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recommended boston area events

tuesday, december 4th

kelly hogan

@ johnny d's


thursday, december 6th

conor oberst

@ converse hall, tremont st.


thursday, december 6th

jason isbell &

the 400 unit

@ the sinclair


friday, december 7th

the weisstronauts 14th

annual holiday jubilee

with guests tsunami of sound

preacher jack, & the derangers

@ the midway cafe, jp


friday, december 7th

caspian

moving mountains

o'brother

@ the sinclair


saturday, december 8th

patrick watson

@ the sinclair


saturday, december 8th

the faint perform

"danse macabre"

trust

icky blossoms

@ the paradise


sunday, december 9th

band of horses

@ house of blues


sunday, december 9th

japandroids

diiv

@ the paradise


wednesday, december 12th

concrete blonde

jim bianco

@ the sinclair


thursday, december 13th

annual boston christmas cavalcade

benefit for the homeless

featuring tons of artists

(see fb event for details)

@ johnny d's


thursday, december 13th

nada surf

eternal summers

@ the paradise


thursday, december 13th

mates of state

in the valley below

@ brighton music hall


friday, december 14th

forgetters (blake from

jawbreaker's band)

& more tba

@ democracy center, harvard square


sunday, december 30th

sufjan stevens

sheila saputo

@ the royale


monday, december 31st

my morning jacket

@ agganis arena


monday, december 31st

deer tick

two gallants

@ the sinclair


monday, january 7th

quicksand

@ the paradise


tuesday, january 8th

hospitality

@ great scott


saturday, january 19th

mission of burma

@ the sinclair


sunday, january 20th

camper van beethoven

cracker

@ the middle east down


sunday, january 20th

soundgarden

@ the orpheum


sunday, january 20th

ra ra riot

@ the paradise


sunday, january 27th

widowspeak

@ great scott


tuesday, january 29th

kathleen edwards

sera cahoone

@ brighton music hall


wednesday, february 13th

yo la tengo

@ the paradise


saturday, march 2nd

unknown mortal orchestra

@ brighton music hall


tuesday, march 12th

tame impala

@ house of blues


thursday, march 14th

jukebox the ghost

matt pond pa

lighthouse and the whaler

@ brighton music hall


tuesday, march 26th

yo la tengo

@ the paradise


wednesday & thursday

april 3rd & 4th

they might be giants

@ the paradise


visit tourfilter for more shows






Monday, March 08, 2010

[MP3s] In Memory of Mark Linkous: Sparklehorse in Boston



When I woke up too-early on Sunday morning, looking forward to another unseasonably warm late-winter day Boston day, I was nowhere near prepared for the news that Mark Linkous had taken his own life. Not that I'd ever be. The way we hear about these things nowadays has become so impersonal, so completely sterile, that we're all left to process it pretty much on our own. Just a decade ago, we'd get a phone call, maybe an email from someone close to us, or even see a friend on the street who'd pass along the sad news... and we could share our loss in more than 140 characters. Now, text just shows up in our RSS reader or Tweetdeck window: "R.I.P. Mark Linkous" - a punch to the heart and a frantic clicking for confirmation. That can't be true, can it? And somewhere far away, an anonymous stranger changes the Wikipedia entry from "Sparklehorse is a band led by..." to "Sparklehorse was a band led by...".

Instantly, all his songs, and everything they mean to me, come rushing in. Even though I was relatively late to world of Sparklehorse, discovering him just before the brilliant "It's A Wonderful Life" almost a decade ago, when I fell for Mark's songs I fell pretty hard. I played that album incessantly, taking breaks only to listen to its two predecessors, and I felt so completely connected. That was the thing about so much of his work: There was an intimacy that, no matter who you were or when you found him, it felt like he was writing songs just for you. An easy quietness that carried so much emotional weight, warm production that found a rare, magical balance between a big studio and a tiny bedroom. It was grand and personal all at once.

Elliott Smith. Vic Chesnutt. And now Mark Linkous. True artists that contributed more to the beauty of the world than I, and most others, can ever hope to. Men who deeply enriched the lives of people they would never meet. Few of us can ever truly understand the pain that brought them to take their own lives, but I know I'm not alone in wishing I'd had a selfish moment to sit down with them and beg: "Please, please don't leave us." Please don't make the world a lonelier, lesser place.

But it is today. All I can do is write a few words and share this Sparklehorse set from three years ago. It was the only time I got to see him play, after waiting such a long time, and despite my high expectations and Mark's raging flu, I left satisfied. No, it's not his best performance, but it was Sparklehorse. And for me, that was enough.



Others do more to honor the memory of Mr. Linkous than I can: Buffalo Tom's Bill Janovitz shared some beautiful words alongside his own cover of Sparklehorse's "Gold Days". And Sunday morning, under the same dark cloud I was sitting under, Drew O'Doherty wrote and recorded an original titled "So Long". Life may be a little less wonderful today, but those tributes sure do help.




featured mp3 download
neil halstead
live in cambridge, ma
on november 14th, 2008
previously: joy formidable - boston 2011




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