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Jason Webley Timeline
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1998
On July 3rd, the first album, Viaje, is
released. Jason begins street performing. He spends the summer traveling
across the country by Greyhound bus and returns to his hometown Seattle
to become a regular opener for the local cult band, ¡Tchkung!
1999
Jason begins to develop his own following in
Seattle, playing regularly at the now-defunct Pearl Café. As a street
performer, he travelsacross Canada during the fringe theater season and makes his firstappearances at Seattle’s Bumbershoot and Folklife festivals.
He first works with drummer Michael McQuilken, and finishes the year by
releasing his second album, Against the Night.
2000
After a jaunt to Australia for the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Jason once again hits the Canadian Fringe circuit, this time
drawing the attention of CBC Radio and Much Music Television, and
landing on the front cover of Victoria’s Monday Magazine. He
begins calling attention to his act with a large stuffed carrot and a
sign that reads "Follow the Carrot!" This year also marks the beginning
of his work with bassist Jherek Bischoff.
Just before Halloween, Jason’s Seattle fans get a
surprise. At the end of his final concert at the Pearl Café, the crowd
follows a giant tomato into the woods where Jason is shaved, stripped
naked, placed into a coffin and driven away. Not a word is heard from
him for six months.
2001
Jason is re-born on his actual birthday (June 1)
at Seattle’s Paradox Theater. He has all new songs, a new clean-cut
look, a larger band (with the addition of a small horn section) and a
rusty shovel to bang out the beat. Moving away from street performance,
Jason begins "real" tours of actual concert venues, including the Gilman
Street Project in Berkeley. Back in Seattle, he holds a "Killing Time"
concert where the audience throws rotten tomatoes at a ghoulish 20 foot
tall grandfather clock.
Again, come Halloween, Jason departs, this time
leading the audience to the Seattle waterfront, where a woman in white whisks
him into the night on an old rustic boat. Fans fill the water with
little candlelit paper ships while singing the chorus of one of his
songs, "Goodbye Forever Once Again."
2002
The first concert of the year takes place on the
beautiful Scansonia Ferry. Jason swims through the near freezing water
and climbs aboard. Shortly after, his third album, Counterpoint,
is released. Later, keeping with the nautical theme, he leads a group of
300 fans to an impromptu concert on a local commuter ferry, dressed as
pirates.
His tour schedule takes him farther afield – from
Moscow, Idaho to Moscow, Russia, where he has since become something of
a minor celebrity. Back at home, his now-famous stints at Bumbershoot
come to a halt when he leads a crowd into the International Fountain at
the Seattle Center and is arrested.
Just after Halloween, he gives his final concert at
the Paradox Theater. At the end of the night, he is carried on a pole
into the woods and left tied to a tree overnight while feathers fall
slowly to the ground.
2003
At the first concert of the year, Jason emerges
from a cocoon in the form of a beautiful half-size puppet built by local
puppeteer Adam Ende. Immediately after, Jason and his puppet begin a
relentless touring schedule, playing over 150 concerts in six months. He
returns to Russia and tours extensively in Europe, the US and Canada. He
finds himself everywhere from Burning Man to England’s prestigious
Glastonbury Festival.
The year ends on November 1st with a sold out concert at Seattle’s Town Hall. At the end of the night,
the puppet’s heart is removed and the audience follows the little body
in a funeral procession into nearby Freeway Park. Each of the 900 fans
ties a helium balloon to the puppet’s body. Despite heavy rain, the
balloons lift little Jason over the city and into the night.
2004
Jason Begins the year by releasing his fourth album Only Just Beginning. At the release
concert, Jason makes his entrance in the form of a new and much happier
looking puppet. The new remote-control Jason dances, squeezes the
accordion and is held afloat by large red balloons – an image borrowed
from the cover of the new record.
After another unrelenting touring season, Jason again
returns to Seattle for his autumn concert. This time, the audience is
divided into four sections: balloons, feathers, boats and tomatoes, with
colored head-bands and songs for each camp. At the end of the night, the
audience is led on a parade through downtown Seattle, where Jason
relives each of his previous deaths (by balloon, feather, boat and
tomato). At each station, a woman representing one of the four deaths
strips away part of Jason’s persona – his hat, accordion, clothes and
hair. After again being shaved and stripped, he and the four women climb
into a car decorated to look like a giant tomato and disappear onto the
freeway.
2005
After completing the cycle of four albums and four
deaths and resurrections, it seems that Jason is up to something new.
For the first time in five years, he plays a handful of concerts in the
winter (including a series of guerilla "musicals" in local supermarkets
and opening for the Dresden Dolls). And instead of a spring concert, he
invites his fans to attend Camp Tomato, an
afternoon of games and activities in Seattle’s Woodland Park.
2006
Eleven Saints, How Big is Tacoma
2007
Evelyn Evelyn, Two Bottles - mexico
2008
The Cost of Living - siberia - ximena
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