sparklehorse

Today is a Monday. I am almost done with my thirtieth year alive on this planet. The weather has been strange and wet, almost like the winter and pre-spring weather in the place where I grew up. It’s dreary but it’s not cold. It’s the desert, but it’s rained like there is no tomorrow these past few months. Especially in these last few days. Which is all right with me. As this is Las Vegas and drainage of rainwater seems like it wasn’t even a thought when they built and ‘designed’ this city; there are standing pools of water all over the place. Since this is, like I said, Las Vegas; at random intervals, the city gives way to open desert.
In these strange places, too, are these standing puddles. It’s windy and cool. Pretty much what you’d expect from the month of March. Right now on the couch next to me sits my almost month old daughter Hope. She is to the left. The chocolate lab named Allie is to my right. Right now on the itunes is Sparklehorse.
(For those of you not in the know;here is the news link:)
http://www.examiner.com/x-11210-Indie-Music-Examiner~y2010m3d8-Sparklehorses-Mark-Linkous-dead-at-47-after-apparent-suicide
Mark Linkous, who more or less was Sparklehorse, took his own life on Saturday by what I’ve read is shooting himself through the heart. He is the second brilliant songwriter/artist to take such a harsh way out. (Elliott Smith stabbed himself in the heart in 2003.) I myself having dealt with crippling depression at times in my life often found solace in their music. I’ve read how symbolic, final, awful etc. taking your life this way is. (Literally shooting or stabbing yourself through the heart, the symbolic area where love and comfort comes from.) It’s horrifically sad and it’s easy to be bitter and try to wash your hands of the situation by saying how incredibly selfish and fucked up to do something like this.
Which it is no doubt, but that’s not how I want to always remember Sparklehorse, Elliott Smith, Kurt Cobain, and the tons of other great artists and people that have fallen to this…this what? Is it despair? Is it addiction? Something more fierce and dark than anyone can ever really fathom? (especially those that are fortunate enough never to feel that low.) whatever the reality is, I want to remember the beauty. Of life. Of their music. Of the feelings and experiences they’ve given me. The endless discussions of his recording techniques and how did he get those sounds? How did he write such minimalist lyrics?
The cold fact of the matter that cuts to the bone like surgical steel is that he’s gone, but his music is not. Whatever stuff we got and we carry around, (for me things like Sparklehorse vinyl lps, cds, the fact I was fortunate enough to see them live once, knew someone personally who toured with them) whatever stuff we have filed away in the file cabinets of our souls, will never perish. That’s one thing to take away from this anyway.
I first heard of Sparklehorse in 1999 when I was reading Rolling Stone. (Up until very recently, I subscribed to Rolling Stone and read it semi-religiously.) It was an album review of the 2nd record, Good Morning Spider. The review had me captivated. It said the music was a something like it was sad cowboy music from the moon. These being the days before the internet did very much, you had to actually buy the album, (at a premium price by the way) from the cdnow website. I’m not even sure this site still exists and you couldn’t really go to the website and preview the whole thing. You maybe only got a 20 second quicktime clip, but if you had dialup, it wasn’t worth the effort. (Even worse was Real Audio.) So you had pay this premium price, plus shipping, which brings in my means of first buying the album.
At the time my best friend Jordan also had an avid thirst for new music and reading Rolling Stone on the crapper. (There used to be a great feeling opening up the mailbox and getting your latest issue. My favorite was always the random notes section, and the film and album reviews. Still are to some extent.)
So I was 20 years old. I didn’t have much money, nor a job. Jordan however did and he was as enthused about this record review as I was. He had a job (yikes and a bank card too) and ordered the record on my instant urging that this could be the sound we were looking for.
It was.
I made a copy of the cd onto a tape and carried it with me and played it on my walkman (geez, this sounds like the stone age, I’m sure, to most people) while I made the futile attempt at junior college. I had it on tape until our one friend (one!) that had a cdr burner could make me a copy. Now for those not older than 20 I guess, let me briefly describe to you what one had to do to make a copy of a cd, especially if you only had 1 cdr drive. Mind you, these things burned at a rate of 2x. So whatever the length of the album was, say 45 minutes, cut it in half, and you had your cd. However, if you only had 1 drive, you had to rip the disc first and that took about 45 minutes too. Needless to say, it’s baffling how far along technology has come in 10 years, and also how we used to have to wait for things. Which worked at, great and was completely worth it if you liked it. If you didn’t however; then you were out money and time.
I loved it.
I bought everything that came out before and after that record. I wanted to be in that band. Wanted to write and record those songs of beauty. Songs like ‘most beautiful widow, Maria’s little elbows, hundreds of sparrows, piano fire, applebed, gold day, morning hollow,’ filled the soundtrack of the film that is my life for years to come. I spent absurd amounts of money of imports and eps. Scoured the internet for live mp3s. Purchased bootlegs foolishly on Ebay. All in all, I found myself transfixed in the beauty with my headphones on. I found a world of imagery and sound.
One thing I never got to see and can’t find anywhere to download is for the record It’s a Wonderful Life, there was an IFC special where I think they filmed short films for all of the songs.
It’s a Wonderful life came out at a strange time in my life. It came out in August of 2001. I was going through the motions of being drug around by girls I liked that didn’t like me all that much. Of course we all know what happened in the September of that year. I had hoped and truly believed this would be the record that broke them into mainstream popularity instead of indie and critical fandom. It didn’t. As with nearly all albums released that fall, it didn’t do well.
The single for Piano Fire was scrapped post 9/11 for containing the lyric “I got sunburned waiting for the jets to land.” Pretty lame but so was the climate in America at the time. (Damn near 8 years were to follow of the same shit.) I bought tickets for the tour that was in November. The LA show sold out as soon as it was listed so I got tickets to the Belly Up (near San Diego) and I had the hookup to get into the sold out show the day after in Santa Monica. (The hook up was emailing the owner of the club via the website of the club and she said I could just come and pay because my name plus one was on the list. It’s funny how innocent and easy some things used to be.) The show was great in San Diego. The crowd was great but you could tell there was something a little defensive or sad coming from Mark. He was a southern gentleman through and through but onstage he didn’t much of a persona, banter, or even appear to like being onstage. It was a great show but I didn’t make the one the next night because I had nowhere to stay. I did but my friend lived 3 blocks from the beach and there was not 1 parking spot in all of Long Beach that night. But I kept the memory with me of that show for years.
It’s a Wonderful Life is still one of my favorite records. I literally wore out one cd back in the day and had to buy another. I sing Sparklehorse to my daughter Hope now almost daily. I know I’m not the only one to hold this band/this man in such a high regard. We are blessed to have the music and memory. I had a friend that knew and toured with Mark and said what we pretty much already know. He wasn’t a happy guy. He could be what seemed to be abrasive. He couldn’t sleep on the tour bus because of what happened to him when he tried to kill himself before. It’s sad. It’s an interesting side note that he worked with and admired 2 other fellow souls that are/were sick. (Vic Chestnutt and Daniel Johnston.) and they still created such beauty.
One thing to be learned from this is that depression can be just as deadly as any addiction. I urge everyone to talk to someone, anyone if you feel you’re in that hopeless void that even the coolest motherfucker like Mark Linkous fell into. We don’t need to lose more beauty. We don’t need to shift the balance all the way from the light. We need these things, music, art, film, photos, to keep up the good fight and to never let it go. His music made me constantly slow down and see the beauty even in the mundane. Some will say they see the depression and sadness in his music, and I do too. But I also see happiness and the search for it. See: shade and honey. Hundreds of sparrows. Don’t take my sunshine away.
I read the news yesterday on the LA Times website. I had to reread it 2 or 3 times before it seemed real. It rained all day. I hope he would have liked that.
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