RIP Mark Linkous

March 6, 2010 10:18 PM

Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse has died of an apparent suicide.

Audio/Video
Hammering the Cramps
Dog Door (video by the Brothers Quay)
Gold Day
It's a Wonderful Life
Little Fat Baby
Please Don't Take My Sunshine Away
Dark Night of the Soul (streaming album) (previously on MetaFilter)

Interviews:
A.V. Club, January 16, 2007
The Hook, February 28, 2002

RIP Mark.

posted by threetoed (85 comments total)

Oh, that sucks.

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posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 10:21 PM on March 6, 2010

Sometimes I wonder what it says about me that my heroes all end up taking their own lives.
posted by signalnine at 10:23 PM on March 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

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posted by signalnine at 10:23 PM on March 6, 2010

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posted by DaddyNewt at 10:25 PM on March 6, 2010

Oh, fuck! No.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:26 PM on March 6, 2010

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posted by thankyouforyourconsideration at 10:28 PM on March 6, 2010

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From the AV Club interview:

AVC: Why do you hate live performances?

ML: I hate the sound of my own voice. It's just up there, sort of naked and exposed.

ouch.
posted by philip-random at 10:30 PM on March 6, 2010

This really really sucks. Just yesterday I learned of this.
posted by theperfectcrime at 10:32 PM on March 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

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posted by felix betachat at 10:33 PM on March 6, 2010

Dark night of the soul, indeed.

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posted by UbuRoivas at 10:33 PM on March 6, 2010

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Jesus. It's a Wonderful Life factored heavily in my handling immediate post 9-11 NYC life.

I also hadn't heard, from the original Rolling Stone source, that he had died for two minutes in the 1996 after an overdose.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 10:33 PM on March 6, 2010

Oh, no. He was one of my absolute favorite musicians.

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posted by shakespeherian at 10:37 PM on March 6, 2010

My understanding is that he when he almost lost his legs, it was because he sort of blacked out while partying, and fell into a crouching position in a space beside the refrigerator. He was passed out there for 14 hours or so and his circulation had been cut off. Woke up in a spirit ditch, indeed.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:37 PM on March 6, 2010

My favorite (autoplays)
posted by shakespeherian at 10:41 PM on March 6, 2010

My favorite (autoplays)
posted by shakespeherian

"... I knew it was a dream because your mother would never let me in her house."
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:49 PM on March 6, 2010

Gutted. He was worth hundreds of .s
posted by monkey!knife!fight! at 10:53 PM on March 6, 2010

Oh goddammit. What terrible news. Sparklehorse never made a bad record. I hate this.

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posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:55 PM on March 6, 2010

I hate this.

This is very upsetting.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:57 PM on March 6, 2010

I keep coming back here because, as my wife has kindly pointed out, I am doing a fucking shitty-ass job of expressing how fucking terribly this makes me feel. This fucking sucks and I fucking hate it.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:01 PM on March 6, 2010

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

FUCK.

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posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:09 PM on March 6, 2010

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posted by Hey Dean Yeager! at 11:10 PM on March 6, 2010

Sad.
posted by Sailormom at 11:10 PM on March 6, 2010

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posted by FidelDonson at 11:39 PM on March 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

This is really unfortunate. My condolences to his family and friends.

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posted by purephase at 12:01 AM on March 7, 2010

Oh shit. Shit. Oh man.
posted by jokeefe at 12:03 AM on March 7, 2010

Very sad news.
posted by bardic at 12:03 AM on March 7, 2010

Oh goddamn.
posted by jokeefe at 12:03 AM on March 7, 2010

words don't have the depth to express what I'm feeling about this. This really sucks.
posted by Sir BoBoMonkey Pooflinger Esquire III at 12:06 AM on March 7, 2010

Sorry to see him go but very thankful for what he left behind.
posted by MeatLightning at 12:07 AM on March 7, 2010

Very sorry that is
posted by MeatLightning at 12:08 AM on March 7, 2010

When I was living in London in 1997 I had the privilege of attending a Mazzy Star concert which took place in an old church. Sparklehorse, whom I had never heard of prior to this event, happened to be the opening act. The concert as a whole remains one of the best I've ever seen. And I've been a Sparklehorse fan ever since.
This is very sad news and a great loss.

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posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:18 AM on March 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

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posted by obloquy at 12:20 AM on March 7, 2010

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posted by Samuel Farrow at 12:21 AM on March 7, 2010

Simply beautiful: Sea of Teeth

It just occurred to me that I've never actually seen Sparklehorse live in concert, which is rare among my favorite bands. A friend and I went to see them at Temple Bar in Santa Monica in 2002 or so. Waited in line for awhile but it didn't seem like they were letting anyone in, so we went drinking at Father's Office instead.
posted by puritycontrol at 12:46 AM on March 7, 2010

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posted by spinifex23 at 1:06 AM on March 7, 2010

Fuck. He made such beautiful music. This is terrible.
posted by haveanicesummer at 1:43 AM on March 7, 2010

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posted by Jimbob at 2:13 AM on March 7, 2010

This is incredibly sad. I loved everything Mark did.
posted by robself at 2:27 AM on March 7, 2010

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posted by josephtate at 2:39 AM on March 7, 2010

Oh fuck.

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posted by anagrama at 2:54 AM on March 7, 2010

miserable news.

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posted by patricio at 3:42 AM on March 7, 2010

I discovered Sparklehorse when my kid used "it's a wonderful life" as part of the soundtrack for Dawn of the Dead...

With this event I'm thinking that artists whose music was used in Dawn should be a bit concerned, first Jim Carroll and now Mark Linkous...

Ironic

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posted by HuronBob at 3:42 AM on March 7, 2010

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posted by soft and hardcore taters at 4:17 AM on March 7, 2010

Well, this sucks. I was just listening to Dreamt for Light Years the other day.
posted by dortmunder at 5:41 AM on March 7, 2010

this hurts. The Sparklehorse folks are part of my extended family of friends. RIP. It is a dark world indeed......
posted by tarantula at 5:46 AM on March 7, 2010

I don't even know what to do with this. Sparklehorse and Mark Linkous have meant a lot to me, especially in the past year, and always gave me such tremendous comfort. I was actually listening to a ton of Sparkehorse this week.

I don't think I will be able to listen to it for a while.
posted by darksong at 6:16 AM on March 7, 2010

What terrible news.
posted by elmono at 6:31 AM on March 7, 2010

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posted by Wuggie Norple at 6:54 AM on March 7, 2010

Well, shit.
posted by Gilbert at 7:15 AM on March 7, 2010

I was just introduced to his music last year and was very touched by it and looking forward to more. Very sad news.

Condolences to his loved ones.
posted by readery at 7:23 AM on March 7, 2010

I hadn't listened to "It's a Wonderful Life" in a long time... whoa.

Mark's father Randy was the manager of a Barnes & Noble bookstore where I worked during the summer of 1994. The first time I came in to Randy's office to ask for some schedule changes to accommodate my band's occasional performances, Randy's eyes lit up. "You're a musician? My son's a musician, too." He was really proud of Mark.

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posted by emelenjr at 7:32 AM on March 7, 2010

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This is terrible. I love, love, love Sparklehorse and was listening to "It's a Wonderful Life" in my studio this past week.
posted by stagewhisper at 8:09 AM on March 7, 2010

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posted by TrialByMedia at 8:17 AM on March 7, 2010

Also: this is the first time I've ever burst into tears upon hearing news of the death of a celebrity I've never even met.
posted by stagewhisper at 8:32 AM on March 7, 2010

Is it just me, or was there Vic Chesnutt link on the front page of Sparklehorse's site that isn't there now? Were they friends? Who else do they hang out with, so I can prepare myself to lose another amazing musician?

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posted by nevercalm at 8:34 AM on March 7, 2010

Too many talented people are killing themselves nowadays. PLEASE TO BE STOPPING.

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posted by Sticherbeast at 8:52 AM on March 7, 2010

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posted by Lutoslawski at 9:00 AM on March 7, 2010

Damn. Those first two Sparklehorse albums are absolute faves. I met Mark a few times and he was very kind, but also very introverted. When we talked about other artists that I thought he reminded me of, he was adamant that he wasn't as good as any of those artists. Not in a false modesty way, he genuinely seemed like it was a disservice to those artist to compare what he was doing to the music they made.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 9:36 AM on March 7, 2010

2010 has not been kind thus far.

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posted by Dr-Baa at 9:51 AM on March 7, 2010

I will return here one day
And dig up my bones from the clay
I buried nails and strings and hair
And that old tooth I believe was a bear's

I held my hand in the fire
It burned me down to the wires

Blood suckers hide beneath my bed
And black fumes of skin so gently bled
I slept with a cat on my breast
Slowing my heart stealing my breath

At sunrise the monkeys will fly
And leave me with pennies in my eyes


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posted by Siberian Mist at 10:11 AM on March 7, 2010

fuuuuck...
posted by saul wright at 10:18 AM on March 7, 2010

I don't play guitar, but I've got a hobby project building an electric guitar with special features. The goal of my project is specifically to emphasize and expand on the kind of sound that he got at times.
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:37 AM on March 7, 2010

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When I was 13 Or 14, I found 'It's a wonderful Life' while randomly browsing music albums at the library. Cable internet was recently installed at my house [hadn't found a replacement to napster yet] and I began finding out more about non-mainstream music, so I would go to the library or just look for a bunch of interesting-looking ones and take them home [I still do this, once in a great while, to this day]. I found this, something more intelligent than just what was on the radio and it was one of the first albums that introduced me to indie pop-rock.
posted by fizzix at 12:09 PM on March 7, 2010

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posted by robotot at 1:36 PM on March 7, 2010

This is the first "celebrity" death to really, really affect me personally.

It's so upsetting that the man whose music I listened to when I needed a pick me up from my dark lows found the world too much for himself to pull through.

Sigh. It's not fair.
posted by Windigo at 1:52 PM on March 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh fuck. Terrible, terrible fucking fuck.
Really, there are no words to express the grim appalling nature of this.
It's so sad. It's a Wonderful Life is just amazing.
And now he's gone
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posted by hydatius at 2:15 PM on March 7, 2010

Very, very sad.

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posted by rsanheim at 4:16 PM on March 7, 2010

awful, awful news.

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posted by troubles at 4:29 PM on March 7, 2010

Sick of Goodbyes, indeed.

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posted by Jugwine at 4:49 PM on March 7, 2010

It's a silver lining to see he had so many fans; I was always confused that he wasn't a much bigger star (not that he needed to be).

He was around a while, used to be in a band called the Dancing Hoods.
posted by hackly_fracture at 5:52 PM on March 7, 2010

Here's a short music documentary about Sparklehorse "Belly of a Mountain"
part 1, part 2
posted by troubles at 5:54 PM on March 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

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posted by recursion at 6:21 PM on March 7, 2010

Damn.

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posted by klausness at 2:20 AM on March 8, 2010

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posted by jzed at 5:34 AM on March 8, 2010

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posted by nevafeva at 6:53 AM on March 8, 2010

The "shityeah!" at the beginning of Rainmaker will stay with me forever. Goddammit he was so fucking brilliant.

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posted by whuppy at 7:03 AM on March 8, 2010

So terrible.

A friend and I went to see them at Temple Bar in Santa Monica in 2002 or so. Waited in line for awhile but it didn't seem like they were letting anyone in, so we went drinking at Father's Office instead.

I was at that show, and saw him again with Jesse Sykes last time he was in San Francisco. He had such a sense of wonder about him, and we were lucky to see the world through his eyes for a brief time.

A big loss.
posted by Kafkaesque at 1:09 PM on March 8, 2010

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posted by J-Garr at 1:34 PM on March 8, 2010

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posted by anoirmarie at 4:41 PM on March 8, 2010

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posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:59 PM on March 8, 2010

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I cried a lot last night. But then I thought, we were lucky to have him as long as we did. It remains a sad and beautiful world.
posted by freya_lamb at 2:03 AM on March 9, 2010

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posted by juliplease at 7:58 PM on March 9, 2010

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posted by inkytea at 8:24 PM on March 10, 2010

Here's a longish report from the local alt-weekly. He had apparently moved to Knoxville with the intent of opening a recording studio with Scott Minor.
posted by frobozz at 12:50 PM on March 11, 2010

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posted by burnmp3s at 9:17 PM on March 18, 2010