This month marks two years since the release of Jason Molina’s ‘The Black Sabbath Covers’, a limited run of 7” vinyl released in 2017 and featuring previously unheard recordings that had been newly discovered. When Jason Molina took on another artist’s song, he willed his own universe into it, his own personal and artistic mythology. Be it Conway Twitty or Townes Van Zandt, their blues were infused with Molina's own entrancing blues. This pair of home-recorded Black Sabbath covers is no different.
Jason’s longtime collaborator and friend William Schaff kindly got in touch to talk about the inspiration behind his amazing artwork for the release.
The following is William’s personal account of that period:
So there I was, sitting in a camper on a mountain in Northern California. A friend of mine who was running a weed farm in the Emerald Triangle had contacted me and asked if I could come up and help with the Harvest. Having never done something like that before, I figured I would give it a try. It was a remote location, and after the days work I would retire to a little camper I was staying in. I would usually get under the covers in the bed (as it was cold on the mountain top) and put my iPod on, listening to music as I smoked some of the weed that was readily available.
There I was that night, listening to the sojourner box set. I had never really given much thought to the track, “The Black Ram”, but on that night, with the effects of the crop floating around my head, I heard things I had not heard before in the song. It lead to me sketching out the line that would become the stencil for the ram that later show up on the Sabbath Covers 7”.
When I came down from the mountain after a month, the good people over at Secretly contacted me about the Sabbath covers release, and asked if I had any artwork that would be appropriate for it. I thought of the ram stencil sketch I had just done. While I was not planning to use it for this, I thought….”ram’s head…sabbath…perfect!”. So I took some masking tape, making the cross like you would see on so many of Jason’s guitars, and sprayed this ram stencil over it. Red paint on a black background. For me, nothing says Black Sabbath like a red goat head, and nothing says Jason like a masking tape cross. I submitted the image, and the label accepted it.
I have read some of the other entries on this website, and have enjoyed learning the backstory to these great releases. I can only apologize that my story is basically me getting high in a camper on a mountain, but there you have it. What lead to the artwork on the now released Sabbath cover’s seven inch came from that. I love that Secretly Canadian also went on to etch the backside of the 7” with the ram’s head. It makes the whole release feel that much more…”Sabbath-y”. As though these songs have signed a deal with the vinyl!
