Chicago - A message from the station manager

Remembering Jason Molina, Jim Nayder And Jay Bennett

Pain And Passion

1. The Supernaturally Prolific And Touching Jason Molina.
“We all go through the exit door at some point in our short journey on earth with the living and sometime that shit just happens too fast for some and we leave some folks behind,” Review Stalker writes.
“Being sensitive to this fact Steven Vineis has put together a compilation benefiting the late and great Mr. Jason Molina formerly of the Magnolia Electric Co which you should just buy now at songsmolina.bandcamp.com.
Molina recorded at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio. “I loved hearing Jason Molina sing,” Steve Albini said upon Molina’s passing. “He was a genius at turning a phrase and making it into something more than the words in it.”


Here’s “It Made Me Cry” by Eastern Anchors.


2. The Annoying And Magnificent Jim Nayder.
“Jim Nayder, a longtime fixture on Chicago public radio and pioneering program director at WBEZ-FM 91.5, was found dead in his Rogers Park apartment on Friday,” the Tribune reports.
“Nayder, 59, was best known as the host and producer of National Public Radio’s Annoying Music Show, as well as Magnificent Obsession, a harrowing, weekly 30-minute WBEZ show about drug and alcohol addiction, narrated by a subject who is battling addiction.
“The Cook County medical examiners office said his autopsy is not scheduled until Saturday morning. However, his daughter, Blair Botti, as well as his ex-wife, Laurie Nayder, said Nayder had a long and tortured history of alcoholism.”
Here’s Nayder’s sampling of the worst Beatles covers (via Chicagoist):


3. The Prolific Perfectionist Jay Bennett.
“Jay Bennett was a master in the recording studio, the type of talent who could pick up almost any instrument and make music on it,” Greg Kot wrote for the Tribune four years ago upon his death from a painkiller overdose.
“On stage, he could be a whirling, chain-smoking, dreadlocked dervish. As a key member of Wilco and a prolific artist and producer for other bands, Bennett had a reputation as a musical obsessive who chased perfection.”
On Sunday night, the Jay Bennett Foundation launched a scholarship program with Rock For Kids and held a benefit show at the Empty Bottle featuring a range of Chicago musicians.
Here’s Edward Burch at that show singing the Virgil Shaw song “The Drawing” with Kip Rainey on lap steel, Steve Dawson on piano, and Jon Williams on accordion.


Comments welcome.

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Posted on July 2, 2013