photographed in Chicago, Illinois on July 19, 2009

This is the story of a band called Sparklehorse and the remarkable man who fronts it, a tale as bipolar as the music it spawned.

Sparklehorse and Mark Linkous– who resides on a farm in Bremo Bluff, a Fluvanna village by the James River– are essentially synonymous, and if the band has multiple incarnations, the most important is the one in Linkous’ head. Songwriter, performer, engineer, and producer, Linkous embodies the do-it-yourself indie rock auteur ethos. An enigma whose influence can’t be measured in record sales, Mark Linkous and his music have met with critical, if not widely popular, acclaim.

Name-dropping comes easy when you’re talking about Sparklehorse. Linkous opens for the likes of Radiohead and Cracker, collaborates with Tom Waits, housesits for P.J. Harvey’s next-door neighbor in the south of England, and, as helper Eric from the Sound of Music recording studio was eager to share with me, knows Adrian “Portishead” Utley’s private phone number by heart.

Excerpted from ‘He Sparkles: The Sad and Beautiful World of Mark Linkous‘ by James D. Graham. Published February 28, 2002 in issue #0004 of The Hook.