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.

magnolia electric co. heads out on the road today for a two week tour with ladyhawk. and if those two bands aren’t reason enough to stay out late, i’ll give you two more reasons. the band also have copies of the new album “fading trails” and the new jason molina solo record “let me go let me go let me go” for sale on the tour…

if you haven’t been fast enough to hear the new tracks that have been appearing briefly over at the mec myspace page, you’ll be happy to know that there are now mp3s from both “fading trails” and “let me go, let me go, let me go” available. check out the media section for a link to jason molina’s “get out, get out, get out” and magnolia electric co.’s “lonesome valley”.

like chocolate and peanut butter (or maybe disney and pixar) magnoliaelectricco.com and songsohia.com have come together to form the perfect snack… err site. more content, more regular updates, more magnolia and more molina…

coming september 12th on secretly canadian is yet another new magnolia release entitled “fading trails”. it’ll be composed of various recent recording sessions jason molina and company (both familiar and new) did with steve albini, david lowery and at the famous sun studios in memphis, tennessee… most interesting of all, it will also feature the demos from the lost shohola album.

a few more details about the new jason molina solo album “let me go, let me go, let me go” due out august 22nd on secretly canadian. it will be released lp-only in the same fashion as the previous solo album “pyramid electric co.”, with all that statement entails (*wink*)… a short piece from jason describing the album is also online…

the master for the new jason molina solo album, “let me go, let me go, let me go” was approved earlier this week and secretly canadian is currently aiming for a july 2006 release date.

when magnolia electric co. passed through chapel hill last month, jason swung by and recorded acoustic versions of three brand new songs for the internet radio site no love for ned (who happens to also host songsohia.com)… it just went up as part of the four-year anniversary show (04-24-06) and jason’s set starts the second hour. the setlist: talk to me devil, again / memphis moon / good luck follows bad follows none

no release date has been set, but a tracklist is now available for the upcoming magnolia electric co. album “nashville moon” recorded by steve albini. featuring twelve tracks and clocking in at about 45 minutes, it looks something like this: lonesome valley / montgomery bound / don’t fade on me / hammer down / no moon on the water / nashville moon / what comes after the blues / north star / don’t this look like the dark / bowery / texas 71 / down the wrong road both ways

on a day off in memphis last month, magnolia electric co. stopped by the legendary sun studios to record a trio of new tracks and a new version of “hold on magnolia”… it could potentially become an ep (with a magnolia’d sun-style label) but there are no firm plans at the moment. it was just the five-piece touring band for the session - jason molina (guitar, vox), jason groth (guitar, backing vox), michael kapinus (keys, trumpet), pete schreiner (bass) and mark rice (drums)…