrace and death of Lord Asano
I know the rings of saturn and the moons of jupiter
I know the black seed
I know the pegleg keeps watch in the buzzard’s nest
I know the captain of the ghost ship
I know the cockeye with the bucket under his stump
I know I had to stay every day after school for a month on account of somebody’s lie
I know if you ask them a question they tell you a lie I know all about that shit
I know what some men can’t know they gnaw
I know the scoundrels and cowards prey on one another I pray for all
I know the discounted stories
I know for those I love I’ll swim to hell and back
I know some by signs other by whispers
I know I’d rather take it on the chin then get it in the back
I know Unferth was a pack rat
I know I will never swear on a pact of lies
I know Banquo says fly
I know there is such a thing as the St. Francis River
I know Gulliver’s Horses
I know daddy is a mathematician I know mother was a communist
I know the wisest men in the world are a Chinaman and Harpo Marx
they never say a word
I know the crowds sometimes like maggots
I know the rusty knife buried in the tree
I know Beowulf probably looked in the mirror at himself every morning
just like all the other so-called heroes
I know the bumps on the humpback’s face
I know about the bloodstained flour sack
I know the sunken zeroes and the bones and the photographs in the cockpit
I know wherever I go will return
I know Robert Burns
I know life is already giving me its no count gifts it is always slipping
that wooden horse into my gate at night
I know the bushwacked animals and the hoodwinked girls
I know the exiled lover
I know there was one Inazo Nitoba who wrote about swords
I know the men dragging twelve feet of cotton sack
I know Hammurabi’s code was broken by lawyers by bunkam buy it
I know the teachers in the side show the paddles out of my way
I know the houses with furniture like ghosts
I know the octopus in my dreams the messages of light I receive from the stars
the pioneer’s mirror…