completion

The madness that was the Jason Molina Orgy on WHRB radio is now complete. You can download crystal clear mp3s of Molina's exclusive "via speakerphone" set (and the excellent interview) at The Record Hospital. 'Twas a great performance, featuring several new songs and a few previously-released tracks:

01. Texas 71
02. Lonesome Valley
03. Hammer Down
04. Trouble in Mind
05. Down the Wrong Road Both Ways
06. Don't Fade on Me
07. Leave the City
08. Nashville Moon
09. What Comes After the Blues
10. Down on the Bowery
11. Whipporwill

Go get 'em while they last.

Also, you may have noticed the addition of "My Links of the Moment" in the right-hand column of this page. This is a place for me to post links of interest (and other crap) that you may choose to peruse. Gotta thank Del.icio.us and especially the good folks over at RSS Digest for getting it all set up and squared away.

minutes before taking the GRE

Crazy Moose Casino. Spotted at Terrace Village Plaza, Mountlake Terrace, WA. Friday, January 28, 2005. 8:59am.

pryor, but no parking

Spotted on Boren Ave near Harrison St, Seattle, WA. Saturday, January 22, 2005. 9:36pm.

the orgy rolls on

Day two of the Molina Orgy is rollin' on over at WHRB Harvard Radio. I had it on well into the night while I was working on various projects. It's a real treat for the die-hard Molina fan and probably baffling to anyone who only simply "enjoys" his music. You really have to be infatuated with Molina / S:O / MECo. to be tuned into this for any more than an hour!

Last night featured an interview with Jason done before the October 5th, 2004 show in Alston, MA. My hope is that someone has recorded it and will distribute it soon. Topics included how Jason writes his music, why he sometimes chooses to play a song once or twice in concert but then just let it evaporate and never be heard again, and the possibility that rare "tour only" CD's like The Ghost and Protection Spells might ever be reissued.

Despite the fact that these CD's often go for over $100 on eBay, Jason was adamant that they were intended as special discs meant for fans that attended the shows to purchase - originally for $5. He recounted that at the end of the tours, he was often left with boxes of them that didn't sell, and that on many nights of the tour, a few got stolen due to the fact that they'd just set them out somewhere with an honor box. He said: "At the end of the night, we'd open the box, and there'd be no 'honor'!," quickly noting, "not that money is honor."

One other quote from the interview that rings in my ears was seemingly in reference to the fact that he gets asked the same questions over and over. Jason's take on his own words:

"If I talked to you before, I meant what I said."

Damn right.

[Photo above © Steven Gullick]

the molina orgy

Well, you have to take the good with the bad. Noon today saw both the continuation of a famine and the beginning of a feast.

We all know what happened down in DC and the wretched excess of the celebrations that followed, but the true-blue city of Boston has broken into a full-on bacchanal of a much better kind. Starting at Noon today, WHRB 95.3 FM (Harvard) began The Molina Orgy - 63 consecutive hours of music by Jason Molina, Songs:Ohia, and the Magnolia Electric Company. According the their site, the orgy has a storied past:

Legend has it that the WHRB Orgy® tradition began over fifty-five years ago, in the Spring of 1943. At that time, it is said that one Harvard student, then a staff member of WHRB, returned to the station after a particularly difficult exam and played all of Beethoven's nine symphonies consecutively to celebrate the end of a long, hard term of studying. The idea caught on, and soon the orgy concept was expanded to include live Jazz and Rock Orgies, as well as a wide variety of recorded music.

The Orgy® tradition lives on even today at WHRB. Each January and May, during the Reading and Exam Periods of Harvard College, WHRB presents marathon-style musical programs devoted to a single composer, performer, genre, or subject. The New York Times calls them "idealistic and interesting," adding, "the WHRB Orgies represent a triumph of musical research, imagination, and passion."

Unbelievable! Sixty-three consecutive hours! According to WHRB, the fun wraps up at 11am Sunday EST. So tune in wherever you are - you can stream the whole thing! So forget that idiot in DC and have a ball of your own.

mark pedini makes beautiful posters

Recently, as a year-end excuse to help bolster the fulfillment of my extremely simple 2004 New Year's Resolutions:

1. Learn to play poker.
   
2. Buy more art.

I purchased a poster (right) from Mark Pedini, an Austin based artist.

I came across his work via the Songs:Ohia/Magnolia Electric Co. Yahoo! Group and was immediately amazed. In addition to making this poster for Magnolia Electric Co. (who, by the way, have a new website, a new album in stores this week, and begin a nationwide tour in April), he's made gorgeous posters for Lightning Bolt, Deerhoof, and many others.

I've always been a sucker for rock posters and managed to snag some beautiful Ames Bros posters for the many Pearl Jam shows I've attended. Pedini's posters are among the best - they are huge, colorful, hand screen-printed, signed, numbered, and crazy affordable ($15-$25)! And he's a swell fella - he even sent along a screen-printed holiday card with my order. Check out his website and order yourself some art!

words / image

My close friend David Gruber has work in the Winter 2004/05 issue of The Furnace Review. His three contributions are infused with the sorrowful hope that I feel drives most great art. Follow this link to read the three poems: East of Germantown, The Fair Republic, and Ingathering of the Exiles.

Some time ago, David and I discussed the idea of collaborating and the idea that poems and photographs are similar forms - each alluding to something greater, but holding back quite a bit - perhaps holding back more than they reveal. David chose one of my images and wrote a poem to accompany it, entitled Tent. My sincere hope is that this is the first "official" publication of our work together. Enjoy.

Tent / Northboro, MA, 2002

And it all erupts
      into the worried blue
that surrounds us in
      our sorriest moments.

As if an asp
       had wound across
our shoes and taken
      a nip from your shin.

You can’t call it –
      just breathe desert air
and sup on our
        one wish:

the very last merriment,
complete
      with plastic forks.

(12 and 16 October 2003)

There's a boat in the bathroom

Spotted in the bathroom at Longshoreman's Daughter, Seattle, WA. Wednesday, January 12, 2005. 2:01pm.

the pulse of diamonds

Recent snow - and the chance of more tonight - has me
singing this incessantly:

"The sky was full with a gray winter light,
and each freezing degree made its target that night.
The pulse of the snow was the pulse of twighlight,
the pulse of the snow was the pulse of diamonds.
And you wear it in your hair like a constellation.
And we both swear by the size of that moon
that the sky will sink tonight."
Songs:Ohia, 7th Street Wonderland, from Untitled 7"

Download here. (Thanks to Epitonic.)

red boots

Spotted at Broadway and Roy St, Seattle, WA. January 9, 2005.
More here.

today's sunset

Viewed from 524 Boylston Ave East, Seattle, WA. Wednesday, January 5, 2005. 3:33 pm.

so this is the new year

Spotted at the corner of 3rd Ave and Clay St, Seattle, WA. Saturday, January 1, 2005. 12:06 am. More here.