{Molina’s Label, Secretly Canadian, has chosen to honor his memory by streaming all of his recorded works, take the time to dig in and get lost…}

Word came out and hit like a punch in the gut for a lot of people who care about good music, Jason Molina passed away this past Saturday at the far too young age of 39. For just about the past 20 years Molina has produced some of the most fascinating, frustrating, inscrutable, passionate and soulful music in virtual obscurity. I first came to hear of Molina in 1996 or 1997 when his debut release as Songs: Ohia was released. I wasn’t able to get the record added to our playlist at Album 88, but I sure played the hell out of it when I could and kept on playing Molina’s music wherever else I could on the radio. Songs from that first record were required listening on many a road trip over the years. More than anyone other recent singer/songwriter, besides perhaps Elliot Smith, the music of Jason Molina has a haunting quality that sticks with you. It’s not a sound for everyone, but if it is for you, well I’m sure you’re like me and deeply mourning the loss of a talented though troubled man. I’ll be playing an hour of Molina’s music this Sunday on Melting Pot, here are 5 songs that will definitely be in the playlist.

 

Songs: Ohia – Our Republic

More than any other song “Our Republic” is the one that keeps finding it’s way into my mind. Part of it is in the lyrics, which for the most part are as inscrutable as much of the other songs on the debut, but in what passes for a chorus there is this lovely line that’s always stuck with me, “you should know, trouble comes from a passionate word, you should know passion comes from a troublesome word.” Musically the song is marvel for a particular reason. After all these years of listening to it I still can’t tell if the instrument at the end is a saxophone or violin/viola. Charles Mingus talked about how if he had a group of bass players as talented as him they could mimic a horn section. To my ears it sounds like this might be one of those rare instances. I never heard anything quite like it, so it makes sense that it would pop up here in one of the first songs I’d hear from such a distinctive musician.

Songs: Ohia – How To Be The Perfect Man

Whereas the debut record seemed to be built out of esoteric lyrics put together in ways that didn’t even seem like they were from the 20th century, many later albums mined much more clearly personal territory while retaining Molina’s distinctive sense of phrasing. “Perfect Man” is less a tutorial than a plea from Molina. He knows he’s not the perfect man, he knows he’s never going to be a perfect man, but he’s still hopeful that the woman he loves will “Be mine, til you’re reminded of something better, be mine, til it comes along.”

Songs: Ohia – Baby Take A Look

It wasn’t until Molina’s death that I reaquainted myself with this stunner from the Lionness. In contrast to the pain of love lost that was often in a number of songs from this period of Molina’s writing, “Baby Take A Look” is awfully tender. It strikes me as the kind of thing that might have been written in reply to an argument and as a reminder of the love he had to share.

Songs: Ohia – Goodnight Lover

In a career of fine and distinctive songwriting, in my opinion, this is the best song Molina ever wrote. Such a personal appeal to a former lover that I always felt the performance was almost too intimate for anyone else’s ears than the person it was written for. A true heartbreaker for sure.

Songs: Ohia – Blue Factory Flame

It’s truly astounding looking at the full career output of Jason Molina. Prolific doesn’t even seem like it fits the body of work. I was amazed at how many recordings I’d never even heard and while I can’t say every single song speaks to me in the way his earliest recordings did, “Blue Factory Flame” was one of the tracks that stopped me in my tracks. It’s hard to listen to these lyrics, so focused on his own end of days, a little over a week after his death. While I feel “Goodnight Lover” is the best thing Molina ever wrote, I’m not sure there’s any thing he ever more deeply sung than this track.

Amatorski – Never Told

In a show full of fantastic brand new music last week, I think the biggest revelation was this track from the Belgian group Amatorski. I hadn’t heard anything from the group before, and the first couple of tracks that I heard from this were filled with promise, but didn’t fully grab me. All that changed with “Never Told,” which begins soulful and sparse with piano, drums and bass and continues a nice slow burn when the two vocalists are added. Things open up unexpectedly towards the end as a variety of more post-rock elements enter in giving the whole song a decidely cinematic feel and scope. TBC’s other tracks may be a bit too experimental for this group to find a large audience here in the states, but “Never Told” is easily one of the most marvelous things I’ve heard in 2013, already something I can guarantee will be there at the end of the year when we run down the best music of the year.

Adrian Younge & William Hart – Stand Up

Been sitting on this one for months and months, but finally it has been released! Adrian Younge has been exceptionally busy over the last year, working on three separate records in addition to scoring Cartoon Network’s Black Dynamite. This record is sandwitched in between his own album with his group Venice Dawn and the upcoming collab with Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang. AY and the Delfonics makes a ton of sense stylistically. The Delfonics’ sound, especially in the early period, had a lush, deep and dark quality to it. As such, the distinctive falsetto of William Hart fits perfectly with Adrian’s music. it’s rare that a dream match-up actually sounds exactly how you’d picture it, but here it is…enjoy it to the fullest.

Added bonus, the retro 1990s styled video for the lead single “Stop & Look”:

Heard the news that Shadow Morton passed away on Valentine’s Day, as I was driving home from my show on KPFK this past week.  Shadow Morton is perhaps best known as the driving force behind one of the greatest girl groups ever, The Shangri-Las.  As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, the Shangri-Las are one of my all-time favorite bands and “Remember” is one of the most amazing songs I’ve ever heard.  When I set up a “Pound For Pound” between the Shangri-Las and Ronettes, I acknowledged that the Shangri-Las had a more lasting influence and strangely enough it seems Shadow Morton himself took notice.

I don’t know if that was really Shadow Morton or not, but I’d like to hold on to the idea that it was. Morton wrote songs, produced and recorded a number of bands in the 1960s and 1970s.  According to his NY Times obituary, Morton wrote over 300 songs, most of which were never recorded.  I sincerely hope his family finds a way to get those songs into the hands of gifted musicians so that we will be able to get an even fuller appreciation of Morton’s considerable talent.  With the fundraiser ongoing at KPFK (including an Oscar special this week, we’ll be back on the air next week), I won’t be able to pay proper tribute to Morton, but I wanted to definitely take a bit of time to mention a few of my favorite Shadow Morton songs/productions.

 

The Shangri-Las – “Remember (Walking In The Sand)”

While “Be My Baby” is still my favorite girl group song of all-time, “Remember” as a song is so much more stunning. Nothing else really sounds like this song. Yes, it has elements of the style of the time, but the way everything comes together is so distinctive and fascinating sonically that again there’s really no comparison to this song and any other from this period of time. The fact that Morton essentially put this together in a matter of hours, all of it, writing the song, finding the band and a space to record the demo, is absolutely astounding.

The Shangri-Las – “Give Him A Great Big Kiss”

I know “Leader Of The Pack” is the big song from the Shangri-Las, another track that Shadow Morton wrote for the group. But to me, there’s nothing better than Mary Weiss’ introduction to this song, “When I say I’m in love, you best believe I’m in Love…L.U.V.”! and later on when the girls ask Mary about her new man and she says “He’s a Good Bad, but he’s not Evil”…pure bad girl perfection.

Vanilla Fudge – “You Keep Me Hanging On”

For some time I was a really big fan of the Box Tops version of this track, until I realized that Vanilla Fudge were the first group to employ this over-the-top rocked out treatment of the Supreme’s hit. As much as I love Alex Chilton, there’s really no comparison, particularly in those drums from Carmine Appice, who later on would feature in one my favorite 1970s LPs, from Cactus. The fact that this was “directed” by Shadow Morton (as described on the 45), just makes it even more special.

Iron Butterfly – “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”

This one might be more legend than reality. But even though he is uncredited, it appears that Shadow Morton played a major part in this classic bit of psychedelic music. Apparently the band had a hard time recording this song, so Morton convinced them that there was some kind of malfunction but that they should keep playing to work out the kinks, while secretly recording the unsuspecting band. Morton himself at times confirmed the story and at other times mentioned how he was so drunk that he didn’t really remember too much, so it might have all been because of engineer Don Casale. No matter what, it’s such a great story and it is clear that Morton was in the studio, even if he never receivetd a formal credit.

New York Dolls – “Human Being”

It was pretty clear that the New York Dolls were fans of the Shangri-Las, after appropriating the opening lines of “Great Big Kiss” for their song “Looking For A Kiss” on their debut. It must have been a dream come true for the band to work with Morton on their second album Too Much Too Soon, one of the best examples of Rock’n’Roll America has ever produced. “Human Being” might just be my favorite song from the Dolls, and it’s something that wouldn’t sound quite the same without production from Shadow Morton.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Higgs Boson Blues

{Just heard that there is a live webcast of the album release show here in Los Angeles, Thursday, Feb. 21st at the Fonda.  You can watch Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds in all their sartorial and sonic splendor through RFB’s Youtube Channel at 8:45 West Coast Time}

Any new music from Nick Cave is a thing to be celebrated. The fact that along with his band, the Bad Seeds, the man has arguably never released a bad record is quite an achievement. Perhaps I’m biased. I’ve been a fan since around 1994, when I first truly heard the band’s music on Album 88 and a performance at Lollapalooza that year sealed the deal. Unlike the last album, Dig Lazarus Dig, which clearly was influenced by the Grinderman project and had a bit more of an edge and groove to the music, Push The Sky Away, tones things down considerably, with much darker tones to the music and much more epic sweeps the music. This is not a record to listen to while the sun is still up, it’s an album built for cruising dark city streets well after midnight, where menace or salvation lurks around every corner.

All of that is on display in the longest track on the album the track that feels like the centerpiece of the album, even though it’s the next to last track, “the Higgs Boson Blues.” The track I think also showcases Cave’s singing more than any other track on the album, (I still dream about Cave releasing an album in a stricter jazz or blues style, but I recognize that’s just his style). Just yesterday I was reading about some of the Higgs Boson discoveries, filled with more than a bit of dread, much of which is hinted at throughout the song. I don’t know what possessed Cave to fit Miley Cyrus into this tale, but he’s probably the only songwriter around that could pull off a Hannah Montana reference + hint at the future suicide of Cyrus, while also musing about Higgs Boson, Robert Johnson & the Devil and the assassination of MLK,  and still have it all strangely make sense. Push The Sky Away is a worthy addition to the long catalog of Nick Cave, sure to be one of my favorites of the year.

Another example of the style and sound of this new record is “Jubilee Street” which has a suitably seedy video, made all the cooler by that classic Nick Cave strut as we walks down the titled street:

Marcos Valle – O Cafona

Garra, the second full-length record from Marcos Valle is a VERY tough record to come by. Thanks to the good folks at Light In The Attic, we all can revel in this bit of post-bossa/post-tropicalia/pre-black rio slice of Brazilian goodness as well as 3 other 1970s records from Valle. Some might be surprised that “O Cafona” is essentially a novela theme song, but if you paid attention when I raved about the soundtrack that features a different version, you know that novelas in Brazil had some seriously good and often exclusive music. Valle’s version here slows things down just a tad, makes the drums a bit punchier and adds some almost proto-rap vocals to make it extra-nice.