Career
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.
Webley plays various instruments on his albums, including guitar, accordion, piano, marimba, and glockenspiel; when he tours, however, he usually only brings his guitar, an accordion, and a vodka bottle filled with coins from around the world. He has been known to do short tours with a backing band. Webley has performed at several festivals, including Burning Man, Glastonbury Festival, and the Oregon Country Fair. His sound has been compared to Tom Waits, Vladimir Vysotsky, Leonard Cohen, and Bob Dylan.
Some of Webley's most famous songs are the apocalyptic "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 "The Drinking Song" the audience is asked to sing as though in a drunken stupor:
When 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.
Webley has a fascination with the number 11. He's also known for incorporating vegetables into his performances. His late 1990s model Toyota Corolla 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 forum that the fiberglass stem was stolen from atop his car on July 13, 2006, during one of his frequent concert tours. He reported at a concert that his beloved Toyota had "passed away" around January 18, 2011.
Webley has announced that he will be taking a "long break" from touring following his show on November 11, 2011 in Seattle at the Moore Theatre.
Read more about this topic: Jason Webley
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“I restore myself when I’m alone. A career is born in public—talent in privacy.”
—Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962)