Just What Can Last: Geof Comings on the enduring legacy of 'Impala'

To coincide with the first repress of Songs: Ohia's 'Impala' since the original release run in 1998, we asked Geof Comings to share his memories of recording the album.

‘Unlike most other bands, I think that people listen to Jason’s songs to connect with him and his lyrics and to feel what that makes them feel.”

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Hi everyone,

Hope you’re all keeping well.

To coincide with the first repress of Songs: Ohia's 'Impala' since the original release run in 1998, we asked Geof Comings to share his memories of recording the album. As the only other musician that features on the original recording, we’re very grateful to Geof for putting these thoughts together and for giving us all a little glimpse into Jason’s world at the time and painting a clearer picture of the creative process involved in making the record. Thanks again, Geof!

The ‘Impala’ vinyl reissue is out today via Secretly Canadian, and includes the addition of a remastered demo of ‘Tess’ originally captured during the original recording sessions.

You can find links below to order:

https://www.secretlystore.com/songs-ohia-impala-resissue

https://songsohia.bandcamp.com/album/impala-reissue

S&D x

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What do you do when a record label asks you to write some words about something you did almost 30 years ago, and the person that you did it with has been dead for over a decade?

For starters, I put the album on. Music has a way of taking you back to the time that you first heard it. So there are the songs. There is the sound of the room that I can picture when I hear the songs. There is the instrumentation. There is the tone of cheap gear, both band’s and producer’s. There is Louisville, Ky., where Impala was recorded.

‘Impala’ artwork ideas sent by Jason to Secretly Canadian

Most of the songs on Impala were songs that Jason wrote while attending Oberlin College in the early/mid 1990’s. He wrote dozens of songs during that period, and I knew that he was starting to write new songs that would end up on Axxess and Ace. I really wanted to capture the songs that didn’t end up on the Black Album from the Oberlin days before Jason, an impatient man, moved on without ever releasing the tracks on Impala. Jason seemed into the idea.

Eric Stoess recorded the album. I have no idea why. Maybe he recorded something else that Secretly Canadian released? What I do know is that Eric lived in Louisville, and we felt great in that town. In the mid-90’s, Louisville was right up our alley. An old river town, old buildings, slow pace, people that seemed like characters from an old book or independent film. On our first tour, we played at a club called the Sugar Doe Cafe and we all loved that place. Jason even wrote about it in a letter to his future wife, and that letter is included in the reissue of Lioness. I have no doubt that part of Jason’s choice to record in Louisville was hoping to go back the Sugar Doe.

‘Impala’ artwork ideas sent by Jason to Secretly Canadian

As for the studio, it was Eric’s living and dining room. If he owned any furniture, I’m not sure where he hid it that day. The sparse sounds captured on the album are the result of many things. The empty rooms. The drums were recorded using PZM mics, a type of microphone that uses the surface that it is on to capture the sound. So one PZM was mounted to the walls to the left and right of the drums. I think that’s all. For that reason, the drums sound more like what drums sound like to a room than to the ears of a human. As for guitar, Jason used a harmony electric guitar through a very small Ampeg bass amp that had a reverb knob. No effects. The big addition to the set up was the addition of a 5th guitar string- one more than the previous recordings.

Jason in 1998 - Photograph by Thomas Heath

Everything was recorded onto cassette tape on a Tascam 8 Track Recorder. We recorded everything in one or two takes, and I don’t recall doing any final mixing with Eric. I’m pretty sure he mixed it later without much or any input from us. Not that there is much to it. It isn’t Bohemian Rhapsody. But he captured the spirit of the songs and the era Songs:Ohia was in, and if he made more than $5 an hour I’d be surprised. On that note, my payment for playing on the album was two not very rare “rare” coins that Jason had purchased at a shop in Bloomington, In. I suspect that the actual value of those coins was in the neighborhood of $5-$10 dollars, but that’s not how money worked with Jason. Those coins were special to Jason, and much like if a child gives you their favorite toy or stuffed animal, you’d have to multiply the monetary value by at least 1000 to get the true value.

‘Impala’ artwork ideas sent by Jason to Secretly Canadian

Since I’m listening to the album as I type, I hear the pump organ that sat in Eric’s dining room. It was a piece of shit. Or perhaps I should say antique. The sound of the organ is created by pumping a bellows with the players feet. Since those feet were mine on Impala, I can say that the mechanics of the organ were in poor repair, and to get any sound to come out of it I had to run a sprint on the pedals for the entire duration of the songs, and each song was a marathon. Some songs also have a cheap Casio keyboard that Jason brought. This Time Anything Finite At All features the Casio, played by Jason. He also pulled out a wah pedal for that song. Why, I don’t know. But it rules and I know that Jason was living out Sade dreams on that track. Also featured in the chorus of that song is some shaker to add some percussion sounds, and that shaker was a container of poppy seeds from Eric’s kitchen. I had never heard that song before that day, but I also attempted to channel Sade while recording the bass track. However many songs Jason wrote, there is only one song that sounds like that one.

The album ends with Program and Disjunction. I had never heard that song before either. It’s a great song, and he performed the shit out of it. What an album closer.

‘Impala’ artwork ideas sent by Jason to Secretly Canadian

After the album was released, the now defunct music mag Alternative Press called the album Dirge Core. They aren’t wrong. Like so many early Songs:Ohia albums, I don’t know what kind of music it is. Further, I don’t really understand how those albums ever found fans. Who puts on albums like that and why? There was lo-fi, like Sebadoh and Pavement and Guided by Voices. Impala is not like those albums. At all. Jason’s voice was special, and Impala is stripped bare and the vocals and the man come through clearly. And I think that’s it. Unlike most other bands, I think that people listen to Jason’s songs to connect with him and his lyrics and to feel what that makes them feel. The song is important, but more as a way of connecting to the artist. I know that a lot of music is that way, but not in the same way it is with Jason.

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Written by Geof Comings (photographs via the Secretly Canadian archives & Thomas Heath )