A collection of European artists including Sparklehorse collaborator and friend Nina Persson have released a wonderful tribute album called Hello Mark Linkous. Please check out their Facebook Page for details…
…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 He was a skillful producer, engineer, and almost a magician at times, taking outdated recording technology, things he found in junkyards and fixing them and giving them new life as a way to help create his unique sounds.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.
Hey Everyone,
Happy New Year!!! It’s been an awfully long time since we’ve had a new post here but tonight we have something to make up for it. Our very good friend John Murry has shared his wonderful cover of “Shade And Honey” with us. Hope you all enjoy it.
Shade And Honey (by John Murry)
Produced by Mark Pistel and John Murry at Room Number Five, San Francisco, CA
Updated January 17: John asked us to enable downloads for this track, so you can now download the MP3 by mousing over the area just to the right of the play button and clicking on the magic arrow. Cheers…
Hi Everyone,
Sorry, it’s been awhile since we’ve had an update here. We’ve been weathering a storm of sorts, but bluer skies seem to be on the horizon…
For those of you waiting for the “Last Box of Sparklers” tribute album matters to get sorted out, we have a preview of Mercury Rev’s take on “Sea of Teeth”…
In memory of Frederick Mark Linkous, gone 4 years today, we would like to share this lovely live version of “Spirit Ditch” from the Black Sessions radio program originating from Paris, recorded in September of 2006.
Always in our hearts…
Daniel Johnston’s latest album Death Of Satan was released earlier this month on the Spanish label Munster Records:
Recorded five years ago with Waller friends Jason and Bridget, this is Daniel’s third full-length release as Danny And The Nightmares. Sadly, it will also be the last. Jason, who also produced the album, passed away in 2011 following a sudden illness aged just 36.
Back in 2007 the band contributed a wonderful cover of Most Beautiful Widow In Town to the Sparklehorse tribute album That Horse Yonder. The album which was curated and released by the mysterious Slight Records is long out of print but we are pleased to share Danny’s contribution here for a limited time only…
Danny & The Nightmares – Most Beautiful Widow:
Danny & The Nightmares – Most Beautiful Widow
Here’s a few words from Jason about the track:
“Recorded the song with Danny last night. I think you guys will like it. Danny really delivered a nice vocal track to our surprise. So far it’s vocals, the acoustic guitar, a farfisa organ, and bells. We’re gonna see if the quartet will do some string stuff on it this weekend. We thought it would be funny to take a sparse original and do a lavish cover version. Sort of like what SH do with Danny’s stuff.”
It would also be with The Nightmares that Daniel would share a live stage with Mark for the very first time when the band opened for Sparklehorse in Houston in September 2006.
Watch out for a series of Golden Crows posts coming soon exploring the connections between these two great artists and sharing a few rarities along the way…