Hey everyone,

Hope you’re all well!

We have something exciting to share with you all today, especially for those of you in the UK…

‘Farewell Transmission’, the cinema collage created by Deeper Into Movies will be screened for the third time this August alongside a live tribute to Jason led by the brilliant Brown Horse and some very special guests (TBA)

The event will take place on the 19th August at EartH in Hackney, starting with a screening of ‘Farewell Transmission’ before the live performance. We’re very happy to be able to share this exclusively with S&D subscribers today before the show is announced publicly tomorrow.

From Darcie Molina:

“I can't wait to join all of you in celebrating Jason's life and work on this special evening. Deeper Into Movies has put so much heart into a cinematic tribute that has only been screened twice before now. Between that and the talented guests joining the always excellent Brown Horse, I know we're in for an unforgettable night. Hearing Jason's songs performed live again is such a powerful, cathartic experience, and I look forward to sharing the moment with all of you.”

Tickets available here exclusively to S&D members until the event is announced tomorrow, 18th June 10AM BST.

S&D x

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Hey everyone,

Hope all’s good wherever you are!

Something a little different for you from us today…one of our favorite things here at Static & Distance is discovering new music, and equally putting other people onto new (and old) sounds they might be interesting in hearing.

With than in mind, we recently asked around our S&D community to recommend some music they’ve been listening to lately, and made some new discoveries ourselves in the process!

With thanks for the excellent contributions from Darcie Molina, Mike Brenner, Will Johnson, Ben Swanson, Dan Sullivan, and Dan MacAdam.

S&D x

Darcie Molina

Westside Cowboy

DM: Westside Cowboy are a great young Manchester-based four-piece who are really making waves in the UK at the moment. There’s definitely a folk-rock and alt-country influence and it’s a sound they’ve previously described as “Britainicana”, but musically they never really stay in one lane, in a good way. They won Glastonbury Festival’s Emerging Talent Competition last year and you can see why - they have a really fun live show.

Butch Bastard

DM: My other recommendation is Seattle-raised, LA-based artist Butch Bastard (a moniker of Ian Murray). Beautifully crafted, timeless songwriting, his latest studio album ‘Death Valley’ came out last year and is a great listen. He’s amazing - I saw him open for Father John Misty at Royal Albert Hall and we all fell for him immediately. Those lyrics and melodies!

Mike Brenner (MECo)

MB: These three artists are major Jason Molina fans who know how to write and sing a great melody….

Maxwell Stern

MB: Max Stern (Signals Midwest) is a former Cleveland guy who moved to Philly. I’ve collab’d on his last few recordings. This last record, In The Good Light (2024), is super strong and mixes indie and pop influences really well. Stay Close To Me (2025) is Max’s new stand-alone single which I think kicks ass.

Alex Savoth

MB: Alex Savoth is a Philly singer/songwriter with a soulful voice and some smooth folky grooves on his newest release, Midnight Sun (2026). I played steel and dobro on some cuts. The first cut, Wild Sweet Love, is really great.

Forrester Grey

MB: Forrester Grey is a young singer/songwriter with an excellent voice and some truly lovely songs. Originally from central PA, now in Philly, Forrester is hitting the clubs with a band to support his newest release, Torn and Spiralbound (2026).

Ben Swanson (Secretly Canadian)

The Tubs

BS: The Tubs are are a really great indie-pop band hailing from Cardiff, Wales. Their album ‘Cotton Crown’ from last year is a recommended listen - upbeat songs, jangly guitars, and vocalist Owen has a really unique voice. He’s a big Richard Thompson fan (much like Jason was) and that influence really comes across in his vocal style.

Dutch Interior

BS: My other recommendation is Dutch Interior, an awesome six-piece indie-americana project who released their third studio album (and Fat Possum Records debut) ‘Moneyball’ last year. It’s a lot of fun - if your musical tastes lie somewhere around the intersection of Wilco-esque alt-country and Malkmus/Silver Jews-adjacent 90s indie-rock, I think you’ll probably appreciate this one.

Will Johnson

Ernie Graham

WJ: One record that I've returned to as the days warm up is Ernie Graham's classic 1971 self-titled LP. There's a loose, solitary, yet clear-eyed nature to it that has made it one of my all time go-to's.

Dan MacAdam (Songs: Ohia)

Bleak Squad - Strange Love, 2025

DM: Aussie underground veterans supergroup fronted by Adalita, ex of grunge-era Magic Dirt. I knew the Micks (Harvey & Turner) from Dirty Three and Birthday Party etc, and I can hear all that in this, but I didn’t know Adalita whose evident stardom is mostly confined to Australia. Music to imagine smoking cigarettes to.

Ora Cogan - Hard Hearted Woman (2025)

DM: This record immediately grabbed my attention for how essential the psychedelic elements and sonic details are to the songs impact, beyond just ornament.

Dan Sullivan (Songs: Ohia)

NadNavillus

DS: I suppose I should share my latest release, Here All Along / First Light. These songs were recorded in early 2023 by Brok Mende, part of the "Forgotten Portraits" sessions, but clearly stood apart from that album... a year later I started composing "Upper Constant" and again the timing didn't feel right. So, three years later here we are...

"Here All Long" was born standing up: I think I wrote it one night and we gigged it a week later, sounding very much like this recording...

I had read about Bob Carpenter and "First Light" in an old issue of Mojo, and the song floored me... Hopefully our version does it justice and leads others to his music... Any and all proceeds from this song will be donated to True North Aid.

Erin Osmon - Won’t Back Down

Not music itself as such, but Dan’s other recommendation was this great new book about music from talented friend of S&D and occasional contributor Erin Osmon.

Won’t Back Down tells the story of the origins, chart-topping development, and tangled legacy of heartland rock, the music that ruled the airwaves of the 1980s and remains instantly recognizable to millions.

Find it here

thunder leaps from the sun

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Steam rising from his breath // And his broken falling chest

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Jason and George Jones

Photograph via Darcie Molina

Hey everyone,

Hope everything’s good with you all.

Today, we’re back once again with another Molinaverse update, encompassing some interesting things we’ve picked up along the way across the past few weeks, from tour diaries to old archive footage, posters, memes and everything in between.

As always, we hope you enjoy delving into all of this, and if there is something you’d like to share here you can reply to this email or find us at Molina@secretlycanadian.com.

All the best,

S&D x

Magnolia & Johnson Electric Co. - VHS Tour Diary

First things first, let’s start things off with this excellent VHS tour diary that Magnolia & Johnson Electric Co. shared this week. It’s a collection of footage from early tour rehearsals in April at Mark Rice’s house (featuring ‘Lonesome Valley’ and ‘Talk to Me Devil, Again’), along with a clip from the show at Johnny Brenda’s in Philadelphia.

While we’re on the subject, just in case you missed it we recently shared a tour diary on here that Jason Evans Groth kindly put together for us detailing his experiences of the recent shows, alongside some great photographs from Rob Kaniuk.

You can find that here:

S&D Recommends: Daffodil-11

Next up we’re back with another great recommendation from Ben Swanson which we think you might enjoy. Completely new to us, we’ve recently loved digging into the above from Burlington, Vermont based indie-rock band Daffodil-11.

Their self-titled LP arrived in April and is a real mix of interesting influences, psychedelic indie-pop that seems to hop around in terms of genre, bringing in groove-based, funk-like elements at various points. There’s a really great grasp of melody throughout, and it makes for a really compelling listen.

Molina memes

As we’ve previously mentioned, we’ve been seeing a lot of great Molina-related memes pop up across the internet of late. Here’s another that made the S&D group chat chuckle, shared by singer-songwriter Ovven who coincidentally we have also been enjoying listening to recently:

From the archives - MECo at Busted Lift, Dubuque Iowa, 2006

Here’s some old footage we’ve been rewatching recently, capturing a killer MECo performance of ‘The Dark Don’t Hide It’ back in 2006 at Busted Lift, Dubuque Iowa.

With thanks to Nate Wall for the video.

Signed Canadian show print

We really love stumbling across some of the old posters and screenprints from various MECo and Songs: Ohia tours over the years - many we’ve seen before and are familiar with, and others that are new to us. We really like this one that popped up this week: a signed print from a MECo Canadian tour in 2005.

With thanks to Jesse McCleery for sharing.

Remembering Steve Albini

Around a year ago this week, we lost the great Steve Albini - an incredible creative force who I’m sure needs no introduction here. A long time collaborator with Jason who was involved in the creation of so much incredible music generally, Steve is dearly missed.

As always, to get an idea of how Jason and Steve worked together we’d recommend revisiting Ben Schreiner’s excellent ‘Recording Josephine’ documentary.

The Archive Tapes: ‘Bloody Arrow Chant’

Finally, as many of you already know we’ve been gradually working our way through and sharing some of the many demo tapes and recordings Jason left in the archives.

These recordings are always a super interesting insight into the writing process, and the songs always differ from tape to tape in terms of the recording quality or how close to completion they appear to be. This week’s entry is a real gem; a rather special recording which seems to be a very early version of ‘Pyramid Electric Co’. We hope you enjoy listening too.

See the blood that underlines it // Dark repetition

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All photos by Rob Kaniuk

—

Hey everyone,

Hope you’re all well!

We are very grateful to Jason Evans Groth who has taken the time to write & share a tour diary from the recent M&JECo shows, beautifully accompanied by Rob Kaniuk’s photos.

The guys have also announced a run of new shows today, including a stop in Bloomington for Secretly’s SC30 celebration… more on that below.

Over to Jason….

S&D x

-

Tuesday, April 7th, 2026

“I’m surprised it took me this long to get an E-ZPass,” I thought as I drove through the toll booth leading into the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore, on my way from Charlottesville, VA, to Media, PA, to meet up with my best friends, some of whom I’ve, as of this year, known for 30 years, to get ready for the four Magnolia and Johnson Electric Co shows that I know all of us had been impatiently waiting for. It was Tuesday, April 7th, 2026, around 10pm.

Nineteen years earlier to the day, at the same time, I would have been standing on stage with Magnolia Electric Co, standing to the left of Jason Molina, probably tuning up to open for Son Volt at the Fox Theater in Boulder, CO. It was our last show with them on that run. Twenty-one years earlier to the day, at that time, I was probably last-minute packing before all of Magnolia Electric Co got in my then only two-year-old van to play the first show of what turned out to be the incredibly grueling but rewarding What Comes After the Blues tour, and would have, just a couple days earlier, just finished recording tracks which would come out on the Hard to Love a Man EP at Echo Park Studios in Bloomington, IN. Twenty-three years earlier to the day, at the same time, I was stuck in Newark waiting to get on a plane to meet Songs: Ohia in Rome. A few days later we would play the show that would turn into Trials and Errors.

I was thinking about all of these things, and about how much touring we did with Molina - how much touring Jason did before we joined the band - and how, somehow, none of us ever got an E-ZPass. It really did make it easier on the East coast.

Touring on the East coast seems like it’s going to be easier. The drives seem shorter. The cities seem bigger. Molina would have been the first to tell you that all of that was an illusion. The traffic is thicker. The tolls are higher. The exits often don’t tell you what services they offer. The NJTP Thomas Edison rest area’s left speaker still doesn’t work in the bathroom. I was thinking about these things, too, as I got closer to Media, PA, where our drummer Mark lives with his family now, which is, blissfully, not in the center of Philadelphia.

I’ve been thinking about all of this a lot since we started these short little bursts of shows with Will Johnson back in September 2025. About how young we were, and how we somehow always had change for the tolls, somehow always found a place to park in New York, somehow never had our stuff stolen or even a flat tire (at least none that I remember) on a Magnolia tour in the U.S. Someone *did* try to break into the van in Providence, RI, once, in the weirdest way - one that left an inverted dent in the back loading door - but still, nothing major. The dent is still there. The van still runs.

I was also thinking, and getting emotional about, how much it means to me and all of us that people seem excited to be at these shows, to hear these songs. How welcome they make us feel, how they seem to feel the same way we do - that we’re channeling something that we’ve lived in for so long, the way we used to, and it re-emerges in the world, the way it used to, sometimes weeks at a time, night after night, sometimes twice a night. How Will, who’s on stage with us, used to watch us do it from the crowd, used to listen to our records, and so is the only one of us on the stage that knows what it might be like to be in the audience, and how he so humbly and reverently and with so much talent and passion channels these songs, he in the most difficult position of all of us, standing where Molina used to stand. How much we all smiled at one another on stage during the Texas shows, and then during the Southeast shows. How much I couldn’t wait to do it again. How lucky it makes me feel that we all haven’t given up on one another, and how these songs that we all worked on and that Jason brought to us to make ours, all together, bring us so close so quickly.

I pulled into Mark’s driveway at 11:45pm or so. We hugged, had a couple of beers, caught up way past our bedtime, talked about how excited we were, how many ideas we had for this round of shows, ideas we had for the next round of shows, how grateful we were to be there together, and about how long we’d known one another. Mark had picked Will up from the airport earlier in the evening, and Will was sleeping at a hotel since all of us weren’t going to easily fit in Mark’s house. We had a big day the next day, it was big rehearsal day.

Wednesday, April 8th, 2026

I woke up thinking about how much of my day job I had to get done before rehearsal, which felt almost exactly like every other Magnolia tour I’d ever been on. We sort of towed the line between full time and part time, and while the band was a job, and some years there was a whole lot of shows, music never paid all of the bills. Maybe it could have, but I found some sanity in splitting my time between music and the day job. They seemed to feed off of eachother. Spend enough days at the desk and all you want is the road; spend enough days on the road and all you want is to clock out and go sleep in your own bed. It’s good to have that balance.

I was also thinking about how many months it had been since we booked these shows, and how when we booked them none of us really knew that so many people would want to come and see us play. The Texas shows were very successful, full houses and supportive audiences. The Southeast shows were completely sold out, and had all been booked before we even knew what the Texas shows would be like. I had been thinking about how, twenty years ago, we sometimes wouldn’t have a fully confirmed tour until like three months before we left for it. Now if we weren’t looking for shows eight months in advance, the chances were slim we could play anywhere. But we got these shows booked at the end of September. And somehow that made me even more anxious about them.

Coffee, jokes in the kitchen, fiber supplements, apples, and a couple of hours of work later, Mark picks up Will and a couple of gas station sandwiches, Mike “Slo-Mo” Brenner arrives, and Pete - who had gotten up so early that morning and drove all the way from Asheville, NC, with most of our gear - arrived, too. Mikey wouldn’t be coming in until the day of the first show, so rehearsal was afoot.

We set up in Mark’s windowed living room, and planned to spend the day going through the roughly 32 songs we had prepared for this round of shows. In Texas we had picked 25 - and joked about playing them all. Then, maybe as a surprised to all of us, we played them all, they all felt like going home, and then we brought them all out almost every night, and the full evening of these mostly Molina but also Molina and Johnson songs was born. We went down the list, noting which ones needed a second take. Only one of the ones we had been playing did - “Josephine” - because that’s the hardest one. To the core set we also worked up “Lonesome Valley,” “Talk to me Devil, Again,” “31 Seasons in the Minor Leagues,” “Blue Chicago Moon,” “Nashville Moon,” “Almost Was Good Enough,” “Two Blue Lights,” and “Nightshift Lullaby.” We were all so happy to be there, it felt good, it sounded good. The night ended with old friends from Bloomington, who had flown to town to see the show, bringing over a feast for the grill. Our friend Josh Thorud, who has been filming every one of the shows we’ve played, was there for the rehearsal, with digital cameras, a super 8, and a VHS camcorder. We all ate and laughed, a lot actually, especially when Mark told us the story about videos he found online of a man giving lessons to other men about how to pee in public, which essentially involve a rolled up magazine and very loud screaming into a cell phone so that no one will notice you. I’m laughing now just thinking about it. We told Molina stories, we told tour stories, we got tired, we all went to bed.

Thursday, April 9th, 2026 - Johnny Brenda’s in Philadelphia, PA

Woke up, worked on the day job, and then worked on merchandise. I had been carrying literally dozens if not hundreds of posters from all the years of Songs: Ohia and Magnolia. We were lucky to have some very talented artists make very special posters for a lot of our shows in those days, and after every tour I would take the van home, clean it out, and archive the extra posters that were often given to us. Everyone in the band had claimed the ones they wanted, and I put together an archive to make sure we had at least one of each for the future. The rest were going to the merch table. It’s always emotional looking at all of them, thinking about those shows - all have their own specific memories.

Mark went and picked up Mikey from the airport. His flight was on time. What a relief. Tim Getting, Josh’s partner in capturing the shows, had also arrived the night before. Josh and Tim recorded us practicing the new additions with Mikey who, like the pro he is, and straight off the plane, just said he was ready for all of the ones that we had already played. It was time for the first load, and we wanted to beat traffic going into the city. We’ve been traveling in two vehicles - Pete’s small cargo van, which is just a two-seater and, this time, a mini-van. We got everything packed up and headed into the city. I was with Pete, and both of us - the two who maybe drove the most (or close to it) in the all-the-time-touring days mostly complained about traffic and parking in Philly as we got close to the club. Then, a few blocks before the turn, saw a car accident. No one seemed hurt, but it certainly put a little vibe dent in the experience.

We unloaded in Johnny Brenda’s - two flights of stairs, small stage, but a wonderful venue with great sound. Pete and I drove around looking for parking, eventually finding it blocks and blocks away, and made plans to find a vegan cheesesteak after soundcheck. The sound engineer was excellent, soundcheck was easy, and Will and I figured out how we were going to be able to play so closely together without putting a headstock in anyone’s face - his headstock into mine, my headstock into Mikey’s. We knew the show was sold out, and we were grateful. It was going to be tight in there.

First show jitters - which I’m feeling right now just thinking about them - tend to make me wander. I just walk around, unable to stay in one place, unable to keep a conversation going, often unable to sit, let alone eat. But while Pete moved the van I found a vegan cheesesteak and sat in a quiet food place collecting my thoughts. I was so excited to play. Even more excited that we get to play so many songs, for so long, a stage that’s all ours, a stage that’s all Molina’s, too. The doors to the venue opened and I hung out at the merch table, seeing old friends, seeing people I’d shared messages with on Instagram, thanking everyone, already emotional.

We’ve been starting the shows as close to on time as possible, and this time was no exception - we’re eager to play these things. Once the show starts, if it’s good, it just feels like a ride, and a very emotional one. I cried the first time during “Blue Chicago Moon” that night. There are moments in the show where I close my eyes and forget I’m in front of people, thinking about all the times I’ve played whatever song we’re playing before, feeling out of time, somehow still playing with the band, as if we’re all just mentally connected, being swept by the music. Will’s singing and playing fits in as if it was always meant to, as if Jason - who admired Will a great deal - was thinking about someone like him when he fantasized about being a songwriter’s songwriter, which he always was, which he remains now. The three hours or so of the show passed, as did the tears and the sweat and the smiles and the missed note here and there. It was great. A reverent audience. A reverent band. That night we were told it was like going to church. I think we all feel the same. We packed up, drove back to the places we were staying, and the road was back in our lives, for at least three more days.

Friday, April 10th, 2026 - The Black Cat, Washington, DC

We found out early that we had already sold over 700 tickets to the show in DC for the night. After a little bit of thinking I realized that this was, in all probability, the biggest American headlining show we will have ever played. We’d played for large crowds opening for other bands in America, and at festivals like the first Pitchfork in 2005, but never as a headlining band on our own. That’s a complicated feeling, especially without Molina there. But he’s there, he has to be - we wouldn’t be doing any of this without him.

DC is a pain in the ass to get to unless you’re getting there at like 4 in the morning. We got out of PA, got to DC, waited in traffic, and pulled into what is my favorite club in the Northeast, the Black Cat. I will go on record to say that the Grey Eagle in Asheville is my favorite club in America, but The Black Cat may be a tie - or at least was a tie this night. What an incredible crew of just the loveliest people. A stage that was four times bigger than the night before. And word that we’d sold almost 750 tickets. We had originally booked it as a 550 person show - but they gave us the option to open it up to more. I’m glad we did.

I relearned GBV’s “Game of Pricks” during soundcheck; I saw a dog take a shit in the entryway to Trader Joe’s between soundcheck and doors; and then I saw an incredibly long line of people waiting to get in, and the jitters came back. The merch table line was the biggest I’d ever seen at any of our shows, ever. And the show was magical, the energy in the room so positive and bright. Families were there, at least two families that contained three generations of fans. One person I talked to said she was going to be there the last time we played there in 2009, but couldn’t because she was having a baby. And then she pointed to the young woman next to her and said that she had been the baby. People had traveled from all over, picking this show because it was the biggest room, and an easy city to get to. People from LA, Toronto, Vancouver, Tucson, New York (because Brooklyn was sold out). It was incredible. It’s incredible in general. We played well and we smiled and cried and people sang along.

When the show was over we packed quickly because our drive the next day was a long one, so we were cutting it down by getting back to Philly. We’re old but leaving DC in the middle of the night was a welcome thing. As was having the E-ZPass. We got back to our hotel and Mark’s house. It felt a little like being in college again, going back home after the show. It was nostalgic, peaceful, and very jam econo.

Saturday, April 11th, 2026 - The Drake in Amherst, MA

We had sort of a long trip to Amherst, MA, one of Molina’s favorite places to play, but since we’d already cut the trip down, we didn’t have to get up super early. But we’re all at least middle-aged, so we were up anyway. We gathered everyone and everything up for our only night in a hotel as a band - the only “real” tour day, according to Mark, even though we’d already played two sold out shows and had two to go. We were all in the mode. We settled into our usual seats in our usual vans and headed North.

Driving into a lively college town in a beautiful part of the country is always exciting on tour. There were parking spots; there were dollies supplied by the club, very nice people staffing the club, and an incredibly exciting guest for the night - Jennie Benford, the lilting voice that’s all over Didn’t it Rain, The Magnolia Electric Co., and What Comes After the Blues. Also a permanent member of the band, as she was there on the tour when our name changed from Songs: Ohia to Magnolia Electric Co. She and I had kept in touch and she said she was excited to sing with Will. I couldn’t wait.

Soundcheck was amazing. As Mark said to Jennie, “whenever we play these songs we’re thinking of your voice, so hearing it over them is incredible.” It was. I couldn’t wait to play.

A couple of students from Boston had arranged an interview with me before the show, and we had an incredibly inspiring conversation in the back before the show. Jennie brought her folder of Molina memorabilia, mostly emails and lyrics and setlists from 2002-2005, with some original lyrics to “Whip-Poor-Will” - a verse that never got recorded - included, from Molina’s hotmail address to Jennie. A wild, real-life archival moment.

Jennie sang on almost everything we played that night. We got to do her song, “Nighshift Lullaby,” from What Comes After the Blues; Mikey and Jennie did a beautiful version of “Two Blue Lights.” And her harmonies with Will on “Hold on Magnolia,” which were totally unexpected to me, immediately crushed me. She smiled the whole time, as usual, and made it such an incredibly special show. I kind of felt like I was part of the audience for it, yet I was playing along with it, too. When we got to play with MJ Lenderman in December in Asheville, he told me after “it felt a little like karaoke but I was in the TV,” and I got the feeling with Jennie on stage.

There was a family of six, I think, standing in front of the stage - a boy of probably nine or ten who stood there the whole three hours, plus his three older sisters, mom, and dad, who all came from Portland, ME, to see us. Will Schaff, the artist whose work adorns so many Magnolia records, was there, and it was so moving to see him. Friends from forever ago, new friends - it was another multi-generational celebration and it was magical.

Something must have been going on in town because we had to drive 25 minutes to our hotel, where we had our night of drinking the local lager in the Hampton Inn lobby while eating the burritos we bought before the show but didn’t eat. We talked about how the next round of shows had just come together, and would be announced in a couple of weeks. We talked about good and bad shows with Molina, the time when Will opened for Magnolia in Austin on Halloween, and we all wore masks for the encore. And then Will told me that the way he saw it, so long as we always had a few of these coming up, he wasn’t going to be sad about how much he’d miss us when we weren’t together. We all agreed. It feels good to know that these don’t have to be the end.

Sunday, April 12th, 2026 - Baby’s All Right, Brooklyn, NY

The drive to Brooklyn on a Sunday wasn’t going to be terrible, so we got a little more sleep than we expected, and hit the road for our 2pm load-in. If we never play in Manhattan again, in any project, I’ll be happy. I love Baby’s, and was happy to get a show there, but I think we were all a little surprised when, after the announcement in November, it sold out in like three weeks. It seemed like folks were excited, and so were we.

Most of us would be in the city for ten hours total. Arriving at 2pm and leaving at midnight to go back to Philly. Mikey and Will would be flying out of LaGuardia the next day so they had a hotel lined up. Somehow this made it all a little sadder, knowing that the night before was our goodbye. We set up and soundchecked; Will and I did an interview with a representative from Keeled Scales, the amazing TX label that put out our EP last year. I worried about breaking a string.

When the doors opened we saw so many people who we knew, friends who had flowing in from IN to see us play in NY who we hadn’t seen in years; friends who had moved to NY years ago who we would only ever see in the past when we played there; new friends who flew in from LA or Laramie, WY, in one case without a ticket and with the hope that one might open up (it did); so many friends. The show was extremely emotional, Will and I hugging after what felt like every other song. I tend to tell stories about the band between songs, but what I remember talking about the most that night was the idea that got implanted in my head in Philly - how much like church this whole thing was. In fact, when I said “thanks for coming to see us on a Sunday,” someone shouted “it’s church!” We carried that through, especially encouraging the hymn that is “Whip-Poor-Will,” that we’ve been closing the shows with, to be sung by everyone. I saw people who were likely not born when we were touring before (or close to that) singing along with every word from “31 Seasons,” a b-side, or harmonizing in the front row along with us. I saw tears and excitement, I saw recognition and nostalgia. I’m so glad I got to see all of that, and that I heard that people were glad to see us.

Will said it again as we were packing up - “Yeah, as long as we have a few booked in the future it won’t be so bad to say goodbye.” It’s a very Molina thing to say, really. Molina told me once, when I told him I was happy that we’d struck up a friendship, “friends leave you. But bandmates never do. And we’re bandmates.”

We got the vans packed and said goodbye to Mikey and Will. We got lost on the NJTP at the Trenton exit. We got back to Philly. We got to play another four shows of songs that have meant and been the world to us. Everyone was supportive and seemed to be happy to be there. We cried and we harmonized and we soloed and we made the songs something different every night, thanks to everyone who was there making it whatever it was supposed to be. I can’t wait to do it again.

The next day I woke up and realized I had left my bag of pedals at the club. A day later a friend from New York grabbed it. It’s waiting at his apartment, and it’s now an excuse to go to New York and actually see the people I care about without being on stage. Maybe I’ll stop in Philly on the way up. It’ll be easy, because I have the E-ZPass.

-
The M&JECo guys will be hitting the road in August for shows in Chicago, Louisville and Cleveland as well as a special stop off in Bloomington for the SC30 celebrations where they will play The Bluebird with support from June Panic and Early Day Miners

Tickets can be found here

Compass of precision // Needle through the heart // I am gone enough away to need it

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MECo recording What Comes After The Blues - photo: Jennie Benford

Hey everyone,

Hope you’re all doing well.

We’re back today with a Molinaverse update and some stuff we think you’ll enjoy!

From a beautiful JM cover from Jeff Tweedy to a new SD recommends, an update from YFFIO filmmaker Tommy Nickoloff and a now free-to-read deep dive on What Comes After The Blues, we hope you find a lot to dig into here.

All the best,

S&D x

Jeff Tweedy

We’ll kick today off with this beautiful video of Jeff Tweedy & band covering Molina in Missoula last week.

Jason was very much on the record about his admiration for Tweedy & Wilco, telling the Chicago Reader in 2006 that Jeff was on his list of dream collaborators in Chicago, the admiration clearly runs both ways with Tweedy & band also recently covering MECo in Bloomington as well as this beautiful cover of ‘Doing Something Wrong’ shared on his ‘Starship Casual’ Substack

At the time he said: “Jason is also no longer with us. And whenever one of his beautiful songs comes up, I think about how much I wish I had been able to offer him my full embrace when I had the chance.”

Starship Casual

Every Band Is a Miracle

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2 years ago · 237 likes · 35 comments · Jeff Tweedy | Starship Casual

S&D Recommends: Brown Horse

Last week the fantastic UK band Brown Horse released their new album ‘Total Dive’ - unabashedly influenced by Molina, Brown Horse played a beautiful tribute to Jason at the End Of The Road festival, as well as recently listing ‘Trials and Errors’ as one of their key albums to Brooklyn Vegan.

With their new album out now we reached out to the band for a message to the S&D faithful:

We’ve just put out our third album, ‘Total Dive’. A couple of days before we went into the studio to record it, I was walking to work, listening to ‘Hammer Down’ on my headphones. When it got to the - “I think the stars are just the neon lights / SHINING THROUGH THE DANCE FLOOR” - bit, I kept rewinding it back to listen to that 20 second segment over and over. For whatever reason, on that particular morning, I couldn’t believe how it good that part sounded. We’ve spoken a lot about Molina’s influence on our overall sound, but in a more immediate way, listening to his work just makes me really excited to go and record our own music.

-
Further reading:

Sam Amidon and Brown Horse rehearsing backstage at End of the Road:

Brown Horse x Brooklyn Vegan

Glen Hansard & Dan Sullivan - Hold On Magnolia

Another beautiful moment and cover to share with you now. Recently Glen Hansard was in Chicago, as he does most nights, Hansard paid tribute to Jason and performed a cover of Hold On Magnolia. This night though, Hansard learnt that Songs: Ohia guitarist Dan Sullivan was in the room - Dan promptly joined the band on stage for this beautiful rendition of the MECo classic.

In Dan’s own words:

I recorded “Hold On Magnolia” first with Jason way back when, then again with Glen some years later. Making music with these two have been some of my most memorable and meaningful experiences.

TRES Tapes

Over on the ‘Archive Tapes’ series we are continuing to dig into the mysterious ‘TRES’ tapes, recently sharing two instrumental jams from the Tres E tapes.

We also recently shared the beautiful ‘Hope: Don’t Go By (Lorain County Pride)’ a tribute to Jason’s hometown.

In all honesty these tapes remain something of a mystery with many different theories floating around on what they could have been for, but for now, we can only enjoy them…

YFFIO Update

As the premiere of YFFIO approaches tomorrow, we reached out to filmmaker Tommy Nickoloff for an update on the JM doc:

Thanks for reaching out! YES! I’m in beautiful Athens, Ohio for the World Premiere of You Fuckers Figure It Out: A Jason Molina Story tomorrow, Thursday, April 16th at 7:15 PM at the Athens International Film + Video Festival. Jason’s loyal fanatics are travelling from across Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia to get here for it. Amazing, right!? There is an encore screening Saturday, April 18th at 5:00 PM, so it’s not too late to get here and buy tickets in person.

Mike Brenner has been firing folks up for the East Coast Premiere following that wicked Magnolia show in Philly. Thanks, Mike! Tickets are already selling fast for May 6th at Philadelphia Independent Film Festival. I’m willing to bet on a sold out crowd. Who knows what magic that can lead too?

A banger of a “Spotllight Screening” event for the West Virginia Premiere is set for Huntington Saturday, May 16th with the Appalachian Film Festival. The evening will open with a Jason Molina tribute concert featuring William Matheny, Tucker Riggleman, and members of the Spineriders - including Todd Jacops, J’s right-hand man from the 1988 Chronic Insanity metal days through Songs: Ohia a decade later when Geof Comings took over the mantle. Plus, an after-party at The Loud capped off with a Spineriders show. My old homies are killin’ it!

It’s always great to catch up with Y’all at S&D. Thanks for your continued support. Let’s dive a little deeper the next time we chat, shall we!?

UPDATES at

https://www.yffio.com/

What Comes After The Blues

Finally, we have switched a fantastic piece of writing shared on S&D by Erin Osmon last year on the recording of ‘What Comes After The Blues’, speaking to the members of MECO on last year’s 20th anniversary of the album.

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On one end, dead and wandering towards the other end

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Photo by Steve Gullick

Hey everyone,

Hope you’re all doing well.

We are back with another Molinaverse issue today featuring some great stuff, including a S&D exclusive first look at a charity auction of some Journey On test pressings, a beautiful new cover of Whip-Poor-Will by Errin Rae, some really cool newly unearthed archive pieces and finally, our first rundown of the best Molina related memes that have found their way to us recently…

As ever, we hope you enjoy!

All the best,

S&D x

“Journey On” Test pressing auction

We’re starting today with something we are sharing with S&D first, to make sure you all have a chance to look at this before anybody else.

Secretly Canadian co-founder Ben Swanson has decided to auction his test pressings for Songs: Ohia’s ‘Journey On: Collected Singles’ to raise money for Bloomington charity ‘New Hope For Families’

From Ben:

Part of a series of white sleeve test pressings of varying degrees of condition. All tests are from approved batches tho specific copies may or may not have been played. They may or may not have scribbled notes on the sleeve. They have generally aged as well as any vinyl in your collection, but generally these are limited test copies that we approve prior to pressing a full run of vinyl. Due to the nature of keeping albums in print, we often have test pressings from multiple plants and years. As such the image in this listing is what a typical test pressing looks like and is for reference only.

Consider these ephemera for the intrepid collector and bid accordingly! We’ll be posting a handful of these at a time and hope you check back often. All white-sleeved tests are sold as-is, tho feel free to ask any questions.

All proceeds will be donated to New Hope for Families - a non-profit providing housing first solutions to families experiencing homelessness in our hometown of Bloomington, Indiana.

ARTIST: Songs: Ohia
TITLE: Journey On: Collected Singles - 9x 7”
RELEASE DATE: 04/19/2014
CAT #: SC200
TRACK LIST:

1. Boys

2. Trans Am

3. Freedom Pt. 2

5. Soul

6. Waltham: Simply Unite The Name

7. Napoleon: How We Have Ranged

8. Vanquisher

9. Nay Tis Not Death

11. 7th Street Wonderland

12. Darling You Are...

13. How To Be The Perfect Man

14. Journey On

16. Fade Street

17. Lioness (Didn’t It Rain Translation)

18. The Gray Tower

19. Black Link To Fire Link

21. Keep It Steady

22. United Or Lost Alone

Auction is open now here

Erin Rae - ‘Whip-Poor'-Will’

Last week @erinraemusic unveiled her cover of “Whip-Poor-Will,” recorded to feature on the original motion picture soundtrack for new film ‘Lovers’

Erin Rae, who has emerged as one of Nashville’s foremost singer-songwriters, performed her rendition last month at the film’s Los Angeles premiere. Director Taylor McFadden states that “the common thread throughout the film is the theme of connection through music — how a room full of people with different backgrounds can come together and have a shared experience.”

Erin Rae artwork

As part of the above release, artist Rachel Briggs (@wiresandfires) has shared this lovely step by step process of creating the artwork, including nod to William Schaff’s existing work for Molina records.

MECO Letter

We also came across this incredible letter last week during some digging in the Molina archive at SC, originally delivered to the label with the tapes of MECo.

“Dear Jonathan, Ben, Chris

Here it is at long last. Look at what happens when you work with musicians, engineers, studios and labels that don’t always ask questions. I think this session speaks volumes about everything positive that can come out of making music when you leave out all the bullshit. Having the support to do this and with no contract beyond a mutual trust and respect is probably damn near impossible to find and I don’t take it for granted.

No bullshit music, no bullshit people. It seems like it must not really be time to retire the Songs: Ohia - since at its very core, the lyrics and music contained in this record is something that to me says something somehow that I think I needed to say for a long long time!

Just Be Simple
MUTHAFUKA”

Stranded in Indiana

Also found in the photo archive, this great shot from the tour van in March 1998.

3.9.98
STRANDED IN RURAL INDIANA. -20. SLEEPING IN THE VAN. NICE DECOR THOUGH

Molina memes

Finally, we seem to have entered a golden age of Molina memes, thanks a lot in part to the excellent Slint Memes

Here is a selection that have been bouncing around the S&D group chat… but please, if we’re missing something, pop it below

@grippy_deathsKai knows ball???? #songsohia #jasonmolina #magnoliaelectriccompany #music #goat

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Blue tonight and death in the wind

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Photo from the Secretly Canadian archive

Hey everyone,

Hope you’re all doing alright.

We’re back with a Molinaverse today - a collection of things we think you might get something from as fans of Jason’s music. Today we have the newly released ‘Hard To Love A Man’ 20th edition, one of Mark Rice’s famed tour photos, an anniversary, some cool archive bits and a few new artists who are carrying the torch for Jason, including a trio of fellow Oberlin grads shouting him out, which we thought was really cool.

All the best,

S&D x

Hard To Love A Man

While you was waiting for me not to call, I sent my love... I sent my love

‘Hard To Love A Man’ is available expanded and on vinyl for the first time today. Celebrating 20 years since its release, this anniversary edition of Magnolia Electric Co’s first EP includes three additional tracks: remastered demos of “31 Seasons in the Minor Leagues,” previously titled as “Tonight I’m So Down,” and “Lonesome Valley,” recorded at Echo Park Studios in Indiana during the Hard to Love a Man sessions, as well as “One Thin Dime,” recorded during the Black Ram sessions at Sound of Music Recording Studios in Richmond, Virginia.

More info can be found here

Mark Rice tour photo

One of the new additions to ‘Hard To Love A Man” is this newly seen tour photo, kindly provided by MECo’s Mark Rice which features across the inner sleeve and back cover, we thought you’d enjoy a look at the full thing!

WCATB - Lyric sheet

We were digging around in our image archive this week and found some really cool things, including these lyrics and notes from the recording 'What Comes After The Blues' at Electrical Audio 🖤

No Limit On The Words - Jason Evans Groth interview

No Limit on the Words

046: INTERVIEW - Jason Evans Groth

“We feel it’s special to play live, and if those songs are the vessel for us to play that music together/we’re the vessel for those songs to come out of, it definitely means something to us…

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4 months ago · 1 like · Colin Roberts

We’d like to put you in the direction of another Substack here, this from music writer Colin Roberts titled ‘No Limit On The Words’ (Funnily enough, the working title for S&D for a long time before a late change)

This is a lovely, long read between the two as Jason discusses working with Molina, the recent Magnolia & Johnson Electric Co. project and lots more.

The Ghost

a resolute moment returns
and that’s how close I got to you
it’s as red as the target heart
even the sky’s been influenced by you

-
Early March see’s three anniversary of Molina records in quick succession, including two of Jason’s most acclaimed records, The Magnolia Electric Co. and Didn’t It Rain.

This Sunday though sees the 27th anniversary of ‘‘The Ghost’ in all of its slow burning low-fi brilliance…

Here is SC’s write-up from it’s first release in 1999:

“THE GHOST is a dark affair. As a matter of content, its themes are bleak, on the verge of total blackness. Loneliness, alienation, desperation, and dark, anxious nights. As a matter of atmosphere, the album is even darker. Surface noise has never been so important to a record’s mood and tone. Yes, it sounds like it was recorded on a highway, but this is a dark fucking highway at a lonely, desperate hour and the only set of keys you have are those to the car that won’t take you any closer to home. It’s dead and you’re scared and totally alone. It’s just such an occasion that Jason Molina sings and plays of in a roundabout way on THE GHOST.

Recorded in one day direct to Jason’s boom box with the tiny little microphone, this brand new batch of songs was written in a very short period in the early months of 1999. For Jason fidelity was never an issue, in fact it was a tool. The boom box’s inefficient battery-powered motor is just as integral to the recording as the vocal and guitar performance that occurred that February afternoon in Jason’s room on his day off of work. This recording may be noisy but it is not a demo. It was made available in limited quantities — ONLY 500 PRESSED!!! — to be sold on the Songs: Ohia tour of the East Coast with Drunk in the Spring of 1999 and the European tour in the early Summer 1999.”

Recommends: My Wonderful Boyfriend

We’re going to close out today’s edition with two younger artists who have been shouting out Molina in recent interviews. Starting with ‘My Wonderful Boyfriend’ who popped up in our Google alerts yesterday thanks to this interview with Paste.

During the interview the band, formed a few years ago at Oberlin College, pay tribute to their “greatest hero” and fellow Oberlin alum, Jason Molina.

You can read the interview and listen to the band here

Recommends: Cardinals

Finally, much hyped new band Cardinals, from Cork on the South West coast of Ireland have featured ‘Just Be Simple’ in a playlist of inspiration for their acclaimed debut album.

“Another artists I’d listened to before realising his full story, completely altering my relationship with the music.”

You can check out the full playlist here

Damp nights and dire visions

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Songs: Ohia at Melbourne's Corner Hotel during a February 2002 Australian tour.

Photograph by Andrew J Cosgriff

Hey everyone,

Hope you’re all doing well out there.

We’re back with a Molinaverse edition today with a round-up of some archive bits, some interviews, an update on a Molina doc and the return of S&D Recommends.

Hope you find some stuff here you enjoy digging into.

Until next time,

S&D x

Jason & Damien Jurado

We recently came across this photo of Jason with Damien Jurado in Brooklyn, taken in 2002. Here is a great Jason story courtesy of Damien from an interview he had done with SPIN in 2016.

“We’re in his car, it’s the second day of tour, and Jason was playing Kraftwerk’s album Radio-Activity. He said, “Do you know this album?” and I said, “No, I’m not familiar with this band.” He immediately pulled over the car on the side of the highway. There’s semis going full-speed, right by our car, and every time they pass our car is moving to the left and to the right.

He had a duffle bag with CDs in the back seat. He reaches out and he hands me this Kraftwerk CD and he says, “You have to own this.” But he said it almost like [the way] someone would say, “Take this pill, it will save your life.” Jason was a very passionate, and sometimes could be a very forceful guy. I said okay. And we listened to it, from front to back. We listened to it maybe twice. And I still have that CD to this day. It became one of my favorite albums of all time”

This is taken from a great piece about his favourite albums, you can read the rest here

Jason Groth & Will Johnson on the Time To Connect Podcast

As the beautiful Magnolia and Johnson Electric Co tribute shows roll on, Jason Evans Groth and Will Johnson recently sat down to do the ‘Time To Connect’ podcast with singer-songwriter John Krajicek.

From the shows description:

In this conversation, we talk about the Magnolia & Johnson collaboration, musical influences, when each of them met Molina, Erin Osmon’s book, Molina’s obsession with ghosts, his myth-making nature, his pranks, his tragic troubles with alcohol, books we are reading, Indiana University football, favorite Molina songs, Will and Jason’s 2026 plans, and much more.

YFFIO - Documentary Update

‘You Fuckers Figure It Out’, an independent documentary from Tommy Nickoloff on Jason’s early years is continuing to progress with a trailer now released and the film being submitted to festivals.

You can see the trailer and follow along with the progress of the doc here

Hard To Love A Man reissue

Celebrating twenty years since its release, Magnolia Electric Co.’s Hard to Love a Man will be expanded and available for the first time on vinyl next week. This anniversary release MECo’s first EP includes three additional tracks: remastered demos of “31 Seasons in the Minor Leagues,” previously titled as “Tonight I’m So Down,” and “Lonesome Valley,” recorded at Echo Park Studios in Indiana during the Hard to Love a Man sessions, as well as “One Thin Dime,” recorded during the Black Ram sessions at Sound of Music Recording Studios in Richmond, Virginia.

You can order the ‘Hard To Love A Man’ vinyl reissue here

TRES tapes

On ‘The Archive Tapes’ we have started a deep dive into the ‘TRES’ tapes. This is something we’ve been playing with for a while as, unlike most of the recording we have, these are quite a mystery.

In total there are 22 tapes in the SC archive titled Tres A - V with a few variations on the naming conventions throughout.

There are some really interesting conversations already happening and what we know so far is that these were recorded in Chicago during the Songs: Ohia era.

Some early theories range from these recordings being around the time S:O was still a trio, to this being a reference to Jason’s concurrent work on three projects that would end up being Didn’t It Rain, MECO and the Mi Sei Apparso come un Fantasma / Live: Vanquishers songs or even a tribute to the ZZ Top record Tres Hombres - a favourite at the time.

Magnolia & Johnson Electric Co. April dates

We have been sharing some amazing snippets of the Molina tribute shows from Magnolia and Johnson Electric Co. on Molina socials.

The guys will hit the road again for four shows in April, three of which are sold out but you can get one of the last handful for Washington DC on April 10th here

S&D Recommends

We’re keen to start up on these S&D recommends and sharing artists with you that we think, as Molina fans, you’d be into it.

This one comes from Ben from Secretly, something he stumbled across on Bandcamp and thought you might all be into.

So, one last thing to dig into today, here is Detroit songwriter ‘Ethan Daniel Davidson’

Songs: Ohia in Toronto, Canada - El Mocambo, NXNE Festival. Photo by Zac (Infinitecow)

Birches burn with a ruby flare / The moons cold ashes sleep on sand

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