Songs: Ohia - Magnolia Electric Company...any good? [EDIT: RIP Jason Molina -- March 2013]

oh my god, this is terrible. I had no idea. does his family still need money?

heartbreaking. rest in peace jason

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=malJUMz2A9Y

This song is one of my all time favorites. It's so dark and beautiful, but sounds even darker now.

oh fuck, this is really sad. rip jason, you seemed like a good guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c9lHmvbsdQ

I knew Jason a little in college -- my band and him played on the same bill. He didn't go to Oberlin, but was from nearby Lorain -- there's just something about that area, so many talented people are from there. Jason's success struck me funny -- his songs seemed so...little when I knew him, and I always felt like he had a little chip on his shoulder, which in retrospect makes a lot of sense. But I clearly was missing something -- bc he obviously meant a lot to a great many people.

Terribly sad.

little songs mean a lot

I posted about this on facebook and mentioned collaborating with Jason on a Songs:Ohia show poster. That was for that show you played on, the bill was Nozzle, Tel Aviv (Andy Comer has a new record out on Teen Beat) and Songs:Ohia.

Looking at the people responding to that facebook post and thinking about Jason has me thinking about Oberlin. How much I hated the classes mostly, and mostly hated everything else, and yet the collection of people I met there and through there, and there was a whole society of people who didn't go to Oberlin officially but were part of the community, like Jason, or WFMU's Dan Bodah who I think followed his girlfriend there. So many interesting and talented people. I was at MOMA yesterday and saw a piece by Cory Archangel printed by Kayrock. I hated Oberlin but it made me who I was and I certainly continue to benefit from the connections made there.

Anyway, I was pretty close with Jason junior year and a bit less senior year. At the very end of the year a good friend of mine kissed his ex-girlfriend and I remember freaking out and thinking Jason was going to be mad at me by proxy. That was the very end of the year and I saw him once or twice after that.

He used to play George Jones records all the time and we'd drive around lorrain county going to the record exchanges. I think he lived in our attic rent free, while another student friend lived in the basement rent free, and that didn't seem to bother those of us who actually paid rent, because it was a shitty party house and the attic and basement were especially not great. The guy in the basement had a tent, but Jason had a mattress and a lamp and an old suitcase up in the attic.

We had one of those old timey sideboards with an old record player in it, the kind that let you play 16rpm records because those existed in the 50s or whatever. We had some sludgy indie-rock 7", I can't remember the band. Something with "Dog" in the title. Jason would put that 7" on and play it at 16rpm and scream "SLOW DOG". Over and over again. Really, we listened to that a lot.

damn

One of the very best of the '00s.

RIP

http://content.magnoliaelectricco.com/

final bit of "i was there" nostalgia. I was with Jason when the guys from Secretly Canadian came to Ohio to meet with him and offer to put out his records. I just vaguely remember these two nice dudes, then a few years later being blown away by the empire they built.

saw them a few times, but only time i met jason was at Primavera where we had a great chat about similarities between the shitty industrial parts of the respective cities we're from, and the next day they played a glorious set in the sunshine. he seemed like a really good guy. it's a lovely memory i'll never lose and i'll never stop listening to those records. awful awful news.

i saw MEC play in los angeles 7-8 yrs ago. great show. rip jason.

Only 39 years old.

The first time I saw MEC was at the first Pitchfork festival (then Intonation) in 2005. They had a kinda shitty set early in the day on Saturday, but they really sounded great. I got to the grounds early specifically to see them and was one of the first people lined up along the fence when they started their set. Afterwards he came down and thanked some of us for getting up so early to see them, he was really friendly.

The impromptu second set at lunchtime on the foyer stage the Dirty Three's Minehead weekend was one of my favourite ATP things ever.

apparently his family does still need money from medical things. donate here:

http://secretlycanadian.com/blog/2013/03/jason-molina-of-songs-ohia-and-magnolia-electric-co-passed-away-saturday/

can't stand this news.

Jason's music was such a companion to me in hard times. I wish I could have somehow been a companion to him.

fwiw, seeing some articles saying he did graduate from Oberlin. I didn't remember either way.

Once drove from Toronto to Boston area to see him play in a shitty dive bar. Worth every minute of the drive.
Magnolia Electric Co. (self titled record) is a stone cold classic.
Very sad news. Very sad.

I am absolutely shocked by this news and immensely just sad as hell. His work meant a ton to me during a very difficult period of my life and I'm not sure I'd be entirely the same had a couple of his records not held my hands through those periods.

Sorry it got so hard for you, Jason. Farewell, transmission.

Gutted... though I hoped he would pull through and beat his addiction, there was a small part of me that thought this might happen sooner or later. Used to check his webpage every month or so to see if there was any update..

RIP Jason - your music meant so much to me...

for a guy who could really own a lyrical cliche (and i say that with nothing but love), he also wrote some amazingly weird and wonderful and striking lines. the first big chunk of "farewell transmission" is just a tour de force, every image just kills:

The whole place is dark
Every light on this side of the town
Suddenly it all went down
Now we’ll all be brothers of the fossil fire of the sun
Now we will all be sisters of the fossil blood of the moon
Someone must have set us up
Now they’ll be working in the cold grey rock, in the hot mill steam… in the concrete
In the sirens and the silences now all the great set up hearts - all at once start to beat

After tonight if you don’t want us to be a secret out of the past
I will resurrect it, I’ll have a good go at it
I’ll streak his blood across my beak and dust my feathers with his ashes
I can feel his ghost breathing down my back

100% otmfm. The first time I heard that song I was just like "wait, what? blood across my beak? dead moon in its jaw? hold up this is amazing."

I listened to his records a lot. RIP

saw him in 2009 with magnolia electric company, in a small kind of shitty bar in reno. it was a time when i was listening to nashville moon a lot, getting really attached to that central vibe of desolation and swing, played it often while driving from reno to vegas, which is mostly two-lane highways and variations of desert. it was a great show, and i was feeling good enough that i decided to shake his hand and tell him "thank you, your music has really helped me." he smiled, looked down for a second and said, "me too."

Thanks to everybody who's sharing their more private stories. I'm a little shell-shocked and it's super appreciated

I spoke with Jason once outside Holocene after a show in 2006, the only time I saw him play. I bummed him a smoke and asked him what they'd been playing in the tour can which led to us getting nostalgic about 90's trance of all things and briefly lending me a window into the inner-goofball he's consistently described as.

I remember his band was really vamping on some extended solos that night. Between songs he leaned into the mic and said "thanks, classic rock," with the timing of a master.

We are deeply saddened to announce that Jason Andrew Molina passed away in his home in Indianapolis this past Saturday, March 16th of natural causes at age 39.

No one dies at 39 of natural causes. :(

What is the medical fund they're soliciting for?

He was a brilliant musician who will likely never get the accolades he deserves; pity, yet a bit of a secret garden at the same time. The Magnolia Elec Co website has a particular apt perspective on his passing.

The medical fund is presumably for past bills -- the above site was asking for donations over a year-and-a-half ago.

Molina's lyrics on the hidden Amalgamated Sons of Rest album...

if i am bad it's in the modern way
i might have said too much, i might have
done too much
i been looking at the stars in the sky tonight
and it looks like there's room for mine
so i will be good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQsL8GxdvUw

just dug out The Magnolia Electric Co, this is going to be hard to listen to.

RIP

"honey, watch your ass" off pyramid was one of my favorites for a long time. kinda scared to dig that out anytime soon but i really have should. xp

He did this for me maybe 10 years ago before a Magnolia show, when I asked for an autograph:
http://s10.postimage.org/nfw7nrluh/lioness.jpg

i'm really really crushed by this - had been listening to his records a lot recently

the black ram record (2nd disc of the sojourner box) is one of the most gorgeous & haunting records i've ever heard, not sure why it never got a 'proper' release but it's the one i go back to the most

I've never cried before when artists important to me have passed, no matter how hard it's felt, but last night, playing "Hold on Magnolia" brought the tears. It's a real loss, this one.

Hammer down
Heaven bound
I saw the light
On the old grey town
Hammer down
Heaven bound
Sometimes I forget how I've always been sick
And I don't have the will to keep fighting it
Hammer down
Heaven bound
Hammer down
Heaven bound
When it's been my ghost on the empty road
I think the stars are just the neon lights
Shining through the dance floor (x2)
Of heaven on a Saturday night
I saw the light (x2)
Hammer down
Heaven bound
Hammer down
Heaven bound

so much waxing back on magnolia elec co when songs: ohia was where it was really at

Ghost Tropic
Lioness
motherfucking Axxxess and Ace
oh man :(

Didn't It Rain!!!

"Farewell Transmission" is his masterpiece.

Sometimes I forget how I've always been sick
And I don't have the will to keep fighting it

this was the first line i thought of when i heard the news yesterday.

when i played in a classic rock cover band i snuck "hammer down" into the setlist, gdamn what a perfect song.

"Farewell Transmission" is his masterpiece.

That's my favorite, too.

As good as "farewell transmission" is, didn't it rain is otherworldly. In their statement, secretly canadian described it as "agnostic's gospel" music, which is otm imo.

"I loved hearing Jason Molina sing. He was a genius at turning a phrase and making it into something more than the words in it. Jason was almost supernaturally prolific, and several times I watched him write an album's worth of songs in a weekend, recording them on the spot. Much of his recorded output with Magnolia Electric Co is the evidence of him and the band playing his songs for the very first time. It's amazing, really, that it was any good at all, much less so touching and fully realized. Jason was a unique talent and I will miss him. My heart goes out to all his friends and family, all of you I've met have been good people who did well by Jason."
-- Steve Albini, who worked on Molina's Songs: Ohia record Magnolia Electric Co. and several albums under the Magnolia Electric Co. moniker, has posted a tribute to the late singer-songwriter, who passed away Saturday, March 16 at 39, on the Electrical Audio message board.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBn0-dGxnsA

one of my favorite lyrics

man the end of north star is rough to hear now:

I didn't know how blue I'd get
I didn't know how I'd get blamed for it
I didn't choose to go down this road
No one chooses to be sick

I'm saying everything is fine
By the look in my eye
But you know darling
Half of what a man says is a lie

It's your last chance to forget me now
That it's done for good
You always said I'd make it out
Somehow darling I knew I never would

tone of prospective self eulogy seems to run throughout his body of work

Definitely.

so Fall Out Boy stole the "why put a new address on the same old loneliness" line? that's fucked up

interestingly enough:

We have a picture of @petewentz in the Magnolia van to celebrate this fact. It was placed there by Jason Molina himself. I'll try to get a picture while we listen to the record today. #TimsTwitterListeningParty

— Jason P. Evans Groth (@groakus) July 2, 2020