Jason Molina: Riding with the Ghost by Erin Osmon

Author:Erin Osmon [Osmon, Erin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, pdf
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2017-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

8

Lightning in a Bottle

Back in Chicago, Rob Sullivan from the Chicago-based Oberlin friend crew picked up Songs: Ohia bass duties in fired Dan MacAdam’s stead, and the group headed to South by Southwest on March 16, 2001. Upon their departure, Molina casually hopped in the van with a hand-dubbed cassette, totally nonplussed. “He was like, ‘Check out this record I just made,’” Rob Sullivan remembered, laughing. Given the recent Ghost Tropic bomb, the act wasn’t terribly shocking. But the band’s collective chin hit the floor when they heard the recording. They couldn’t believe that the rust-worn slice of indie roots rock had come from Molina, not because they didn’t believe in his talent, but because the material they’d been rehearsing with him, a series of rock ’n’ roll dirges with sharp guitar texturing and metronomic drumming, was so different from the blues-steeped song cycle that comprised the cassette.

“When he went and recorded Didn’t It Rain, some of us had been playing with him for years,” drummer Jeff Panall said. “And we had been playing a completely different set of material. I think the drummer and the bass player on Didn’t It Rain had never played with him before, and they probably only did one or two takes and probably never played with him again.” Duped again by their mysterious friend-bandleader, they tried not to let their disappointment get the best of them as they headed to Austin for the biggest indie-rock showcase west of the Mississippi, with Molina’s new, and very good, album on repeat.

The Songs: Ohia van also traveled at the speed of Peaches, the Canadian electro-feminist performer whom Molina adored and evangelized to the band. Imagine a van full of skinny, Dungeon and Dragons–playing indie-rock dudes singing and dancing along to “Diddle My Skittle” and arrive at their collective silliness. Now imagine Molina’s rendition, in his high-pitched, Meatwadesque “Mr. Squirty” voice, and arrive at his utterly charming absurdity.

When the group pulled up to Austin’s 6th Street confines to register for the festival and grab their credentials, they were shocked to see Peaches in the van in front of them. Throwing boundaries out the van window, they freaked out, piled out, handed her Songs: Ohia records, and then jetted back to their own vehicle giddy as schoolgirls. Her set with Chicago-based avant-gardist Bobby Conn served as a perfect prefestival performance warm-up for the four friends, who couldn’t have imagined a better preshow lubricant. During their performance, Molina introduced Panall as the “future girlfriend of Peaches,” after proclaiming that “Songs: Oheea is in the house!”

Molina and his two drummers, Jeff Panall and Geof Comings, played student radio station WOBC’s fiftieth-anniversary concert in Oberlin in May, revisiting the site that had started Molina’s recorded career as a solo artist. Panall helmed the kit for newer material, while Comings took over for a few older songs that he and Molina regularly played in their years touring together. Jeff Panall and Molina then returned to Chicago for a show with Glen

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.