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On Tuesday, June 5, Seattle musicians volition pay tribute to songwriter Jason Molina. Here are the reasons why.

It was a greyness Sat in April when I pulled The Magnolia Electric Company out of the record cabinet, set the needle to the first song on the offset side and let the loping twang of Jason Molina's electric guitar fill up our home.

Grey Saturdays are what Molina'south songs are best suited for. Whether performing as Songs: Ohia, the Magnolia Electric Co., or but his lonesome self, the Ohio-born songwriter has crafted a desperate kind of verse that needs a workless solar day to absorb and deject cover to fifty-fifty brainstorm to understand. These are not songs for sunny days, but neither are they content with the darkness. Molina's songs are sad, yes, but they are also filled with beautiful poetry, timeless riffs, transcendent melodies, palpable anger and, at times, a rich, pure life-affirming ability. For many people, these songs have served as the soundtrack to life's seismic shifts, a healing balm to inevitable trauma. I'm one of those people.

The first tape of his I ever bought was Axxess & Ace by Songs: Ohia. I don't remember I had fifty-fifty heard it before I bought it. I was heartbroken and the embrace epitome — a pair of cheap heart-shaped earrings on a purple clothe-board — grabbed me. In that location was no style this couldn't be a break-up anthology. I took it abode and immediately fell under its spell. I sat in the middle of my near-empty apartment, drinking whiskey and ashing cigarettes into a pigsty in the floor while Molina belted it out. "Loooooooove… leeaaves… its abuser."

In hindsight, I was pretty pathetic. But in the grips of Molina'southward music I didn't feel pathetic. I felt in good company. His music showed mercy past finishing the job and tearing me completely apart. Then it put me back together, better than earlier. Molina got me through it (and luckily I did non accidentally burn down my flat building downwards). A few months later I met the woman I was meant to be with. She came over to my apartment, pulled out that Songs: Ohia record and put it on. She loved Jason Molina, she said. I thought she was just beingness dainty. Nosotros spent many gray Saturday afternoons listening to Molina'southward croon, learning to be happy. When we moved in together and merged our tape collections there were six Molina records in all: three from her, three from me.

The Magnolia Electric Company is ane of mine. It'due south the final Songs: Ohia album released before Molina, liking the album's title, decided to rename his band the Magnolia Electric Co. It had been a year since either my girlfriend or I had played information technology. When I put information technology on that Saturday in Apr in that location was no trauma that needed mending. At that place was simply a tinge of sadness in the air. While Molina's songs played in the background I decided to see what he has been up to since Magnolia Electric Co. released its terminal album in 2009. I searched his name and establish this on his tape label's web log, under the title "Where Is Jason Molina?":

Many of you have inquired every bit to Jason's whereabouts and well-being since he canceled his tours with Will Johnson in 2009. Over the concluding two years Jason has been in and out of rehab facilities and hospitals in England, Chicago, Indianapolis, and New Orleans. It has been a very trying time for Jason, his friends, and his family unit. Although no one can be sure what the future holds, nosotros feel very encouraged past the contempo steps Jason has taken on the road towards becoming healthy and productive once more. Unfortunately, because he has no medical insurance, he has accrued substantial medical bills. We are asking all friends of Jason's music to come together with a showing of financial support for him.

Molina's shared sadness helped me through my tough times and ultimately helped bring unknown happiness into my life. I figured I owed him. And then, I sent a beacon out to my musician friends, asking if anyone wanted to play a tribute show to raise money for Molina. The response was resounding. Within a week the bill was full. This Tuesday, June 5, Jason Dodson, Pickwick, Lotte Kestner, Cataldo, Joshua Morrison and more will gather at Barboza to perform their favorite Jason Molina songs. (Come across the full neb below.)

Each of these artists were helped by Jason Molina one time or another. I asked a few of them how, and why they chose the songs they will be playing to render the favor. Hither's what they had to say.

Jason Dodson (The Maldives, Sons of Warren Oates)

1. How did you beginning discover the music of Jason Molina?

I used to run effectually with these agitator biker kids about 10 years ago, and they were always talking almost going to come across this Jason Molina guy, and the style they talked about him, I idea it was just some friend of theirs. I didn't formally start listening to his music until the final Songs:Ohia record came out, the transition into Magnolia Electric Co. That album was a game changer for me. And then I went through his back catalog. Correct earlier What Comes Subsequently The Blues came out, I was in Northampton, Massachusetts, and I was able to come across him for the first and only fourth dimension at the Atomic number 26 Equus caballus Music Hall. Afterwards, I was a fly on the wall, while he and his ring talked outside after the prove. We shook hands, and talked briefly about Seattle, and he recalled that those same Agitator biker kids actually gave him places to stay while he was on bout. And that settled information technology. From that point on, there was no persona in music, no bullshit ego, and no separation from artist and audience. Those biker kids didn't act similar they knew Molina, they did know him. He was a friend of theirs. And his music speaks to that familiarity and honesty.

2. How did you chose the songs you volition be playing at the tribute?

I have always been a fan of slow burners, especially at the close of an album, and "Blue Chicago Moon" is among the best of them. The line where Molina repeats "endless" seemingly forever, until it climaxes with the single word "low," kills me. It was the first fourth dimension in his music that I realized that there was something much darker and more personal happening in his songs. When I listen to Molina, I don't see myself in the vocal, I only encounter him. Time and space get irrelevant to the darkness that Molina is channeling and expressing. That is a rare and often harrowing experience in music. When I hear "Blue Chicago Moon," I see the vocal as Molina's endeavor to sing himself out of the darkness. Simply when I play it, the perspective changes. When I sing his lines "You are not helpless/I'll help yous try/Attempt to beat it," I am singing to him, and I am trying to assistance him vanquish it.

Anna Lynne Williams (Lotte Kestner)

i. How did you first discover the music of Jason Molina?

I've been listening to Jason Molina for 13 years. I commencement heard a Songs: Ohia vocal ("Lioness," i recollect) on 1 of the compilation CDs that the CMJ magazine used to put out every month; I discovered so many bands on those discs. I ran out and bought the Lioness album. Actually, Jason was the kickoff "glory" that I e'er contacted when I beginning got an email address and started making my own music. Secretly Canadian helped me to arrive touch with him and I sent him my very first awful album and he sent me some positive comments on the lyrics. It meant a lot to me.

two. How did you chose the songs y'all will be playing at the tribute?

"Beingness in Love" and "Lioness" are my favorite songs on any Songs: Ohia album. I immediately knew I wanted to do "Beingness in Love" because of the lovelorn lyrics and the fact that the whole song is the same chords and I wanted to have a choir singing the chords along with me. Since I accept tendinitis and it'south difficult for me to play the guitar, the thought of having some girls singing the chords instead came to me immediately. Now we have a cellist and keyboardist as well. It'due south sounding pretty peachy.

Alex Jones (Keaton Collective)

1. How did you starting time discover the music of Jason Molina?

I first heard the Songs: Ohia Magnolia Electric Visitor album about 8 years ago. I tin't call back where it came from, merely I call back beingness obsessed with the anthology and, for a while, it was all I would play in my truck. I would drive to work every day listening to "Concur On Magnolia" because I could listen to half on the way at that place and half on the way home. I was going through a tough fourth dimension and unhappy with where I was at and the song was like my friend that told me everything was going to exist ok. The lyrics really drew me in and the quality of Jason'southward vocalism was unlike anything I had heard before.

ii. How did yous chose the songs you will be playing at the tribute?

"Just Be Uncomplicated" was the beginning song I chose considering I loved the lyrics and the flow of the song. The line "Everything yous hated me for, honey there was so much more, I just didn't get busted," in item, always stood out to me. I think everyone tin relate to being on either side of that ane, and I remember I tin can relate to both sides. "No Moon on the Water" was one song that stood out off the Sojourner box gear up. I loved the drum beat from the beginning time I heard information technology. I wanted to put our own take on it with more drums and guitars and the lyrics are as intense equally you can get; they really draw you in. The vocal "Such Pretty Eyes For a Snake" was another song I was obsessed with for a while. I loved the way that it builds and I loved the raw quality of the live recording. The line "in fact I learned how to make a living out of making mistakes" always stood out to me because as songwriters that is basically the thought, more or less.

Hamilton Boyce (Vocal Sparrow Inquiry)

1. How did you first discover the music of Jason Molina?

I first discovered the music of Jason Molina through my good friend Nash. He got What Comes Afterwards the Blues and used to always play it in the car on road trips. We've taken a number of cross country trips together and that'due south 1 of those albums where y'all are on some desert highway driving at sunrise and the music just takes yous over. I remember the beginning time I heard the record just being totally diddled abroad by its raw emotion and honesty.

2. How did you chose the songs you will be playing at the tribute?

When deciding what songs to play for this show, I started noticing that many of Jason Molina's lyrics could be read almost as a suicide annotation. "When it'due south been my ghost on the empty road / I call up the stars are merely the neon lights / shining through the dance floor / of heaven on a Sabbatum night / I saw the light." I really wanted to do "Hammer Down" to celebrate that nosotros are fortune enough to still accept him around equally well as his incredible ability to be expressive and sometimes painfully true through his music.

Alexandra Niedzialkowski (Cumulus)

1. How did y'all kickoff discover the music of Jason Molina?

A note on my dear for Jason Molina has to start with a quote from a 2007 This American Life piece written by Starlee Kine. As she's going through a devastating intermission up, she tries to clear why distressing songs feel so good:

 There is something so satisfying about listening to sad songs. They're, like, how you would actually exist spending your solar day if you were allowed to merely interruption down and sob, and grab ahold of everyone you met. They make you feel less alone with your crazy thoughts. They don't judge y'all.

Whenever Jason Molina comes up in a conversation and I try to describe how much his songs mean to me, the first give-and-take I can come up with is "comfort." His words of sadness, loss, honey, and death have comforted me in my darkest moments. His songs assistance me cry, and they have become so familiar that for a moment I can breathe amid all of the things irresolute around me because I know every discussion he is about to sing and every chord he is about to strum. They stone me to sleep. Even when his guitar is making the nearly angular, crushing feedback, it is still soothing. I'll never forget the offset time I heard Pyramid Electric Company. It was the weekend of my 18th altogether and I was laying on my living room floor next to a boy who would unknowingly shape my music taste for years to come, the tape playing from my dad's record player. He left town with the record, information technology belonged to him after all, merely I knew I would take to ponder those songs to permit them really sink in. I needed more, merely I was living in Oak Harbor and record stores were non exactly easy to come by.

A few weeks subsequently, I got in a teenage fit with my mom who I had to visit every other weekend in Kelso. I "ran abroad" for a few hours, escaped through the bathroom window with no shoes and found myself crying in the rainy dugout of some loftier school baseball field nearby. I called this special boy and told him about all of my parent frustrations and he told me that he had bought something for me that solar day; my very ain re-create of Pyramid Electric Company. In one case in my hands it became my prized possession; my kickoff vinyl record to phone call my own, and my favorite album of all time. I literally experience like you can't fully get to know me unless y'all come over to my firm and mind to that record. It has been the soundtrack to so many crucial moments in my life, information technology has get a part of me. It has always been a dream of mine to cover a song off of that record, so Tuesday night will exist forever engraved on my mental bucket list.

I have to admit it feels a picayune scary to fifty-fifty effort and play these songs in front end of other people and do them justice. I am nervous and excited to hear different voices singing familiar words in interpretations they take made their own. I also know it is going to be a beautiful and vulnerable night if we all really get into it. Non all of Molina's songs are sad, simply y'all have to admit we are in for a night of reflection and swelling hearts. If at that place is any sadness in the room it will be that sadness that moves u.s.a. into beingness thankful for our friends and community, and for the songs we cherish and hold so shut.  For a man that countlessly reminds me that I am not alone, and is e'er in that location to comfort me in times of need, I think I can speak for everyone involved and say information technology is an award to return the favor.

Purchase tickets to the Jason Molina Tribute hither. Or contribute directly to the Jason Molina Medical Fund here. Mark Baumgarten'due south At Large column appears regularly on City Arts Online. If you have something yous think Marking should encounter, in the flesh, email markb@cityartsmagazine.com and tell him about information technology.

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Source: https://www.cityartsmagazine.com/why-jason-molina-matters/

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