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