Courtesy of Secretly Canadian

Just a few weeks ago, during one of my many idle Internet searches, I was poking around about info on Magnolia Electric Co./Songs: Ohia frontman Jason Molina, who had all but disappeared from music several years ago due to unspecified health problems. I didn’t find anything new on his condition at the time, but today I perhaps discovered why that was: Molina had passed away over the weekend at age 39, of natural causes. Further digging revealed that an addiction to alcohol was apparently why Molina stepped into the shadows. I somehow missed that was the root of his struggles, which made me even sadder.

I was quite a fan of Molina and his many projects; Songs: Ohia’s sparse work was a very formative inspiration in my late college years, and Magnolia Electric Co.’s Fading Trails was a favorite soon after I moved to St. Louis. “Lonesome Valley” in particular hit me in the heart like a brick–so much so that I vividly recall going to see Magnolia Electric Co. open for Son Volt at the Pageant in St. Louis, despite being sick with a fever, because I had a desperate need to hear that song live. (They played it.) As a songwriter, Molina was so adept at capturing loneliness; that, coupled with an acute awareness of mortality and desolation, lent his music such an ache, it was hard to shake. His songs burned, rather than skimmed, the surface.

“Lonesome Valley”

In August 2003, I interviewed Jason for the alt-weekly Cleveland Scene, for a feature loosely tied to the fact that he was a Cleveland native. We talked a lot about his time here as a musician–and about plenty of other things, too. I found my entire transcription of that interview, and will post it when I have some time to clean it up. In the meantime, here’s text of that feature I turned in then (which somehow doesn’t seem to be online).

(Originally appeared in Cleveland Scene, summer 2003)
The mixtape—once a staple of indie kids and poor teenagers everywhere, but rapidly becoming obsolete now that a stack of blank CDs is often cheaper than a McDonald’s cheeseburger—was the original musical catalyst for Songs:Ohia visionary Jason Molina.

“[They] would have Slayer on ‘em, and Black Flag, and then they’d have Jimi Hendrix,” the Oberlin-born, West Virginia- and Lorain-raised songwriter recalls about the influential compilations. “That’s what got me to first hear things like Suicidal Tendencies or Big Black, or especially some Midwestern bands—it’s what got me to hear the Jesus Lizard for the first time. Maybe even knowing a little clue about the geographical location, or their proximity to us making music in Ohio, was important, because you would say, ‘Hey, just over in Chicago are all these really great bands.’ I didn’t really have any vision of having to leave Ohio, or leave any of the places I lived, to go make music.”

Indeed, Molina is currently based in Indianapolis, and he began his musical career in the Cleveland heavy metal band the Spine Riders during the late 1980s. He fondly remembers playing at the Euclid Tavern, and the time his band almost opened for the Butthole Surfers at the Agora Theater.

“The network that sort of goes into producing a show, promoting a show… I think they were afraid to take a chance on us beyond just the band’s word that they thought we were worth having,” he says. “They wanted a presskit, and we were like, ‘What the hell is a presskit?’ And they’re like, ‘You’re 15? I don’t know if this is gonna work out.’”

Molina can certainly laugh about that time now, as Songs:Ohia have gained notoriety and critical success in indie circles for sparse, sprawling tunes inspired by the simplicity of spirituals and the raw emotional bloodletting of the blues. Frequently compared to Neil Young’s country-rock or Will Oldham’s lo-fi intensity, his albums revel in their bare instrumentation—2003′s Magnolia Electric Co., his most accomplished work to date, even sounds stark despite rich layers of haunted Americana riff-bending.

In fact, Molina cites the way he approaches creating Songs:Ohia’s tunes as probably the most direct effect of his heartland upbringing.

“I think just generally the work ethic of the Midwest has probably had more to do with my music overall,” he posits. “Which is just that I really treat it like it’s a serious thing, like it’s a job. I spent a lot of time in a lot of Midwestern cities—Chicago, Cleveland, Omaha. Even living in southern West Virginia, there is a uniting theme somehow, in just the idea that you have to work for something.”

Songs:Ohia’s staggering back catalog, which includes ten albums, a handful of EPs and a smattering of 7″ singles, obviously demonstrates Molina’s workhorse mentality. The symbols and themes running through his lyrics also occasionally echo the demanding labor environment of rust belt industrial sectors—notably “Bring a Coleman lantern and a radio / Cleveland game and two fishing poles and watch with me from the shore / Ghostly steel and iron ore ships coming home,” from a song on 2002′s Didn’t It Rain.

Meanwhile, characters in other songs strive to reconcile past heartache with their present emotional states, indirectly paralleling how Cleveland still struggles to shed its Mistake On The Lake reputation. When Molina sings lines like, “I am standing on a crossroad trying to make up my mind / I’m trying to remember how it got so late / Why every night pain comes from a different place / Now something’s got to change,” from Magnolia’s “I’ve Been Riding With The Ghost,” it’s oddly reminiscent of the city’s battle to overcome and forget its own ghosts—the Fumble, the flaming Cuyahoga River, the loss of the steel industry—and instead focus on its thriving architectural and cultural rejuvenation.

But while these dirges and lyrics often conjure the salt-of-the-earth dreamers peppering small towns all over the Midwest, Molina downplays their content as stemming specifically from his Ohio experiences.

“Any place where you spend time making art or making music, it should have some bearing on what you’re doing,” he says. “Even if you’re just in jail and you’re sitting there drawing or writing or doing something, trying to be creative within whatever environment you have. It’s gonna weigh in—[although] it might not be in an obvious way.”

Just as abstract is the way Molina bridges musical genres within his albums, a further testament to his formative years—a time when he says he “didn’t see much difference between blues music and pretty hard, Chicago-based rock.” Part of the backing band on this current tour is the Coke Dares, an Indiana hardcore trio, while he recorded with bluegrass musicians on Didn’t It Rain.

“More people than you would think can actually do that—you don’t have to be a jazz bass player strictly,” he says about his disparate approach. “You might know a thousand standards and you might be a great improviser, but when you go back and forth between the genres, it’s really exciting.”

In retrospect, it’s quite easy to see that Molina’s inventive mentality actually has quite a bit in common with—and is a direct reaction to—the painstakingly constructed song jumbles he devoured as just another headbanging adolescent.

“When you grow up around all those classic rock radio stations where Michael Stanley is a star of the scene, I think there’s a quickness with which we were able to absorb that hard rock stuff and turn it into something new,” he says. “There are actually a lot of songwriter-oriented people who have lived in the Midwest who came from that AC/DC, denim-and-leather scene, doing what I think is pretty interesting music. I know [Red House Painters'] Mark Kozelek and I were at one of the same Iron Maiden concerts in Cleveland. You see the way that he absorbed years of that kind of stuff and put it into his music; it’s not in an obvious way, but it’s there.”

“It’ll be interesting for kids to hear some of the things that are going to come out of my mouth,” says vocalist/songwriter Cassadee Pope about Hey Monday’s sophomore album, which is due in mid-June on Decaydance/Columbia. “It’s a brutally honest record.” The still-untitled release came together quickly, mainly because Pope was writing songs “nonstop” while on tour last year. She fleshed out her ideas with co-writing help from über-producers Sam & Dave (who produced 2008’s Hold On Tight), Butch Walker and Vertical Horizon singer Matt Scannell. “A lot of people are expecting us to go a little darker, a little more rock,” Pope says. “It’s the complete opposite. It still has that Hey Monday sound to it, pop-rock, but it’s a lot more raw this time, less polished. The songs have more dynamics – it’s not just go-go-go the whole time. It’s sounding like a ‘90s record, which I’m really excited about.” (Not just ‘90s rock, either: Pope says that “a super mid-tempo power-pop ballad” co-written with members of ‘80s band the Hooters “reminds me of the Titanic song, the Celine Dion song, but with a Hey Monday spin on it.”) Hey Monday’s constant touring (including a stint on the most recent AP Tour) has affected Pope’s mostly relationship-driven lyrics – but only to a point. “I’m not a different person by any means, but I do have a different outlook on life, a different outlook on humans in general,” she says. “I’ve definitely had a lot of different experiences with crushes and stuff like that. There’s been some positive outcomes — and some negative ones. Even if I wasn’t on tour, I’d go through stuff like that. It’s multiplied by a thousand because of the [touring] lifestyle.”
(This piece originally appeared in Alternative Press issue #263)

1. Wham!, “Freedom” (1984)
A hotly contested debate: George Michael “Freedom ’90″ or Wham! “Freedom”? I fall into the latter camp–which means this video is a must-watch in my book. See also: Wham! rap from 1983, live on TOTP. CLASSIC.

2. Haysi Fantayzee, “John Wayne Is Big Leggy”
British music of the ’80s bred bands like this. Although best known for the mincing “Shiny Shiny,” this song was a truly peculiar specimen–like a proto-Sugarcubes or something.

3. Sigue Sigue Sputnik, “Love Missle F1-11″ (1986)
While best known here for its appearance in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Love Missle F1-11″ is a synthpunk classic. You can certainly draw a line from them through Chicks On Speed/early Peaches/Ladytron, etc. And, for those of you familiar, the sartorial stylings of Blood On The Dance Floor certainly reference this, IMHO…

4. Howard Jones, “Things Can Only Get Better” (1985)
I’m a huge Howard Jones fan. Huge. (Eclipsed only by my fiance.) This has always been one of my favorite songs, and this version is HoJo at the height of ’80s-dom. That feathery mullet? Check. A satiny suit the color of ketchup and mustard? Yup. A keytar and electric drums? Check and mate! Yet this doesn’t distract from the song–which has aged extremely well.

5. Depeche Mode, “New Life” (1981)
Early Depeche Mode (or “Depachey Mode,” if you’re this announcer) is particularly charming. This clip is no exception. I’m a fan of the computer which spells out the band’s name.

6. Tears For Fears, “Pale Shelter” (1983)
I’m waiting for more bands to start listening to early TFF–specifically, their debut, The Hurting, realize their genius (prog? synthpop? dark disco? pop?) and make killer music. Yeasayer’s last few records had hints of TFF, but beyond that…

7. Duran Duran, “Is There Something I Should Know?” (1983)
I’m a proud Durannie–and this song is one of their most underrated tunes. Kind of a perfect combination of post-disco, quintessential new wave and New Romantic soul. This performance is the band at their most dapper, too.

8. Thompson Twins, “We Are Detectives” (1983)
Yet another new wave group who’s far more interesting than you might think. This song–a slice of Dresden Dolls/Devotchka-ish cabaret-pop weirdness–is totally bizarre when stripped of slick production and keyboards.

9. The Smiths, “William It Was Really Nothing” (1984)
This probably would have blown my mind as a kid.

10. Altered Images, “Don’t Talk To Me About Love” (1983)
While not as abjectly creepy as “Insects,” I find the melancholy of this song far more enduring.

More on that later. In the meantime, the eternally cool Portland quartet delivered a solid set which pleased the salivating crowd, mainly because the band stuck mostly to the hits. 1997’s creative high-water mark  …The Dandy Warhols Come Down was particularly well-represented; in fact, the show began with the desolate-wasteland instrumental “Pete International Airport” and segued into the laissez-faire psych-pop gem “Boys Better.” Disappointingly, the sound was severely muffled and overly thin at first: From the back of the crowded room, Zia McCabe’s burbling keyboards were mostly inaudible, and the propulsive tempo never surged.

It took a few more songs—including an anemic “You Were The Last High” and a shaky “Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth”—for the sound to even out and the show to catch fire. After that, the Dandys settled into a steady groove with moments of transcendence. The droning hum “Good Morning” boasted a cracked-glass guitar solo and sighing harmonies; the first album staple “Ride” was a wicked psychedelic rock clinic ripped with distortion; and the Stones-y shuffle “All The Money Or The Simple Life Honey” had carefree swagger.

The Dandys released an album, This Machine, in April. Only a few of these new songs made the setlist cut; the best was “Sad Vacation,” a tune which sailed along on clipped, almost Krautrock-like rhythms and spooky Courtney Taylor-Taylor vocals. (“Autumn Carnival,” with its kicky pop beats and grungy guitars, ran a close second.) The sleepier “Well They’re Gone,” meanwhile, deflated the energy generated by the one-two tornadic punch of the twang-punk-drunk “Horse Pills” and galloping “Get Off.”

Taylor-Taylor’s voice sounded hoarse and somewhat strained at times, in particular during “The Dandy Warhols’ T.V. Theme Song.” Still, he made his lower-register croon work for even their best-known songs—such as the indelible “Bohemian Like You,” whose protagonist seemed delightfully creepy instead of hapless. In fact, Taylor-Taylor’s vocal performances called to mind none other than his band’s long-ago tourmates Love And Rockets, the kings of cool, detached darkness.

Since flirting with the mainstream a decade or so ago, the Dandy Warhols have slowly moved away from cohesion and brevity, as if their ability to craft pop hooks and zippy electropop was a burden, not a boon. On Saturday, it was gratifying to see them assimilate their pop-lined past with their creatively charged present selves.

The night’s openers, 1776, are actually signed to the Dandys’ label, Beat The World Records. Unsurprisingly, the Portland group’s psychedelic rock flourishes had much in common with the headliner’s tunes. However, a diverse palette distinguished them from the revivalist pack; specifically, the nods to sunny Britpop, British Invasion mod and classic rock steamrolls added pleasant color. A barn-burning cover of the staple “Train Kept A-Rollin’” was simply the exclamation point on an engaging set.

Notes: As for that crowd? Well, besides the fight which nearly broke out in front of us—between a young kid and a professorial-type sitting at the bar—we saw multiple incapacitated people being carried out of the club. Of those partiers who managed to stay upright, many seemed to have no idea what band they were seeing. This added up to a rowdy crowd experience which too often crossed the line from fun/entertaining to obnoxious.

Photo by: Annie Zaleski

When Radiohead performed at Blossom Music Center in 2001, they played the Amnesiac cut “Like Spinning Plates” live for the first time ever. Frontman Thom Yorke played the song sitting down at a piano; the instrument had a fish-eye lens attached at head-level so that his movements—eyes-closed, beatific head sways mostly—were projected onto huge screens. Last night at Blossom Music Center, Radiohead again played “Like Spinning Plates”—notably, for the first time during this tour. Yorke again played the song sitting at the piano, and its watery chords flowed from his hands like rippling water.

The sly, brief nod to their past—as the 2001 version of “Like Spinning Plates” appeared on the I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings release, its appearance was likely deliberate—was a quintessential Radiohead move. Although they plucked choice cuts from OK Computer for the set (“Paranoid Android,” “Exit Music (For A Film)” and “Climbing Up The Walls”), the song selection last night was squarely focused on their latest album, The King Of Limbs, and catalog songs which fit that album’s style.

Yet last night’s cohesive show underscored Radiohead’s quiet brilliance: The band constantly winnow their catalog down to the aesthetic they’re currently inhabiting—in other words, breathing new life into older songs and reinventing studio versions to align with whatever’s caught their fancy. On this tour, it’s twitching electronica informed by gulping dance grooves and frenzied beats, all of which celebrate the fluidity and joy of rhythmic freedom. (The ponytailed Yorke in particular threw his whole self into the latter, in the form of deliriously nerdy high-stepping.)

Extra percussionist Clive Deamer aids and abets this goal; his contributions shored up the already-taut rhythmic backbone of the funk-hardened “I Might Be Wrong,” sinewy slink “There, There” and rain-on-the-roof rhythmic assault “15 Step.” Radiohead’s new songs—tunes not on any album as of yet—exhibited a collision of genres and textures that was invigorating. “Identikit” boasted trip-hop beats with snakecharmer rhythms and oozing keyboards, held together by Yorke’s hip-hop-influenced flow; New Order keyboards and a moody Underworld vibe permeated the mellow hum of “Staircase.”

Still, Radiohead are first and foremost a band with substance, one whose fragmented lyrics and thoughts cut through the dense music. And last night, the highlights were understated. “Separator” turned into an affecting, melancholic slow jam with Yorke repeatedly wailing, “Wake me up.” Also transcendent was “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi,” a duel between Ed O’Brien’s pained harmonies and latticed layers of perforated aching chords. The core members of Radiohead stuck close onstage during the latter song, as if huddling together for comfort.

Only a few moments—particularly “Kid A”—didn’t catch fire, mainly due to low energy. Otherwise, the night was a treat, a show where a veteran band reveled in the power of sonic possibility.

Caribou were the absolutely perfect opener for this iteration of Radiohead. Comprised of vocalist/keyboardist Dan Snaith and a three-piece touring band, the act specialize in swerving synthpop grooves and clockwork drum flurries; think LCD Soundystem on a racing caffeine buzz. Their all-too-short half-hour set highlighted their last album, 2010’s Swim, which contained extended dancefloor jams.

However, Swim’s meandering electronic compositions came alive in concert. Credit for this goes to Caribou’s live configuration; Snaith tours with a live band (including Brainiac/Enon member John Schmersal), which expertly translated the album’s percussive flourishes and keyboard geometry to the stage. Drummer Brad Weber in particular kept the music crisp and propulsive on the shivering surge “Leave House” and on the echoing discofunk screech “Odessa.”

By design, the set’s final song, “Sun,” was its masterpiece. Give or take ten minutes long, the ecstatic tune was an exercise in pacing and sound sculpture. Caribou piled on the intensity, first with a motoring Krautrock groove and sustained keyboard drones, and then eventually with a cascade of blocky synth throbs, Weber’s triumphant drum slams and the simple lyrical utterance, “Sun…sun….sun.”