About

Bio

Jason Molin moved to Austin (from Washington D.C.) to be a singer/songwriter like Townes Van Zandt. He studied and taught “Audio for the Internet” at UT’s School of Information because he saw everything moving online. Now he’s Web Editor for the Communications Dept. at the McCombs School of Business teaching blogging and social media by day and working with 2010 Texas State Musician Sara Hickman on the side to build a site and stage show that models creative collaboration for families.

Digital Ambassador

Jason loves to share his enthusiasm and vision for how cheap, ubiquitous, Web-based tools can empower artists, educators, and non-profits to take control of their careers and connect to their community. He helps people build identities for the networked world. From tagline to technology, Jason translates the rules of the new-media landscape for those who need help feeling comfortable in the brave new world of Google and Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

At McCombs Jason runs the business school’s blogging platform (WordPress) and teaches blogging and social media technologies and strategies. He’s also active as branding and technology consultant to English at Work, his wife’s non-profit.

Singer/Songwriter

Jason Molin, or J, is a pop songwriter who shows off poetic lyrics with a sophisticated variety of styles. He rocks jazz, folk, gospel, or funk, and holds it all together with his smooth tenor and honest approach. J’s powerful lyrics and memorable melodies set him apart from imitators. J is the thinking people’s rock star and an antidote for a culture of disposable songs.

J released his first album, “J,” in 2005. It focuses on songwriting and storytelling, showcasing a diverse mix of influences. The opening track, “Room 304,” is a pulsing samba romance told in Tom Waits technicolor. “Let Me Go Walkin’ With You” is a jazz song worthy of Billie Holiday, finger-picked on an acoustic guitar. In “Jesus Rode a Bike,” J wonders “What kind of car would Jesus drive?” as the guitar rocks and a trumpet trills tight lines. The final song on the album, “Sunday Morn,” pictures a stroll among Dublin street performers with wordplay as cinematic and haunting as Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.” As J performs his debut album across Texas, he plans an East Coast release in the spring and a West Coast launch in summer. The solo trumpet work found on the CD is blossoming into a horn section that mixes soul and dub influence into his jazzy sound.

J grew up in Washington, D.C., then went off to New York University where he studied philosophy, wrote songs, and performed on Bleeker Street at the Village Gate. After a year abroad in Dublin, Ireland, writing more songs and singing in an Anglican choir, J returned to D.C. and played coffee shops, getting a major start at Iota and the 9:30 Club. A decade ago, J headed south to Austin, where he formed a trio and performed regularly at Ruta Maya, the Cactus Cafe, and many other venues. J performs regularly with diverse combos of drums, bass, backup singers, horns, and DJs.

BBC DJ and music author Steve “Stocki” Stockman, who puts J’s first CD in his top 20 for the year, writes in his review: ‘J’ may be a debut album, but don’t be fooled. It is the work of a mature and accomplished writer and performer. This is intelligent songwriting from a man with many strings to his bow.”

Press

Jason Molin’s debut release showcases his songwriting skills to their full extent. Those of us who have followed his career since its beginnings in Washington, D.C., shouldn’t be surprised by Mr. Molin’s talents. But on “J” they are taken to new heights. His whip-smart lyrics a hallmark of the artist are coupled with mature and confident compositional and arranging abilities. His playing is never in doubt; Song’s guitar work shines.

Subtle touches of instrumentation and production emerge with total confidence. From Song classics like “Jesus Rode A Bike” to new material such as “For Your Lover” with its wonderful trumpet lines and melodies, his work holds the promise of an artist who refuses to be held down by any convention or stylistic boundaries. Many influences bubble to the surface, but always with one artist’s sensibility.

This is one CD in constant rotation on my CD player. I look forward to more wonderful music from a city, Austin, Texas, bursting with talent and an artist who is rising head and shoulders above his peers.

Mark R. Bacon Host, WFPK, 91.9, Radio Louisville

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It took me ten years but I tracked him down and just in time to find his first album readying for release. Jason Molin appeared in Dublin like an angel beyond coincidence in late 1992. One evening in my living room he told me he had written a few songs. Sometimes that is the prelude to something truly awful but he took out his old scratchy guitar and started singing; it mesmerized me for the best part of a year. Brought up in Washingston DC and studying in New York there was a Woody Guthrie feel about his three chords and philosophizing. I got him gigs whenever I could. Then he left and we lost touch. Years of Google searching uncovered nothing.

Then one last effort and I scrolled way down the search results and discovered an album had a backing vocalist with the same name in Austin Texas. It’s a long way from DC. An e-mail was sent with, “it is hardly likely but could your Jason Molin have…” and within a couple of hours J was in my in-tray, just married, studying in Austin, making loads of music and doing very badly at getting his web page any recognition in the world’s search engines!

So he sent me the album which is about to be released. The ten years of myth had built some expectation…maybe too much expectation. What would ten years do to a man’s writing? Would he deliver when studio gadgets and tricks became available? How would he produce those raw emotional and often humorous songs that dealt dilemmas to the heart, soul and mind? Would I think I had been better off searching than finding? Well I should have trusted my initial hunches. When Song sang in my living room there was a quality to what he was doing both in content and in style that could not have been eroded.

“J” is a quality piece of work that has me wondering how many other songwriters are there out there who do this so far out in the margins yet are this good? Jason Molin has the attention to detail of a Bruce Cockburn and the Greenwich village spirit of a young Bob Dylan. Tom Waits’ quirk lurks in the songwriting style and he has a voice with a mature grittiness when needed and goes pure and true on the one or two occasions when necessary; it is flexible, individual and very, very good.

In the third millennium songwriters are never allowed to do it straight being driven to clever sounds and beats and trendy postmodern gimmicks. Molin takes to these arranging obligations very subtly indeed. He never compromises the organic nature of his muse but throws piles of shades and fades and dies to keep it more than colorful. Imagine if Damien Rice used brass not strings. “For Your Lover” is a gentle breezy calypso meets folk; the holiday observational piece’s “Room 304″ and “Road to Monterrey” both take you on sunny locations; “Aphrodisiac” is a moody seductive groove which is just as well as love is the aphrodisiac; “Jesus Rode a Bike” has a twenty first century Subterranean Homesick Blues feel, the most blustery thing here and playfully filled with the spiritual conundrums that waste too much precious time; “Mystical Experience” has the atmosphere expected of it’s title; “Sunday Morning” is more stripped back and can I add that it is the most perfect description of a Sunday morning journey from Trinity College to Adelaide Presbyterian Church – precision of the moment and cinematic flair have never went so well together.

“J” may be a debut album but don’t be fooled, it is the work of a mature and accomplished writer and performer. This is intelligent songwriting from a man with a plethora of strings to his bow. If the rest of the world doesn’t find it I give myself utter respect that I searched for long enough.

Steve Stockman, host, BBC-1, Belfast, N. Ireland
http://www.tollbooth.org/2004/reviews/molin.html