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

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.

Seriously? There is no way I could listen to any of this stuff right now. NO WAY. It's just too much to think of a person, much less a person who lived where I lived and grew up when and where I grew up, dying in this way. Listening to him self-eulogize is way too much. I should unbookmark this.

yeah i get that, but i've been listening to him a lot for the past two days. it's a little rough but the best way i can think of to remember him.

yeah i find it empowering hearing someone make beautiful songs out of that pain. his way of owning it i guess.

His entire back catalog is up for streaming for a short time

http://live.magnoliaelectricco.com/

tim midgett from silkworm/bottomless pit from EA boards:

We were at Electrical with Greg on Sunday when the call came in that Jason was dead.

He felt things deeply.

Bottomless Pit's first trips out east/west were due 100% to Mags taking us along for the ride. They wanted someone to do about a month of shows all told, as I recall.

We were, like, uh, how about if we cherry-pick the best three or four shows on each coast and you pay us like we're bringing an extra 100 people in, instead of the 30 we really know we're doing? And they went for it.

Our collective wounds were still fresh in the wake of Michael's death. We were still finding our sea legs, to say the least. It hurt to play.

We took to all of those guys instantly. They made us feel so completely welcome and at home. It was a very soft landing and a great way to get moving. I would have loved to have done more shows with them.

JMo was a hugely enthusiastic, lovable man. He was an unreconstructed weirdo. He was hilarious. Even when he was being a cranky bitch he was pretty funny. I saw him too drunk a couple of times. It was uncomfortable, and I know I didn't see him at his worst.

If that phone call had been "Molina is in town and not uncomfortably drunk" instead of "Molina is dead," we would have dropped everything and spent yesterday evening hanging out. We would have rather done that than made a record.

Dude slept, sweat, and bled music. I would call his obsession with his art pathological, but he had genuine pathologies and now is not the time to be glib.

He was a great writer. He was a great singer.

He didn't know when to quit in either art or life. Couldn't quit, more like it. But I'm not so sure music didn't rescue him and keep him afloat longer than he would have been without it.

I've missed him for a while, now with the unmistakeable extra knife-twist of finality.

Be good to each other. You never know, for better or worse, you never know.

I had no idea farewell transmission was this serendipitous

JM: “Farewell Transmission” must be one of the most heroic recording moments of all time, because I called in people that were not already scheduled to be in the band and I was like, “Oh, now we’re going to have a violin player, and we’re going to have an extra singer.” I called out all of these things, much like a conductor does – and trust me, I’m not a conductor. I’m the break man. I will not fuck you up if I am the break man, I just don’t want to move anymore.
We put, I think, about 12 people in a room and recorded that song live, completely live, and unrehearsed. I showed ‘em the chord progression, they had no idea when it would end, and we just cut it.
Steve (Albini) did a beautiful job. I noticed that at one point when it was a little too loud or a little too soft he came and opened a door to make it work, because it was just an ambient recording. When you hear that song kick off everybody knows it, and what’s so disturbing to me is the way that I ended it is I was dictating to the band and Steve—I go “Listen. Listen. Listen.” And then at one point they all stop. It’s great.

JT: I can’t even believe that was done live and improvised. That is absolutely stunning.

JM: I got all my favorite friends from Chicago, and my favorite, good musicians and we just did this record, and it has lasted. It’s got weight, I’m talking 500 pound weight; something you ain’t going to be able to lift too easy. You have to understand we’re working on a string, and Steve is throwing us a bone, giving us the studio and everything, and we are terrified about how expensive it is and he just went the extra mile. That’s the way it works and that’s where I come from. You get the job fucking done.

http://www.thefastertimes.com/music/2011/06/22/music-as-seance-jason-molina-in-conversation-with-justin-taylor-pt-ii/

That's incredible.

wow

Yeah seriously that story is unreal. I read somewhere else at some point in the past, that pretty much the whole record was done this way in one form or another.
Regardless, its a perfect album for me and was pretty much the sound track to my life for a year or two.

blue factory flame

damn

OTM.

probably my single favourite molina song..

I had no idea farewell transmission was this serendipitous

JM: “Farewell Transmission” must be one of the most heroic recording moments of all time, because I called in people that were not already scheduled to be in the band and I was like, “Oh, now we’re going to have a violin player, and we’re going to have an extra singer.” I called out all of these things, much like a conductor does – and trust me, I’m not a conductor. I’m the break man. I will not fuck you up if I am the break man, I just don’t want to move anymore.
We put, I think, about 12 people in a room and recorded that song live, completely live, and unrehearsed. I showed ‘em the chord progression, they had no idea when it would end, and we just cut it.
Steve (Albini) did a beautiful job. I noticed that at one point when it was a little too loud or a little too soft he came and opened a door to make it work, because it was just an ambient recording. When you hear that song kick off everybody knows it, and what’s so disturbing to me is the way that I ended it is I was dictating to the band and Steve—I go “Listen. Listen. Listen.” And then at one point they all stop. It’s great.

JT: I can’t even believe that was done live and improvised. That is absolutely stunning.

JM: I got all my favorite friends from Chicago, and my favorite, good musicians and we just did this record, and it has lasted. It’s got weight, I’m talking 500 pound weight; something you ain’t going to be able to lift too easy. You have to understand we’re working on a string, and Steve is throwing us a bone, giving us the studio and everything, and we are terrified about how expensive it is and he just went the extra mile. That’s the way it works and that’s where I come from. You get the job fucking done.

http://www.thefastertimes.com/music/2011/06/22/music-as-seance-jason-molina-in-conversation-with-justin-taylor-pt-ii/

― anonanon, Wednesday, March 20, 2013 8:59 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

holy shit

i just put some magnolia electric co by accident, did some googling and only now finding out he passed. good lord.

Just sent from Secretly Canadian:

We are proud to announce the 15th Anniversary reissue of a Songs: Ohia classic, the Hecla & Griper EP, now appearing for the first time on vinyl with previously unreleased bonus material. The special reissue is one of several projects Secretly Canadian was working with Jason Molina prior to his passing in March.

After spending the summer of 1997 on the road, Jason Molina and Co. headed into Bloomington, Ind. studio The Grotto with producer Dan Burton and layed down these eight songs. Odes to love of loss and reggae friends. If you have ever found the other pillow empty in the morning, this is what you need to dry your tears. It also features a Conway Twitty cover.

This vinyl reissue contains two previously unreleased Songs: Ohia tracks ("Debts" and "Pilot & Friend") and alternative versions of two songs that would later appear on Songs: Ohia's Impala ("Hearts Newly Arrived (Hecla Session)" and "One of Those Uncertain Hands (Hecla Session)".

The vinyl EP will be out tomorrow, April 30, in stores and is available online at SC Distribution.

A memorial concert for Jason Molina is planned for Saturday, May 11th, at The Bluebird Nightclub in Bloomington, IN. Admission is a $5 donation. Bands performing include Songs: Ohia (members from all over the country and all eras performing songs specific to the eras in which they recorded with Jason), Magnolia Electric Co (with special guest singers and musicians), Oneida, and The Coke Dares.

Special Guest Include (in no particular order):
Swearing at Motorists
Jennie Benford
Mike Brenner
Andy Cohen of Bottomless Pit/Silkworm
Tim Midget of Bottomless Pit/Silkworm
David Vandervelde
Members of Golden Boots
Lawrence Peters
Elephant Micah
Chris Kupersmith
Many more!