3. Songs: Ohia - Captain Badass
Four years ago this week we lost David Berman. Five years ago for Scott Hutchison. It’s been ten years for Jason. The depressed and drunken soul as an artist has made a profound impact on how I see the world, I find myself drawn to it in all forms of artistic expression. I tattooed the cover of Magnolia Electric Co on my arm several years ago, and sometimes when people ask me about it, maybe they haven’t heard the record before, and they’ll come back to me and say “are you ok, man?” Mostly I’m great, but I guess that’s not really how depression works.
Another through line of the above artists that resonates with me strongly is vulnerability. Jason bears his soul in his music, there’s little or no veneer there, it’s just the raw juice we’re all drinking. I say this has been a writing exercise for me, it’s also a place where I can be vulnerable and personal. I’ve learned a lot about how someone comes to find their favorite music. I probably maybe definitely shouldn’t be as open and vulnerable here as I already have been, sometimes in ways that I am not with my closest friends and family. I guess you can be a little detached in your writing in ways it’s hard to be with the people in your life you have to confront and speak to face to face, which is isolating in itself. When Jason died I read a lot of heartbreaking accounts of his social isolation, there were so many people who loved and cared about him, but the themes of his music reflected a deep loneliness.
Lots of places try and claim Jason (Northern Ohio, Chicago, Bloomington), but it’s safe to just call him Midwestern. He said “you never run out of ways to talk about that Midwestern grey,” and he never did. He was so incredibly prolific with his recordings, like he couldn’t get it all out of his head, the desperate need for connection to a willing listener, it’s real. And throughout all those recordings there are lines of his poetic lyricism that just hit you like grabbing a downed power line. Much like David and Scott above, there’s a lot of saying goodbye in their songs, which reads as dramatic after they’re gone, but it’s just one of those painful expressions we all have all the time. Farewell Transmission is the most powerful of these for me, it’s the perfect lo-fi 7 minute teary eyed and blustery alt country rock tune of our age.
I’m rambling because I’m a bit scared to come to the point here. I chose Captain Badass as my favorite because I think it essentially captures what Jason was about. It’s a fundamentally vulnerable song. The guitar echoes, reverberates, and the song itself is a prolonged call and response, seeking an affirmation. He uses love as a metaphor here, if you blow it, you don’t get a second chance, but he’s talking about the one life we have to live. I guess it’s my turn now to say that’s what terrifies me the most about this existence. Some day we will die. I guess I’m not so afraid of the death itself but the cosmic joke of existence at all. Why be called into being for such a short time, full of such suffering and self-awareness and complexity and lack of clarity? I write all this not to seek help (I have it) or to be morose (I’m not), but to express maybe that melancholy, secondary to a permanent and powerful existential crisis is probably the central characteristic of the kind of music I favor. If you can find a beauty and peace in that pain, and express it all in a universal way, the way Jason does, you’ve got my heart forever. I think part of what I love too, about this or Neutral Milk Hotel or that ilk is that it’s also not inextricably tied to commercial production; if the question is a big Why, the answer is not “to produce.” It’s so important to say with what little voice any of us have that there aren’t easy answers to sell, and the best artists never try. I can connect so strongly with favoring a fear of success over a fear of failure.
Sometimes my wife will tease me if I’ve got Jason’s music on, ask me if I’m going through something, as if chronic lifelong depression ever really goes away. I’d never really give it back to her when she’s pumping Bright Eyes or Brand New or whatever, but we’ve got different stuff going on. She dragged me out of the deepest hole I was ever in, she gave me a life and a family and a future, and her Type A anxiety works very well with my slacker calm. Agh. There’s no good way to end this post. Jason knew he would try, he knew whatever he’d try that he would be gone, but not forever. In fact he’s here forever. To quote another artist of JM, “we have your sweet tunes to play.” RIP Sparky.