Jason Webley

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Jason Webley in 2006 at the Oregon Country Fair
Jason Webley in 2006 at the Oregon Country Fair

Jason Webley is a musician who began as a busker, playing accordion in the streets of Seattle, but has since moved in-doors and on stage, playing venues and festivals all across the world. His music is a combination of folk, gypsy, and punk.

Contents

[edit] Biography

In the Spring of 1998 Jason Webley quit his day job, picked up his accordion, and hopped on a Greyhound bus with the intention of playing in the streets until his money ran out.[1]

He used to theatrically die every Halloween only to be born in the spring (usually around May Day or Webley's springtime Birthday). At the 2005 Halloween show he stated that he no longer wanted to live and die with the seasons. He did not die that year, and is expected to continue not dying on future Halloweens.

He released four albums using Springman Records as a distributor but now owns his own record label, Eleven Records, and sells his merchandise via website or at concerts.

On Webley's albums various instruments can be heard such as guitar, accordion, piano, and xylophone, etc., but when he tours he usually only brings his guitar, an accordion, and a vodka bottle filled with coins from around the world (but he has been known to do short tours with a backing band).

Some of Webley's most famous songs are the apocalyptic [1] "Dance While the Sky Crashes Down" (which appears on his album Against the Night) and his most common show finale, "The Drinking Song" (which appears on Counterpoint). During ([2]) "The Drinking Song" the audience is asked to sing as though in a drunken stupor:

If the glass is full
drink up, drink up
this may be the last time we see this cup.
If God wanted us sober
he'd knock the glass over
so while it is full
we drink up.

His late 1990s model Toyota Corolla ( [3]) has been converted into a giant tomato. It is painted red, and used to have a green fiberglass stem attached to the roof of the car (until the stem was stolen). Instead of saying Toyota on the hood, it says tomato, and the Toyota logo is broken and reshaped into a circle with a stem. Webley announced in a post on his website's forums that the fiberglass stem was stolen from atop his car on July 13th, 2006, during one of his frequent concert tours.

Webley also performs annually at several festivals including Burning Man, Whole Earth Festival, Glastonbury Festival, and the Oregon Country Fair. His sound is most often compared to Tom Waits or Vladimir Vysotsky but also Leonard Cohen, Shel Silverstein, Bob Dylan, Neutral Milk Hotel, Nick Cave and the Dead Kennedys.

[edit] Camp Tomato

On April 30, 2005, he ran an event called Camp Tomato where he created an organization called the Tomato Scouts, a light-hearted reply to claims that he is a dangerous cult leader. It starts with a day in the park of fun, games, and antics, followed up by a performance by Webley in the evening-on into the night. The camp featured activities such as a "Tomato Pageant", "Tomato Race", and the highlight, the "Tomato Raid". Camp Tomato has continued in 2006 and 2007.

[edit] Collaborations

Webley has announced that there will be a series of eleven collaborative projects between him and his songwriter friends, and each recording will be limited to 1,111 numbered copies. He has thus far collaborated with Jay Thompson, Andru Bemis, Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band, and Amanda Palmer.[2]

In September 2007 Jason Webley collaborated with Amanda Palmer to release Evelyn Evelyn's debut EP "Elephant Elephant" via Jason's Eleven Records.

After a December 2007 concert at Hampshire College, he and Hampshire student Professor Science collaborated on a song about mittens known as "The Mitten Opera." The following night, after a concert at Bard College, Jason and a group of students collaborated on a song called "Clown Car to Mulberry." Both songs are available on Youtube,

[edit] Discography

[edit] Collaborations

[edit] References

  1. ^ Jason Webley. Springman Records. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
  2. ^ Recordings. Jason Webley. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.

[edit] External links