Thursday, July 27th, 2006

Talk To Me Devil, Again

Keeping up with Jason Molina’s various projects is a full-time job, and thankfully it’s not mine. I’ll leave that to Wikipedia. But while he could very well have a million records complete and ready to release under whatever name he so chooses, what is fact is this – Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go is a vinyl-only release under his own name coming out August 22 and it will be followed very closely on September 12 by Fading Trails, a new proper Magnolia Electric Co album pulled together from a number of different recording sessions in a number of different places. According to this message board thread, it pulls together tracks from some/all of the albums mentioned here. Now what this means for the stated plans to release those albums in their individual entirety, I have no idea.

Where Molina finds the time to record all this material and tour as much as he does is a mystery to me. The Magnolia Electric Co is currently on tour out west (for which MEC guitarist Jason Groth is keeping a tour diary at Marathonpacks) and after taking a breather in August (probably to record), will be back on the road in September through eastern and central North America. The Toronto stop will be at Lee’s Palace on September 12 and feature a very very solid bill including Shearwater and Julie Doiron.

But one of the upsides of his prolificacy is downloads. There’s lots and lots of downloads. Secretly Canadian has select cuts from many of the Molina projects they’ve released available to download, there’s a couple more unreleased bits on their MySpace and the official website has a massive live show archive. And here’s a couple samples of the new forthcoming records.

MP3: Jason Molina – “Get Out Get Out Get Out”
MP3: Magnolia Electric Co – “Lonesome Valley”

And at the polar opposite end of the musical output spectrum is Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. Five years it’s taken him to follow up It’s A Wonderful Life though I suppose I should be thankful that he has at all. Billboard talked to Linkous about Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain, out September 26, and there’s a new song from the album streaming off the official MySpace.

One of the bands Magnolia Electric Co is touring with right now is Vancouver’s Ladyhawk, whom I saw on their own last weekend. They’ve just made another MP3 from Ladyhawk available, and I gotta say this album is really really growing on me.

MP3: Ladyhawk – “War”

Check out the Golden Smog family tree, in ginormous JPG form. Exclaim! also has an chat with Smogger Kraig Johnson.

And completely unknown to me till yesterday, Land Of Talk will be playing the Drake next Thursday night – August 3 for those of you without a calendar handy. Awesomeness. I may or may not be in town but if I am, I will be there fo’ sho’. The Ghost Is Dancing, whom Chart talked to about their new EP, and Foxfire Forest open. Tickets $8 advance, $10 at the door.

And to file under “wha?”, NOW is saying that Gnarls Barkley have been added to the Sonic Youth/Go! Team show at the Kool Haus on August 8 despite having their OWN show there on the 9th and playing the Virgin Festival on September 9. To say nothing of the fact that Sonic Youth tickets are cheaper than the Gnarls Barkley ones… methinks either someone in the listings department has their wires/dates crossed.

Bradley’s Almanac has the whole of Camera Obscura’s show in Boston back in July 6 available to download. Brad rules the school – whoops, wrong Scottish twee-poppers.

Separated at birth – Bob Dylan’s Modern Times and Luna’s Hedgehog/23 Minutes In Brussells 7″. The joys of stock photography brought to you by the Galaxie 500 mailing list.

And in the me me me department – The New Music was at my apartment yesterday shooting an interview with yours truly. It will be a short segment but if/when it airs (perhaps next month) I will get it up on YouTube, providing I don’t come off too dorky. It was an interesting/different experience, that’s for sure. And the new issue of Wonkavision also has an interview with myself and some other music bloggers in a piece about workable solutions for the situation in the Middle East. It’s riveting stuff.

np – Eric Bachmann / To The Races

By : Frank Yang at 8:38 am
Category: Uncategorized
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  1. Gary says:

    Cool about the TV appearance. Did you stand in front of the giant wall of CDs? OR did they make you stand in front of a giant pile of potato chips and beer?

  2. Frank says:

    wall of CDs.

  3. ned says:

    it is indeed crazy keeping up with mr. molina, but some of us are gluttons for punishment it’d seem… btw – the new molina solo lp includes a bonus cd version inside the lp jacket.

  4. ETC says:

    I’m also appearing in Wonkavision, talking about how cool it would be if Jimmy Eat World teamed up with the Offspring and then toured with Good Charlotte.

  5. kevin says:

    What is the name of the article on Wonkavision? can’t seem to find it.

  6. Frank says:

    the article isn’t online – only in the print issue. #33, it’s a piece on blogs.

  7. mike says:

    Who interviewed you for The New Music? Or if you’d rather not say, and keep us(me) in suspense, I won’t mind. (just make sure to give us a heads up when it’s going to be on)

  8. kat says:

    You won’t have to put the episode up on YouTube, cause we’ll put it up ourselves the following week on MuchAXS :)

  9. pinder says:

    That Ladyhawk track isn’t on the self-titled album, it’s from a recent studio session.

  10. The New Sean Connery says:

    What ya all think about the new
    Bond-Theme song You Know My Name
    being done by Chris Cornell?

  11. Frank says:

    Mike – Hannah Sung did the interview
    Kat – cool, but YouTube is COOLER.
    Pinder – thanks for the info. I stuck that link up quickly
    Sean – I don’t care one bit.

  12. quadb says:

    wow. interview on new music. congratulations. the new golden smog cd is pretty good, but i don’t think it’s great.

  13. todd says:

    so, what..a story about "MusicBlogs?"
    scrapin’ the barrell there at New Music.
    and haven’t they already done that story?