I first heard Sparklehorse aka Mark Linkous in 1996. I was working two jobs, both terrible, and the song that came blasting out of the warehouse radio, on a frigid December morning was, "Someday I will Treat You Good". It was an insane, updated blast of Neil Young rock n roll squeezed through a megaphone and spat out at the world like a sonic cannonball.
When I first saw Sparklehorse, they were touring for the first time since Mark's now notorious and over played overdose on booze and valium. His legs where fucked, his heart was healing after stopping, and he hobbled on stage with a cane and guitar. He sat through the set, played and sang his heart out, walked off in the middle of the encore and at the time I believed he was the saviour of rock n roll. The band were obvious stand ins to his immense talent.
I bought the first album and played it to death. I still have it and all the singles of it and cherish them to this day. After that the music got darker. I bought "Goodmorning Spider" but sort of lost touch with Sparklehorse as my life went down the path Linkous's had gone before, booze, heroin and valium. I lost touch with music, friends, all my instruments and day to day reality. I got clean this year on the day Linkous killed himself, drunk, upset, shooting a bullet through that same fraglie and damaged heart.
I'm revisiting his music, his images, his life, his work. I'd loved to have seen him live one more time, but that's not the way things work out. There was always a spiritual, almost religious element to his music in my mind, something that journalists missed while clamoring for the overdose story for the 100th. time. I still feel that spirituality, that otherness when listening to Mark sing. Sparkle and shine in your own space forever...
I'll leave you with Sparklehorse doing a version of William Blakes "London". The clip was made as a kind of tribute. Sad and Beautiful...
