He shot himself in the heart in an alley outside a friend’s home, said his manager, Shelby Meade. Lt. Greg Hoskins of the Knoxville Police Department confirmed that the police responded to a call at 1:20 p.m., and that Mr. Linkous was pronounced dead at the scene. According to his family, Mr. Linkous owned the gun that he used.

On four Sparklehorse albums, released between 1995 and 2006, and in numerous collaborations, Mr. Linkous developed a style that sent sunny, Beatles-esque melodies through a filter of crackling, damaged folk-rock, and his songs were filled with entropic imagery. “Everything that’s made is made to decay,” he sang in a whispery tenor on Sparklehorse’s debut album, “Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot” (Capitol).

Frederick Mark Linkous was born in Arlington, Va., in 1962 to a family with roots in the coal-mining country of southwestern Virginia. After graduating from high school he moved to New York City and started the band the Dancing Hoods, which relocated to Los Angeles in pursuit of mainstream rock success. But disillusioned with the music business, Mr. Linkous returned to Virginia and reinvented his sound as Sparklehorse, a name that he applied to himself as well as his band.

“We were trying so hard to get signed, and I just quit and came back home and just gave up on all those aspirations of being a rock star,” he said in an interview in 1999. “That’s when I started making good music.”

Although Sparklehorse’s music never had wide commercial success, it found respect among critics and other musicians. Rolling Stone called its 1999 album, “Good Morning Spider,” a “homemade tour de force of psychedelic Appalachian folk slop,” and the third Sparklehorse record, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” released in 2001, had guest appearances by Tom Waits and PJ Harvey.

While on tour in 1996, Mr. Linkous collapsed in a hotel room after taking Valium and antidepressants. He briefly went into cardiac arrest before being revived, and he sustained injuries to his legs that put him in a wheelchair for six months. His legs never fully recovered their strength. His convalescence inspired “St. Mary,” a song on his second album named after the hospital where he recuperated. “Come on boys,” he sings, “please let me taste the clean air in my lungs.”

Mr. Linkous was also in demand as a producer, working with the singer Daniel Johnstonand the Swedish singer (and member of the Cardigans) Nina Persson, among others. He collaborated with Danger Mouse and the director David Lynch on “Dark Night of the Soul,” an album and photo book whose scheduled release last year was delayed by legal entanglements; last week Danger Mouse announced that those problems had been worked out and that the album would be released soon.

Mr. Linkous had recently completed most of the work for a new Sparklehorse album and was in the process of moving to Knoxville and setting up a studio to complete the record, said Ms. Meade, his manager.

His survivors include his wife, Teresa Linkous; his mother, Gloria Hughes Thacker; his father, Frederick Linkous, and stepmother, Leta; and three brothers, Matt, Paul and Daniel Linkous.

Source: New York Times

The Killers’ Brandon Flowers

Speaking in this week’s issue of NME (out nationwide on June 24) about their plans for the release, the two said they’ve been thinking hard about which acts they’d like to include on the album.

“It’s something that we’ve always talked about doing and we’re still talking about,” Flowers said. “It’s difficult for each of us to pick songs that represent us as individuals. I mean, I have a lot of personalities myself! I’ve gone through everything from Neil Diamond to the Cars.”

Vanucci cited acts including “Genesis, Tom Waits, a little Cyndi Lauper, Iggy Pop” as his preferred choices for the album, adding that he’s also been “messing around with a couple of Fleet Foxes songs” recently.

The drummer continued by saying that the band are planning to work on the album while on their current tour, explaining that The Killers have taken a mobile recording rig on the road with them. “It sounds excellent,” he noted.

Chris Blackwell is the founder of Island Records and one of the most successful entrepreneurs in music-industry history. From relatively humble beginnings in an office in Jamaica, Blackwell grew Island into an international force, finally selling the label to A&M records in 1989. Along the way, Blackwell and Island were responsible for changing the face of pop music repeatedly. Bob Marley was an Island discovery, and the label was the driver of reggae’s rise to a global cultural phenomenon. The label was also home to U2 from 1980-1997, and shepherded them from their Dublin pub beginnings to the apex of their stardom. Under Blackwell’s long tenure, Island became known as a haven for creative and quirky artists, releasing landmark albums from artists as diverse as Traffic, Tom Waits, Fairport Convention, Robert Palmer, The Pogues, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Anthrax. Blackwell now heads a new venture, Palm Pictures, which is a film, music and new-media company that focuses on world and electronic music, independent film, and internet-delivered content.