Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week, we have a collection of songs put together by songwriter and guitarist, Jason Evans Groth of Magnolia Electric Co., Haunted Library, the Coke Dares and others.

As a librarian, Groth is a natural archivist and this collection of songs connects the web of friendships, networks and inspirations that he has encountered within his long running time in the indie music world. Touching upon the impact that individuals like Jason Molina and Steve Albini had on his life, this playlist is a personal love letter to the passion that comes from music and the people who make it something worth holding on to.

To accompany this curation, Groth has shared a write up to account each song to a specific memory, person or purpose that has moved him.

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I moved to Raleigh eleven years ago, for a job that I was offered two days after my friend and bandmate from Magnolia Electric Co, Jason Molina, died. I left Bloomington, IN, my home through college and twelve years beyond; the place I moved to to keep my high school band going and where I joined, subsequently, all of my touring bands; the place where I watched my friends start Secretly Canadian Records; where I hosted, attended, and played dozens (if not hundreds) of house shows and bar shows and festival shows and college shows; and I started life as a full time librarian at a big state school a few states South. I didn’t fully stop touring but I did fully start a different career. Music has shaped my identity for as long as I could turn up the volume on the radio, and I think about everything in terms of it. 

I’m now on the brink of another big move to a different college town for a different academic librarian job. Two days before I was offered the job, Steve Albini, who I got to work with on three records and who I consider a huge influence and a friend, died. The timing is not lost on me, and I’ve been thinking a lot about my friends. Not just Jason and Steve, who both died too young, but all of my friends. The ones who are or soon will be in towns I used to live in; the ones who I still keep in touch with no matter how far or close; the ones who I will meet and who I will remember to call and who I can’t wait to see again; all of my friends. 

This list is made entirely of songs that I have, over the last year or so, added to or heard on collaborative playlists with friends. Friends who share music are and always will be my best friends, and sharing music like this – music that I think of when I wake up, music that means something to me for a moment and I capture into a list, music that is brought up in conversations, or music heard in a movie, or music that is evoked because someone says something that makes me think of lyrics – is one of my favorite ways to communicate. Looking back at these lists I see a snapshot of me not just over the year but as a whole, as a person who has been fully taken with music for as long as I can remember. And all of the songs are songs that are both shared, specifically, with friends on lists, but were all shared with me by other friends, too. 

Tim and Andy from Silkworm are friends (their band Bottomless Pit toured with Magnolia), and “Couldn’t You Wait?” is often the first song I think of when someone I love passes away. Steve Albini recorded that song, and Tim’s new band – Mint Mile – was the second to last band Steve ever recorded. The first time I heard “Farewell, Farewell” was in Utrecht on the last day of my first European tour with Songs: Ohia, played by our friend Burd Early as a wish for us to travel safely. Mark, the drummer from Magnolia Electric, shared The Goon Sax song with me because it reminded him of some demos I had made and shared with him.

The Gizmos – classic punk rockers from Bloomington – wrote a song about friends in the Midwest that just feels like home to me, and had my band The Coke Dares play some shows with them at a reunion a few years back. Jason Molina invited me into Songs: Ohia partly because he saw my Neil Young album cover band, The Cinnamon Girls, play Tonight’s the Night and told the head of Secretly Canadian “that’s my band.” Zeb, who plays in the Cinnamon Girls, showed me “Don’t Be Denied.” Amy O. is a friend from Bloomington and I can’t get this song out of my head. I heard this Heaven 17 song for the first time with my friend Sarah from Bloomington at a little reunion this past November in the mountains of Asheville. Rosali is a friend from the Triangle and “Rewind” is one of the best songs of 2024.

Here’s Steve with Shellac, being as provocative as ever, but also melodic, and sad, and cathartic, and darkly funny. All of that was Steve, and it sounds so good, as always. The Beths sing perfect harmonies and make great melodies, and my friend Kyle who works with me at the library casually introduced me one day when we were wiring music studios and I was hooked. My friend Scout writes great music, including this, which she recorded with Steve; Sal, who played on the last Magnolia tour, plays bass on this, and Will Oldham, who I admire and who I’ve gotten to play a few weird and memorable shows with, sings beautifully.

One time, at a Robbie Fulks show, Jason Molina told me that I was “as good as he is” at guitar; I don’t believe it, but I am grateful to Jason for showing me Robbie (and Steve recorded this, too). Nobody really showed me the Ariana Grande song but it’s been following me around, and it is so much like “Dancing on My Own” how could I not like it? It also has the word “friends” in it, so it works. Butterglory was one of those bands that only your friends knew about in the 90s, and I ended up meeting one of them at another indie rock person’s wedding in like 2011. Sardina was an amazing Bloomington band made up of people who were both inspirations and friends – the singer, Michelle, used to host my bands in Austin, and the drummer, Lon Paul, recorded my band the Impossible Shapes and played in the Indy band Marmoset. He also died way too soon.

Steve recorded this Superchunk song, my favorite Superchunk song, and I thought it was appropriate to nod to the region I’m about to leave. My friend Matt does sound for them, too, so it all comes together. My friend David Vandervelde played “Looking for the Magic” for The coke dares when we stayed with him one night, and it’s never not been the first song I think of when I think of songs everyone should hear. My friends in the band Pavement introduced me to “Witchi Tai To” over the last two years of them playing. Ok, we’re not actually friends, but they changed my life and I feel like we’re close. And “Red Barchetta” was the secret fantasy song that Jason Molina wanted Magnolia to cover, shown to me first by my friend Greg in high school, but made legend by Molina at sound checks when we couldn’t quite figure it out. And “Thank You Friends” – the full version of which was shared with me first by my friend Jim, singer of my band Cadmium Orange, and the demo version which was shared with me by my friend Elizabeth, a DJ on one of the best radio shows I ever heard (Girls’ Guide to the Outlaw Spirit on WKNC in Raleigh) – is obvious.

Just writing this all down and looking at this list that is also a story, makes me feel so incredibly grateful for my friends, friends for whom music has been an identity definer and shifter, friends for whom friendship is often founded on the platform of passion for music. Thank you, friends.