Transmissions From The Molinaverse - August 23rd
A regular update on all things JM
Jason with MECo at Bottom Of The Hill, San Francisco CA, August 2006.
Photograph via Ryan Kenedy.
Hey everyone,
Hope all’s well with you all.
Here’s another little roundup of some things we’ve been discovering and thinking about of late. Some photographs and memories from the archives, release anniversaries, some recommended reading and more.
As always we hope you enjoy reading, and if there is something you want to share here you can reply to this email or get us at Molina@secretlycanadian.com.
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Also, a little heads up we have a couple of exciting things on the way next week. If you’ve been considering for a little while joining our paid subscriber tier for a month and checking out the kind of things we’ve been sharing over there, now might be a good time to do that.
Until next time,
S&D x
The Magnolia Electric Co - a tribute
A heads up to any folks who happen to be in Maine or are close enough to travel…
For one night only, Tiger Saw will be joined Dan Sullivan to perform ‘The Magnolia Electric Co’ in its entirety this October. Many of you will already know that Dan was a member of Songs: Ohia and played guitar on the album back in the 2002 sessions at Electrical Audio. He’ll also be opening the show with a set of his own songs as part of his musical project Nad Navillus.
You can find tickets to the show here: https://portsmouthnhtickets.com/events/tiger-saw-wdan-sullivan-song-ohias-magnolia-electric-co-10-11-2024
From the memory vaults…
Here’s a neat little story about one of Jason’s guitars shared a few years back by his MECo bandmate and fellow guitarist Jason Evans Groth. Worth a re-share…
“Jason Molina’s Fender Jaguar Baritone. Purchased without a case on a Magnolia Electric Co tour in summer of 2006 with Ladyhawk. The tour for Magnolia ended in LA, at which point Jason M took a train back to Chicago, Mike Kapinus caught a flight to Indiana, and Pete Schreiner, Mark Rice and I continued on tour back east as The Coke Dares opening for Ladyhawk. On August 6, 2006, we played with Dimitriam and Golden Boots in Tucson, and the next morning, after telling the Golden Boots dudes that we were worried about the caseless guitar, they dug up a beaten up but totally usable chipboard case that fit the guitar perfectly. Inside was a setlist from a No Bunny show that I still have. The case and guitar made it back to Bloomington and, more than a year later, I found a perfect hard case at Roadworthy Guitar and Amp, held my breath, and shipped the thing to London where Jason had just moved. He then brought it back overseas for the recording of Josephine, and I used it to play the riff on “Rider. Shadow. Wolf.” I think Pete played it on at least one more song on that session, too.”
August release Anniversaries
A few notable release anniversaries this past month…
Yesterday marked 18 since the release of Jason’s ‘Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go’ album, released in 2006. A move away from the sound he’d most recently been making with Magnolia Electric Co. on ‘What Comes After The Blues’, the album is beautifully sparse and one of our favourites in his whole catalog.
Here’s ‘Get Out Get Out Get Out’, a real highlight from the record:
Earlier this month, August 7th marked the anniversaries of both Magnolia Electric Co's 'Sojourner' box set, first released seventeen years ago in 2007, and Jason's 'Eight Gates', released four years ago in 2020.
Here’s ‘In The Human World’, from ‘Sojourner’:
And ‘Thistle Blue’, from ‘Eight Gates’:
The Saddest Albums Of All Time?
Finally, we enjoyed reading this piece via Discogs; a thoughtfully-compiled staff pick list of what they’ve named ‘The 40 Saddest Albums of All Time’, in which they’ve included Songs: Ohia’s ‘Ghost Tropic’.
The whole thing is worth exploring - moreover than simply being “sad”, the list is just full of really great records, some pretty obvious but others less so.
Read the whole thing here: https://www.discogs.com/digs/music/sad-music-saddest-albums-of-all-time/
August 18th, 2005 - Magnolia Electric Co. at Southpaw, Brooklyn NY
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Photograph by The Other Chris