Jason Molina: Live at La Chapelle is available on streaming platforms now!
To mark this the show's promoters Gérald Guibaud, Gilles Deles & Thomas Boudineau have shared their memories of the show in this great piece:
By Gérald Guibaud (We Are Unique! Records co-founder and Label Manager, producer of the show)
The first time I heard Songs: Ohia, at the end of the nineties, I thought I could not connect myself to Jason’s music. I was not ready. I felt that these songs seemed too much like Will Oldham’s music, and I thought they’d just passed me by. A few years later, my friends Gilles Deles and Thomas Boudineau (fellow artists from the French indie label I created in 2001) were totally crazy about Songs: Ohia music and last records.
I think the first time I really connected with Jason’s music and words was on a car ride from Paris to Guéret (in the region La Creuse, in the center of France) with my two friends. I think it was in 2004. We were coming back home from an Angil’s gig in Paris to Gilles’ home, then Thomas and I had 3 more hours to go.
My two friends were playing Songs: Ohia in the car. I was really sad during this trip because a girl I knew in Paris refused to be my girlfriend, despite the fact we were getting along together so well. And so as we were hitting the road, Jason’s music and voice really moved my soul. Back to Toulouse I bought the entire Songs: Ohia discography and Jason became one of my favorite artists.
A few months later Jason stopped using the Songs: Ohia name, revealing his new band Magnolia Electric Co. and their first LP “What comes after the blues”, and Thomas learnt that the band would tour in Europe. He decided to contact the booking agent to see if we could organize a show in Toulouse, even if he had no suitable venue for the gig…he just wanted to see if there was a possibility to make it happen. And it turned out that it might be possible, as the band had a day off between the traditional date in the French capital and the Spanish Pays Basque…Toulouse was on the way! So Thomas came to see me and asked my help to find a place to organize the show. At this time, I was involved with some friends in an association that was trying to sustain an old church squatted since 1993 named La Chapelle – L’Atelier Idéal. The church had been abandoned by the clergy and occupied by ecologist activists from the “Planète en danger” (Planet in Danger) association that fought the city property developers who wanted to destroy the church to build some big buildings. At this time a Czech poet that ended his days in the church wrote that the calm of the place was the “Atelier Idéal” (The ideal workshop) and this name stayed. I knew this kind of music in the old church sounded magic and unique, so I decided to convince the Atelier Idéal association council to let us organize the show in the Chapelle. Normally they would only agree to host engaged political events but I promised them that the show would be sold out and that after paying the band we would donate the rest of the show’s profits towards the renovation of the church. But there was also another new constraint. The last amplified shows in the church had annoyed many neighbors and the cops came out several times and warned the association: if the noisy events kept going they would empty and close the squat indefinitely! So Thomas called the booking agent to let Jason know we could only do an acoustic solo show…and Jason apparently did not agree. The show had to be with his new band and nothing else. I think the discussion continued over several long days…we then decided to offer a higher deal to the band, in order to have only Jason playing! As they had no other plan in the region, it was this deal or nothing else…maybe the agent was persuasive too, because Jason finally accepted to do it! Thomas and I were so happy at this time, but also a bit scared because we were liable to cover the costs in the event the show wasn’t a success.
To make sure we promoted this show to the best level we could, we announced everywhere in the media that it was a unique Songs: Ohia show. We knew that many fans here in France had never seen Jason playing acoustic and that it would be their last chance to see Songs: Ohia live! This was our only way to convince them to drive here from other cities (for the French, more than 200km from home is a far destination) …and it worked! A few days before the show it sold-out (at a capacity of 200 seated) and we started to breathe again.
I remember the afternoon on the day of the show when the band arrived at the church, Jason did not seem too pleased to be there. The rest of the band was cool and relaxed.
Jason started to play his electric guitar paired with a big twin reverb amplifier and his voice through a Marshall amplifier. No need to use a sound system as the natural reverb inside the church sounded nice enough to Jason, and this would also make this concert more unique. But this of course would make the live recording more complicated for us, and we really wanted to document this unique event. So Gilles (who came to see the show) brought his minidisc with a good ambiance microphone that we decided to place on the useless sound control table in the back of the church. This explains why you can hear people quietly murmuring sometimes during the introduction of the songs and the interludes. Gilles edited the sound to make it as clean as possible but it was not possible to remove the noise completely. However, you can still hear how the fans would listen religiously to Jason’s performance. I remember the people all around the stage, Jason’s presence and humility radiating around the alcove behind him. He did have a stunning angel voice. We all knew this was a rare moment that was unfolding in front of our eyes. Sometimes I meet people in town who still speak to me about that show 15 years later, because they cannot forget it. When Jason played Magnolia, it was so intense that a few people were crying (Thomas was one of them). The most memorable moment would be when Mike suddenly appeared in another alcove on the side of the church to play a few trumpet notes…we were all surprised by this intervention as we did not see it coming. I still remember some people in the church were wondering where the hell this trumpet was coming from! At the end of the show, Jason walked outside the church out onto the front steps where the rest of the band was congratulating him. The people inside the church were applauding him very loudly for an encore, no one wanted this moment to end…but Jason did not want to play more songs. I remember I begged him at length to play at least one more song, and that the crowd would not leave without an encore, that it would be hard for us to manage this…finally he accepted and came back to play one last song. The audience was happy and the night could end peacefully. We finally could pay the band and the Atelier ideal association. Everybody was happy.
One month later, I met my girlfriend and the future mother of my son. I would never be heartbroken again, but Jason music will follow me for the rest of my life. When I learnt that Jason passed away, I cried for a long time in my girlfriend’s arms. To comfort me I always tell myself that a little piece of Jason’s soul is there in the church every time I go there.
I am so proud we made this show possible and that Secretly Canadian decided to honour the recordings with a release. Now all of Jason’s fans can share this unforgettable night with us.
By Gilles Deles // Lunt (We Are Unique! Records co-founder, artist. Sound engineer in charge of the live recording)
I met Jason Molina before the show. My girlfriend at this time, Sandra, wanted to give him a gift and he was so humbled. His thoughts were maybe already pointing ahead to the concert.
We drove 4 hours to see him. Very few for American people, but a long distance for the French, and massive for a small country like in the Baltics. Few musicians could have played a solo concert this brilliantly. It was like Jason was touched by grace. He shared with us his very soul through music at that time. And when he started to play Magnolia I felt like everyone in the audience found an echo to his deepest broken-hearted feelings in this song.
Some of us shine so brightly they cannot endure this inner fire for long, hence they shine for a short time. I listened to this so many times after having recorded it on minidisc., a fantastic privilege that can now be shared with you all. I am so glad that Secretly Canadian have decided to release it.
By Thomas Boudineau // Le Flegmatic (We Are Unique! Records artist, producer of the show)
I remember Jason the morning after the show, it was around 9am, sitting on the steps of the chapelle, waiting for the others to come over to clean the place up. Jason sat next to me and kindly asked for the notebook I was writing in. He took the notebook and started to draw some strange lines, strange scriptures that looked like some architect's plans, dimensions and measures, or Egyptian something, what do I know...
It appears to me so intensively now that Jason himself – not just his songs – was carrying with him all those ghosts and abandoned myths of old America, the America of fugitives: cheap motel rooms, cold concrete corridors of bus stations in dead cities somewhere in a ghost State, “ Where the wind is heavy on the borderline”.. He had all of this with him, within his eyes, in his heavy shoulders, in his manners, in the way he talked. An antique fatigue.
So, we stayed there on the steps, waiting for the band to come over and pick him up to head to San Sebastian. I gave up trying to find something to say, I was so tired myself.
I'll never forget the quiet, steady silence we shared on these steps in the streets of Toulouse...we were both leaving, probably already gone.
I'm not even sure he was really there. But was I?