Don’t This Look Like the Dark :: On Magnolia Electric Co.’s Sojourner

“I didn’t choose to go down this road, I didn’t choose to be sick”—”North Star,” Jason Molina

A decade ago, alone in his Indianapolis apartment, Jason Molina died, his body no longer able to keep up with what it kept calling for. Seven years prior to his death he was a man on fire. His creative process was fueled by a recognition of darkness, resulting in incredibly confessional and stark albums. His work with Songs: Ohia shifted into Magnolia Electric Co, a fully realized band capable of encapsulating and reimagining the same feelings and sounds records he and his bandmates grew up with: Gram Parsons, Return of the Grievous Angel, Townes Van Zandt’s Flyin’ Shoes, The Band, and of course Neil Young’s Ditch Trilogy. These albums set the groundwork for a generation of musicians to help paste feelings of loneliness, broken bravado, and shaky love into the squalor of jagged feedback, steel guitars, and ramshackle sounds that cut straight through the ears into the consciousness of the listener. 

In 2006, Molina and his band made a series of incredible recordings that followed the release of the first Magnolia Electric Company record, What Comes After The Blues (Secretly Canadian) that would become the Sojourner box set, four LP’s recorded with Steve Albini (Nashville Moon), David Lowery (Black Ram), Sun Session (four songs recorded at the legendary Sun Studios in Memphis) and Shohola, which consists of Jason and his guitar. This set was released in a beautiful wooden box, the original included a DVD and quickly went out of print. On this, the ten-year anniversary of Jason’s death, Secretly Canadian has reissued this amazing collection in a deluxe wooden box on four LP’s. 

Here was a man, just seven years down the road to his eventual death laying bare what was driving him towards explaining what was firing inside of him, while at the same time pushing away those who loved and were committed to him the most. To listen to a Jason Molina song is to dip a toe into a darkness, a pool of existential ache that if you are lucky finds you only as an observer, a listener and if you suffer from of the same issues as Jason then his songs are a mirror for what lurks inside. The band recorded quickly, not just due to the fact that studio time is expensive, but they were pros, already a chugging precise machine. They set to business quickly and with purpose but also with the familiarity and ease of people who knew each other intimately that allowed for creativity in the studio. Steve Albini remarks, “His approach to recording reminds me of stories I’d heard about Dylan, Van Morrison and a few other eccentrics, where he would just get the band going on a basic form and see how it ended up… there are some marvelous unscripted moments on all of his sessions, and you can occasionally hear the surprise in his voice that oh, hey I guess this is the chorus then.” And the songs were coming quickly, Albini shared that Jason came prepared but would introduce songs every day that he had written the night before, it was a very loose process. 

The Albini tracks are the most realized from the set, perhaps from the comfortability of recording in Chicago surrounded not just by his bandmates but also with the various Chicago musicians and other folks that provided an almost second home for Molina. Albini found that not only was recording Magnolia Electric Co easy and fluid but explains that “Chicago was like a second home for him, he was loved here and found a few collaborators here.” Albini’s production style fits the music perfectly, allowing open space for the band to feel and dance with the music making it all sound unforced, unrehearsed but never sloppy. It is one of the most realized recordings the band made, epic in its desolate loneliness and ache. “Black Ram” is a cleaner sounding record, David Lowery guides the band towards a crisper sound, showcasing Molina’s voice as if he were on a stage, the band forming not just music that surrounds him, but also the curtains, the lighting, and the set pieces. It’s a shimmering record, clean and epic in sound, enveloping the listener with the confrontational sadness of his songs. The highlight may be “Blackbird” which soars high above the entirety of the song, lifted in part by the backup singing of Molly Blackbird. Perhaps, out of the context of the box set it could have helped Jason’s music find a larger audience. 

Addiction is subtle at first, substance use is an easy way to glide into adulthood, oiling the complicated newfound social circles of adolescence and early adulthood. The vast majority of people never have an issue with alcohol and if they do, most of them grow out of it. They get jobs that expect them to be on time early in the morning, to be dependable, they get married and have kids, buy houses, join a religious organization and, slowly, the friends they drank with sort of do the same and many of those friendships fall away as time moves by. Most of these folks end up having jobs that supply health insurance, a steady income. Jason didn’t follow this track and many musicians and artists don’t, the ability to make a living off of one’s music is  a rare opportunity, just go to the local nightclub to see the best local musicians and almost all of them have day jobs. Baristas, carpenters, bookstore workers and of course, especially in the ’90s and early aughts, the record store. Jason was working at a Bloomington, Indiana record store when Paul Evans Groth walked in, looking to buy the newest Guided by Voices and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion singles, behind the counter, sat Jason Molina and when Groth put his records on the counter, Molina remarked in only the way an indie record store clerk in the halcyon days of records stores could “Jon Spencer sucks and I booked GBV at Oberlin.” Both an invitation and an insult that would develop into a friendship and musical partnership that would last until Molina’s death in 2013. Groth ended up chatting with his soon-to-be musical leader for over an hour, mostly about guitars, “he then helped me pick up a Thunderbird guitar.” 

The scene in Bloomington was tight, with a lot of house shows, the camaraderie of a college town; Ben Swanson, and his three partners in Secretly Canadian were very much a part of the scene as was National Book Award winning graphic author Nate Powell. Groth shares that “it seemed to be a very magical at the time.” Soon, Magnolia Electric Co formed as Molina changed the name of the band from Songs: Ohia on what seemed a whim. Swanson explains the history of Jason’s seeming to not be nailed down, “when he moved to Oberlin, he was able to re-invent himself—people knew he was in a metal band in high school, but Oberlin gave him the opportunity to find himself…when he got (to) Bloomington, he was writing songs so fast, especially after “Axxess & Ace”. He knew when he hit his stride…he was writing a lot of stuff, record after record so we decided to just do the Sojourner in one fell swoop. He just wanted to start the next chapter he was working.” 

By the time of the recording, hints at Molina’s excessive drinking were starting to appear; in retrospect his songs were already being filled with his struggles with not only alcohol but also depression. He was aloof, and his lyrics were pockmarked with shadows, darkness, and dread. Not unlike Robert Johnson, Phil Ochs and the ever wrought searching of Judee Sill. It was as if he knew the road was going to end where the broken glass of alcohol, the broken spirit that drove him. I remarked to Ben Swanson that when I listen to the “Sojourner,” his existential issues are all over the record, Swanson explains part of the issues with Jason were present but that the label strived to be as respecting his right as an artist which had always been front and center for the label, “our father was a raging alcoholic, we grew up with it—so we knew about it. With Jason it wasn’t until later, three or four records into the Magnolia records that things were noticeable. Something else was happening with him.”  As with many substance users there is a duality of both confidence and a stark fear of stability, and with success comes stability. Jason recoiled at this, not by choice because addiction and depression are not things that people have a choice in, it is a part of their fabric and for the alcoholic it may appear that to unwind it all the way would leave just a ribbon of cloth on the floor. The person may feel there is no more form to them. 

The Lioness, the Songs:Ohia album that was written about falling in love with his future wife is sort of a silver cloud lined by more clouds but much darker, and shows the cracks starting to build in his (at that point) mostly silent steps towards alcohol misuse, I remarked to Ben Swanson that the centerpiece of the album, the song “Lioness” could be just as much as a relationship with alcohol as for a lover, “Want to feel my heart break if it must break in your jaws, want you to lick the blood off your paws, you can’t get here fast enough, I will swim to you.” Alcohol offers both comfort and gruesome destruction. Groth explains some of the give and take of Molina, “we were a close band and good, but we didn’t understand the decisions he made, we had to work on being in a band with him. He didn’t seem to always exude joy when playing or in his songs, but we were able to connect (with people.)”

At the time when more financial success was possible, shortly before Sojourner was released some of the bands that Songs:Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co had started out with were finding success in the same ballpark of music that the band was making. My Morning Jacket was starting to pack large sheds, same with Fleet Foxes and other bands that grew up listening to Neil Young, Dinosaur Jr, the Flying Burrito Brothers as well as the sounds of classic rock that blared out of car stereos in middle America, The Allman Brothers Band, Eagles and Bob Seger all were poured into these sounds. But the main difference with his contemporaries was that those other bands did exude a great deal of joy in some of their songs, whereas Jason’s songs are akin to the darker shades of Townes van Zandt and David Berman. While Jim James of My Morning Jacket was writing “One Big Holiday”, Molina was writing “Don’t This Look Like the Dark;” two very different sides of the same musical coin.

While the band was touring incessantly during the time of “Sojourner” his behavior was getting to be unpredictable on stage, Groth explains what it was like during this period, “we knew the drinking was a problem by 2005, he loved playing music, but he seemed adversarial about it—he was anti-encore.” He started hiding his drinking and making excuses not to play—like many people with drinking problems and depression he would as soon bite you as pull you in for a kiss. Trust is something that is hard for a substance user to have, both in the give and the take. Lies start happening, and they get out of control. Jason always seemed be somewhat of a storyteller, a trait that some found harmless but struck others with a wariness, “I began to notice multiple untruths popping up casually in his conversation and I kept wondering why he felt the need to say such things” Will Oldham explains, even in his sweetness there was something going on with Jason. Albini has a theory about his storytelling, “he spent quite a bit of time telling fabulous lies about himself, partly to create a character he could make responsible for his music and partly to deflect that his music, his ambitions, his life were mundane.” 

Mythmaking is popular, but it also points to the idea of music being transformative, especially for battered and outcast kids from the middle of nowhere, at a time when a teenager could go down to the local mall and buy a piece of vinyl and a poster that provided dreams of being able to escape the farm, the tiny town, the trailer park. They history of storytelling and imagery in blues and folk music goes back to the very first time someone got drunk and strummed a guitar, from Robert Johnson’s crossroads, Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” to the Irish murder ballad, “Rose Connolly” that transformed into “Down in the Willow Garden”—death, darkness and drowning play as much as role as trembling hands, first kisses and aching hearts. One of the stark tragedies of art and the people who make art can be the other type of transformation of when what once helps turns into something that acts as heavy chains pulling a person by the ankles into the great abyss.

There is no doubt that Jason Molina suffered and in his suffering he found a voice that connected with many others; the songs on the Sojourner set is a guided tour and not only pending doom but also of a life of regrets while the author was still creating regrets, he is almost daring the listener, his band and his wife to stick by him, to trust in him because, certainly he was trusting himself as his songs so eloquently tell us. Thomas Merton wrote that “Hell can be described as a perpetual alienation for our true being..” Jason, by degrees sunk into his songs, the shadows and ache that he wrote so well of, “some of us only lose the dark, to get lost in darkness” he sings on “Down the Wrong Road Both Ways.” At one point the only thing that he seemed to trust was the music he and the band was creating, Jason Groth shared that even when things were difficult with the band, Molina said something that startled him,  “there was a time in Oklahoma when he said to me that I always a place in the band and I said to him that I was happier that were friends. He replied that friends leave but bandmates don’t. Which struck me as always weird.” Sometimes the only thing that seems tangible is the music and art we make, as everything else is just a mass of unknown. 

The life of Jason Molina, and the songs he was creating from 2004-2009 should not be forgotten in the context of the way that he died, and the efforts of so many who tried to keep him alive as long as possible. A fractured and stigma-inducing health care system that has bent and broken so many desperate and injured people to the point where hopelessness becomes the standard instead of hope. The stigma of addiction and mental illness lives in the belly and veins of our society, and if you are reading this then you most likely have a personal story of someone who has been shuttled about and forgotten by a health care system that leaves not only the sufferer in confusion but also everyone around them. By the time Jason moved to London, England with his wife shortly after the “Sojourner” box came out, his drinking had become an issue that was not only tearing the band apart, but also his life, his marriage and as we all now know, his health. Ben Swanson and everybody at Secretly Canadian were concerned, he couldn’t stay sober in England, and “Pete Triner flew over to London and brought him back, the Chicago crew…they found a treatment place for him in Chicago and a place to stay. Baby-sitting him, everyone is tired. Even the alcoholic and there is no way to get them help—there is no health care. He went to West Virginia, it sort of worked but it was in the middle of nowhere. He could only be sober.”

Another way to phrase it, was he was still sick but now without the alcohol. There was the scramble to find treatment that would work but this was before the Affordable Health Care Act had made its way to Indiana (a complicated story of red states shunning the policies of the Obama administration), and the treatment that Jason was getting was expensive and was not compressive. The shame and stigma of “failing” substance abuse treatment, that being the expectant standard is total abstinence leaves less than desirable results and doesn’t do an effective job of addressing other mental health issues. “He had incredible mood swings, access to health care that would have dealt with the root cause would have been helpful” Groth explains after detailing the frustration of trying to get Molina treatment and to stay sober. Steve Albini who has worked with so many gifted and fragile musicians shared his view, “anybody who’s been around musicians has seen pain, injury, addiction, and depression untreated. It’s a fundamental part of our health care system that certain things will not be dealt with and that is written in the code. I’ve heard it described as a failure, and on a human level it absolutely is. I hate it. I’m ashamed of it.”

The idea that someone who can write so magically about the tribulations of staying alive died partly from a system that does not value the stark humanness of being alive is not only frustrating, but it is grotesque. Oldham has an eloquent take on this, “Vulnerability is much more than an asset, it’s practically a requirement for some of this work. Openness, fragility, honesty (and Molina was fluent in types of honesty). And westerners do like to see people suffer. It’s an antidote to our own suffering at times, it’s also entertainment.” Yes, we like to not only feel and connect to our artists, but sadly, we are attracted to the wreckage of others, perhaps to avoid the wreckage of ourselves.

At times it appears that he was writing about the future, speaking of his own eventual death, the mourning of what comes after. But he did find a community that also found him, the writer Megan Devin writes about grief, which his family, friends and fans are still dealing with, “some things cannot be fixed they can only be carried” she explains in her book It’s Ok That You’re Not OK.  He carried his grief  in his wake, 10 years after his death many are still in the midst of it. Jason Molina wrote music for the 4 AM in all of us. For me, it would have been nice to see him live long enough to write for the 4 pm in all of us. For the dull and mundane part of the day, before the five o’clock “happy” hour and when the sun is still hanging high, reminding us there are more powerful forces in our lives that we may not touch, we may, just very carefully hear. I wish he could have been able to write, as Will Oldham did in his email to me, “self-destruction isn’t what it once was, and I for one am grateful.” | Bela Koe-Krompecher

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