when jason passed through italy last month he was invited to record a few songs for MAPS radio. they now have video and mp3s of that session posted on their site.

jason molina’s london sojourn has proved to be quite beneficial to his fans in europe- another solo tour is set to launch in two weeks. he’ll wrap the year up on december 15th with a very special solo show at the luminaire in london where everyone will walk away with something rare and amazing. this show will sell out early.

the magnolia electric co. fall american tour wrapped up a few weeks ago and the remaining copies of the sojourner box set have been returned to secretly canadian. they should be appearing back in the online shop sometime in the next few days. other than the copies floating around in the shops, this will likely be your last chance to get the box set. on november 6th, secretly canadian will also be adding a limited supply of the old songs: ohia tour cds ‘the ghost’ and ‘protection spells’ to their shop. this is not a full reissue - a small stash of old sleeves were found and a batch of cds was pressed to complete them. these were immensely popular on the fall tour, so you don’t want to dally when they become available.

the big fall u.s. tour started a few days ago and folks are buzzing about the selection at the merch booth. in addition to the recently released sojourner box set you’ll find two other releases that haven’t appeared on a merch table for over 7 years now. a stash of the long out-of-print tour cds the ghost and protection spells was discovered and they’re available for just $12 at one of the upcoming shows. so be sure to make it out to see the band live or resign yourself to the ridiculous ebay prices these have seen so far this millenium.

the fabulous sojourner box set is out today and available from your finer local record stores as well as secretly canadian. if you’re still not convinced, you’ll find streams of eighteen tracks (this week only!) from the set over on the mec myspace page. there’s also a little preview of the dvd available here.

magnolia electric co. will release their most ambitious work to date later this summer. on august 7th, secretly canadian will issue a 4xcd, 1xdvd deluxe box set entitled ’sojourner’. it includes all of the projects discussed over the past year and then some. ‘nashville moon’, recorded with steve albini in 2005. ‘the black ram’, recorded by david lowery with all sorts of guest musicians including andrew bird. the ’sun session’ ep, recorded at the legendary memphis studio in one day. and of course, the mysterious ’shohola’, recorded at home by jason molina. but that’s just the stuff you might have heard about. there’s also a dvd including the film ‘the road becomes what you leave’ by todd chandler and tim sutton that follows the band as they trek across the prairie provinces of canada. the amazing set is rounded out by deluxe packaging including a medallion and postcards, all housed in a wooden box.

in support of the upcoming ’sojourner’ release, magnolia electric co. will hit the road in late august for a nearly two month north american tour. almost all of the dates are now up, check the tour dates for more details!

we recently added songs: ohia to the live music archive and have been busy adding shows between 1998 and 2002. so if you’re one of those people that keep screaming for ‘lioness’ at the shows only to find yourself disappointed, you should find a salve (and quite possibly salvation) in the live archive.

magnolia electric co. and jason molina are part of two recent compilations benefiting college radio stations. in 2005, jason molina performed a solo version of ‘leave the city’ in wvfs’s studio that now appears on their ‘live at wvfs’ compilation. US residents can paypal $12 ($15 for the rest of the world) to klem(AT)threelobed.com for a copy. also available is a compilation released by wuag last year entitled ‘18 watts is better than none’ with a live version of ‘down the wrong road both ways’ from magnolia electric co.’s greensboro show in 2005. it’s only $8 from their store.

the next six months will see magnolia electric co. on the road more often than not. they head out tomorrow for a month of american shows with son volt. after that, it’s off to europe for a month or two of shows. late summer will bring the boys back to north america for a full tour - north, south, east, and west. with all that touring it sounds like they might be supporting some sort of amazing new fall release, eh? more news to come!

jason molina wrote two new songs (an instrumental and one with lyrics) for the short film wood diary, one of which will be used to score the five minute version of the film. director david edwin meyers is selling a dvd version that includes two versions of the short film (one with each music track) as well as the thirteen minute version of the film that utilizes previously released secretly canadian material. further down the pipeline is new music for a film titled dream boy, which should also feature music by richard buckner.

you can catch videos of an entire solo show from the columbia, south carolina show last december over at google video right now. thanks to the mysterious “2000 flushes” for taping and “madwurm” for posting.

there’s lots of love for european magnolia fans in the first half of the year. jason molina arrives in europe today for a month of solo shows. in late march, just two months after returning home, he’ll bring magnolia electric co. back to europe for another month of shows. there are even some additional european dates in the works for late june. ¿cómo se dice ‘freebird’?

secretly canadian celebrates it’s 100th release (100th scheduled, they’re actually up in the 150s already) by having pre-SC100 bands cover other pre-SC100 bands. magnolia electric co. (oops, i mean songs: ohia) cover two nikki sudden songs - ‘the last bandit’ and ‘when the rain comes down’. the first will be available april 10th, 2007 on cd and the second will be part of a bonus mp3-only album through emusic/itunes/etc. both tracks were recorded in april 2004 at echo park with the touring magnolias. it was decided to use the songs: ohia name on the release for historical reasons, since the magnolia/ohia transition was right around SC100. scratching songs: ohia’s back on the compilation is suzanne langille, who takes her turn at ’structure- necessity’ (cd) and ‘ours the armada’ (mp3), both from impala.

protection spells is now available to purchase from emusic in mp3 format. it was originally released in 2000 as a european tour cd and limited to just 500 copies. needless to say, it’s long been out of print and has fetched ridiculous sums of money when it’s appeared on ebay. if you’ve never used emusic before, they have a free 25 song trial so you could download it for free!

over the next three months jason molina will be doing solo shows over three different continents. he leaves this weekend for shows in australia and new zealand - his first tour there in nearly 5 years. in early december he’ll be travelling through the southern u.s. for a week followed by a one-off show in nova scotia. and for good measure, most of february will be spent in europe doing solo shows. almost all of the dates for these tours are confirmed and available under tour dates.

thanks for all of your questions, i’ve now transcribed and posted jason’s responses.

a quick reminder that fading trails is in stores today. if you don’t want to deal with the local record store clerk, you could always buy it from the band on one of their nearly fifty american tour dates this fall.

jason molina will be playing some solo shows in australia and new zealand this coming november between the 10th and the 23rd… and spring 2007 will find magnolia electric co. back in europe from april 25th to may 13th (including a very cool festival appearance that should be announced soon).

jason groth (the fellow that busts out those sweet guitar licks for magnolia electric co.) is currently writing a tour diary for the marathon packs blog. you can check out the first entry now, the second will be posted tomorrow and updates will continue every other day until the tour’s conclusion.