Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
Someday I Will Treat You Good (revisited)
Mark Linkous’ Salt Chunk Mary demos
MyspaceSometime around, oh man, 2001 or 2002, I got a CD-R from a friend of mine in Richmond, Virginia containing a number of 8-track demo recordings circa 1993 by a local outfit called Salt Chunk Mary. They didn’t do too much but their singer-guitarist, a fellow by the name of Mark Linkous would go on to form a new project called Sparklehorse and over the next fifteen years or so, would craft four gorgeous records of otherworldly, fractured Americana before suddenly taking his own life in March of this year.
I had posted the best-sounding of these demos, including an early version of “Someday I Will Treat You Good” from his/their 1995 debut Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, back in 2006 to mark the release of Sparklehorse’s new record Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain, and since then every few months I’ve gotten a request from someone to hear the rest of them. A request I’d have obliged if I hadn’t misplaced the CD-R… or thought I’d misplaced it. Turns out it was in the rest of my CD collection under “S”. In the interim, Linkous passed away so as a way of fulfilling those requests and paying tribute to the man, here’s the demos in their entirety.
As with the ones I posted before, I’ve made up song titles based on the choruses – hopefully no one objects – and this Richmond Times-Dispatch interview remains essentially the only documentation online of Salt Chunk Mary’s existence.
Thanks for the music, Mark. Hope you’ve found some peace.
MP3: Salt Chunk Mary – “Won’t Know If You Don’t Try”
MP3: Salt Chunk Mary – “Rest Your Worried Mind”
MP3: Salt Chunk Mary – “instrumental”
MP3: Salt Chunk Mary – “Someday I Will Treat You Good”
MP3: Salt Chunk Mary – “I Take It All Back”
MP3: Salt Chunk Mary – “There Ain’t Nobody But You”
MP3: Salt Chunk Mary – “Break My Mind”
MP3: Salt Chunk Mary – “I”
MP3: Salt Chunk Mary – “Sorry Now”
Tags: Salt Chunk Mary, Sparklehorse
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11/23/10 1:08 pm
Thank you Frank. What a gift…
11/23/10 1:45 pm
Yes indeed. Thanks!
11/23/10 4:26 pm
Excellent! Thanks very much.
2/5/11 9:42 pm
Hey Frank – amazing to hear Salt Chunk Mary !!!!!!! Mark had a huge gift and its great to hear these early demo’s
‘Rest your worried mind’ ( you can hear lyrics which became ‘heart of Darkness’ )
thanks a million – you made my day !!!!!!!
2/9/11 3:23 pm
Thank you so much man. I’m going to cry. The lyrics, they’re all over the place. Bits and pieces from so many songs. My god.
6/17/11 8:37 pm
Thanks for posting these songs. I lost my original tape of the demo years ago, and it’s amazing how every single song popped right back into my head as I listened 20 years later. I wrote that TD article, which pissed Mark off to no end — my narrow punk rock roots and rushed journalism led me to a terrible comparison of SCM to Soul Asylum, who he hated. A decade later, I was lucky enough to be part of a film crew that hung out with Mark and his bandmates at his farm in western Virginia while they were recording, I think, It’s A Wonderful Life. What an amazing talent he was.
8/26/11 4:44 pm
Thank you.
3/31/18 3:25 am
Hi
I am desperate to gear these it the links seem to have expired – is anyone able to send them to my email address please?? I’d be so grateful X
4/16/18 11:18 pm
ye, i am desperate too, please, i want these songs >< ¡HELP!
2/22/19 6:28 am
You can find the music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPHy3H9P59c