Jason Webley

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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