Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Musical Youtubery: Jason Webley

I've downloaded Firefox 3 at work, and it's been having some occasional trouble getting along with embedded video. So boo for that. But as I was messing around with my settings, I decided to look up Jason Webley videos. YOU GUYS. If you have never seen Jason Webley, you are seriously missing out on one of the best live performers EVER. He's from the Northwest, and spends a large chunk of his time there, but he travels all over the world. And generally doesn't charge for his shows. (!) The first time I saw him, several years ago in a coffee shop in Montana, he began his performance wearing a trench coat and some sort of monkey mask thing, shaking an old plastic vodka handle filled about 1/3 of the way up with coins for percussion. Really didn't know what to make of the guy. But he is AWESOME. He reads Gogol stories during performances, forces audience participation, is obsessed with tomatoes, loves singalongs, sometimes carries a large stuffed carrot in his guitar case, and is just generally amazing. Anyway, there are a ton of videos of him up on YouTube, which pleased me, but I especially dug this animated video for his "Eleven Saints" collaboration with Jay Thompson. Very Jason. I've heard him play versions of this tune live, and I think he is correct in his assertion that the number eleven just cannot be trusted: Nominated for today's best use of googly eyes. And for good measure, his "Hey Ya" cover rocks likes nobody's accordianed business: UPDATE: Okay, okay, okay, one more. Just to show you his amazing/ridiculous audience rapport:

1 comment:

  1. The third name on the "made by" on the credits is Oliver White, my old friend/former roommate from Whitman. He and jason are tight.

    ReplyDelete