Sun Kil Moon - Salvador Sanchez

"Why have they gone? Felled by leather. All alone. All bound together."

Album: Ghosts of the Great Highway [debut album as Sun Kil Moon]
Recorded: Lisbon, Portugal
Genre: Indie Folk, Alt-Country, Folk
Release: November 4th 2003
Length: 5.12
Producer: Mark Kozelek
Vocalist: Mark Kozelek
Label: Jetset Records

Official Audio


Pancho Villa (Salvador Sanchez repise)


Salvador Sanchez live in 2004

Charts, Streams & Sales

Spotify: 1,000,000 +
YouTube Music: 90,000 +

Credits

Details

• Ghosts of the Great Highway was Sun Kil Moon's debut album although Sun Kil Moon are Red House Painters with a different name, a bit more folk and a lot less indie rock. Kozelek has said that he changed the name in order to gain attention from the press as they had tired of talking about the Painters. Many of the songs featured on Moon's first album were originally written to be Painters songs.
• Mark Kozelek, Anthony Koutsos and Jerry Vessel all played in both Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon.
• Sun Kil Moon is named after the South Korean boxer Sung Kil-Moon. Sung Kil Moon was a hard hitting bantamweight. A little guy who packed a hell of a punch. As a boxing fan, when Mark Kozelek renamed his band, it only seemed natural to name it after a boxer. Most acts carry the name of their most prominent members, think Bob Marley and the Wailers. Not Sun Kil Moon. Which is strange as Kozelek's earlier songs were intensely autobiographical.
  
  The song 'Salvador Sanchez' refers to the boxer of the same name. Sanchez was the World Flyweight Champion when he died age 23 in 1982. The song also references the boxer Pancho Villa, who, just like Sanchez, was the World Flyweight Champion when he died, also at the age 23 in 1925. Both boxers were little guys who packed a hell of a puch, just like Sung Kil Moon.
  
  

  

  Salvador Sanchez and Pancho Villa
  

  
  In 1998 Red House Painters finished their album 'Old Ramon'. It wouldn't be released until 2001. By all accounts it was a great album, Alternative Press described it as a record of "timeless beauty". The band must have been keen to release it, but the label got in the way. In 1998, Supreme Records had been purchased by Seagram and folded into the Island Def Jam Universal Music Group. It was a multi-million dollar, major label merger and the new mega label quickly forgot about the Painters. They didn't want the album and had no intention of marketing it. Somehow, as millions of dollars changed hands, the Red House Painters, small town boys from Ohio, got lost in the mix and their music was discarded, unreleased and left to collect dust.
  
  The record only saw the light of day when Mark Kozelek managed to buy back the rights to his own music at a discounted rate of $25,000. Lucky him. He had to pay 25 grand just to release his own music! Understandably, he was left with a bitter taste in his mouth, and hasn't worked with a major label since. In fact, in 2005, as a part of his effort to steer clear of the suits in corporate, he formed his own independent label, Caldo Verde Records. Just like Salvador Sanchez and Pancho Villa before him, he has been punching above his weight ever since.
  
  
• 'Pancho Villa', the last track on the album, is a reprise of 'Salvador Sanchez'. Both songs have the same lyrics however Pancho is shorter, solely acoustic and in B Flat Major as opposed to the C Major of Sanchez.
  

Lyrics