Yet another tragic death to report: Mark Linkous, leader (sole member, really) of Sparklehorse, committed suicide by gun over the weekend at the age of 47.
Very eerily similar to the death late last year of Vic Chesnutt. Like Chesnutt, Linkous suffered from debilitating depression for most of his life, compounded by severe substance-abuse problems. He'd almost died in 1996, OD'ing himself into a coma in a hotel room and pinning his own legs beneath him in the process and then suffering a heart attack when the paramedics tried to straighten out his body. He spent six months in a wheelchair - and then proceeded to make some of his most acclaimed records, including two of the three Sparklehorse albums that are currently on the AM top 3000.