| The Vespa Experiment |
On April 30, 2009 at 7 PM, the Museum of Making Music had the honor of being the first and only San Diego venue to host musicians Jason Reeves and Brendan James as they begin a purposeful journey called "The Vespa Experiment." Supported by Greenpeace, the musicians rode Vespas up the California Coast, honoring the natural beauty of the West and performing at traditional venues, as well as on mountaintops, beaches and town centers. Their primary mission is to send a message to stop global warming by using the power of music to reach others. THE VESPA EXPERIMENT In the midst of these deeply troubling times, every day people are joining forces to make a real and positive difference in the world. We have reached a critical “tipping” point. Our thoughts, choices and actions impact the world directly every minute of every day. We cannot satiate every impulse, satisfy every craving and at the same time pretend we are working towards world peace or saving the earth. The time to do something is NOW. For more information, please visit www.myspace.com/TheVespaExperiment ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Jason Reeves From the uplifting opening track “Someone Somewhere” through reflective closer “The End,” singer/songwriter Jason Reeves’ forthcoming album The Magnificent Adventures of Heartache (and Other Frightening Tales) takes listeners on a contemplative journey of love, hope, heartbreak and renewal. Originally available online and at his shows only, the album’s beauty and raw honesty connected with listeners and earned a “Top Folk Album of 2007” distinction from iTunes, which also named Reeves one of the Top Indie Singer-Songwriters of that year. Now signed to Warner Bros. Records, which will widely-distribute his album for the first time, Jason’s own story continues, one that remains as pure as his outlook on life and music as it ever was. Self-taught on the guitar, Reeves began his own musical adventure as a teenager, when he discovered the works of folk legends Bob Dylan and James Taylor.Transformed, Reeves spent the next few years honing his own writing skills before dropping out of college and moving West to California to pursue his music full time. Now just 23, Reeves paints beautifully sophisticated portraits of some of life’s most vulnerable, yet exhilarating moments. “Reaching” for example, ponders the question of whether to abandon caution and the familiar in order to plunge headlong into the risk and potential reward of the unknown. “Pretty Eyes”, meanwhile, idealizes the utopian moments in life when one is in love, while “Never Find Again” reminds us that perfection is all-too-fleeting. Perhaps most striking is that Reeves accomplishes this with memorable melodies and radio-ready hooks that seamlessly complement his warm vocals. With a range of subjects from the feel-good love anthem “You In A Song,” to the dreaded but familiar feeling of being told a lover wants to be “Just Friends,” all of Reeves’ music is instantly relatable, and it is that accessibility that is rapidly winning Jason legions of new fans. The spiritual Iowan, for his part, refuses to take the credit insisting, “All songs exist in the atmosphere, and artists are on a romantic search to pull them down and give them life.” And despite a busy tour schedule that includes sold-out performances at venues such as Hollywood’s Hotel Café, Reeves is giving life to lot of songs these days, both for himself as well as others. “Whether you are writing for a girl or a guy, you have to capture the voice of the artist singing,” says Reeves. Once voice Jason has successfully captured is that of Colbie Caillat, who happened to be the second person he met upon arriving in California.During a recording session with producer Mikal Blue, Reeves met Colbie, (whose father, Ken, is Blue’s studio partner and co-producer of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors) and an immediate friendship began. The Reeves-Caillat-Blue trio soon became inseparable; writing songs and recording together every chance they had.“Mikal and Colbie were the only people I knew in LA,” Reeves says.“We spent a lot of time together, just going to the beach, the mountains, the woods, playing guitar and writing songs.”The songs, inspired by the beauty of the California Coast, formed the foundation for Reeves’ first EP Hearts Are Magnets, as well as Caillat’s breakthrough (and nearly double-platinum) album Coco, on which Reeves co-wrote the majority of tracks including the multi-format smash singles “Bubbly” and “Realize.” The son of a Maytag worker and a food stylist, Reeves’ songwriting sensibility harkens back to a time when people wrote “Old-Fashioned Letters” and employed a more poetic way of expressing feelings.Reeves, part of a new generation of musicians reminiscent of the 1970’s Laurel Canyon scene, balances his romantic sentiments with raw hurt on a number of tracks where a relationship goes bad and his lover commits the ultimate sin, striking a match “as she is covering my heart with ‘Gasoline.’” Subject matter that is deep yet resonates; hook-filled melodies and Jason’s unmistakable vocals caused Reeves’ music to instantly engage the MySpace community and propelled him to #1 on the MySpace Folk chart (unsigned) for 9 months prior to his record deal, and kept him consistently in the Top 5 Acoustic (unsigned) and Top 20 Overall (unsigned) categories. But with the story exploding on a daily basis, the reserved Iowan takes it all in stride: “I’m just a simple boy that believes in love and dreams.”
Brendan James With his warm, rich tenor and emotionally powerful songs, Brendan James announces himself as an artist-to-watch on his dazzling debut album The Day Is Brave. Rooted in the classic singer/songwriter tradition, with its introspective lyrics and unforgettable melodies, the album is 11 tracks of stunning songcraft: elegant, earthy, and displaying a total lack of artifice that is rare in the pop world these days. Influenced by the understated simplicity of the Carly Simon, James Taylor, and Carole King records he grew up with, James knew he wanted his debut to sound natural and unaffected. "The phrase 'stripped-down' is so overused, and 'bare-bones' doesn't really describe it," he says, "but I wanted the simplicity of the art to come through. I wanted it to have tasteful blend of folk and pop influences." James, who grew up in Derry, NH, accomplishes all that and more on The Day Is Brave, which was produced by Mikal Blue (Colbie Caillat, Five For Fighting, Augustana). Dominated by James' expressive piano playing, the songs touch on a wide range of subjects, many of them autobiographical, like "Green," about a former girlfriend that he met while working at Urban Outfitters, who came from a troubled family and always wore something green, and "Take the Fall," which ponders a person's responsibility to others in these quickly changing times. That sort of earnest reflection also finds its way into "Manchester," about the town in New Hampshire where James spent most of his time after his parents divorced, and the ballad "The Sun Will Rise" — a song so affecting, the music supervisor of the hit ABC show Private Practice used it in a particularly poignant scene in seasons final episode of 2007. Another album highlight is "The Other Side," a playful tune James wrote about not being cool. "I did not fit in in high school," he admits, "and it's just about that moment when you wake up on the other side of life and are like, 'Man, I don't have to deal with that anymore.'" Other standout tracks include "Early April Morning," a deeply felt love song, and "Hero's Song," a soldier's-eye view of the Iraq war that concludes: "I cannot die this way, no I will not die this way" amid somber trumpet tones. "I don't really consider myself a storyteller," James says. "Arlo Guthrie is a storyteller. But I do hope my songs encourage people to feel, and to ask questions." Though James was always told he had a powerful voice, he didn't begin writing songs until his sophomore year at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. While at home in Derry on Christmas break, James was approached by a local music teacher, Kevin Kandel, who had heard him sing "Candle in the Wind" at the funeral for James' best friend's mother. "Kevin said to me, 'I can't get your voice out of my head. You have something very unique inside of you and I think you should learn to play an instrument and try to write your own songs.' We then spent the whole night listening to hundreds of records by classic artists like the Beatles and Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder, and he'd point out the phrasing and songwriting style of each one. By the next morning, I was hooked. It just fueled this thing inside me and I went back to school with a brand-new fire." James taught himself to play piano and took a year off from school to spend time in L.A. writing songs. "I was so passionate about songwriting, I wanted to get involved in the music scene and start performing," he says. In 2002, he returned to Chapel Hill, graduated, and moved to New York City, where he toiled at Urban Outfitters by day and performed at open mics around Manhattan's East Village at night. To gain access to a piano to practice, James would sneak into hotel ballrooms around the city. "I'd dress to look like a guest at the Plaza Hotel, so I could walk in there unnoticed," he says. In 2003, James' manager was able to get a demo James had made to Carly Simon at her home on Martha's Vineyard "just to see what would happen," James says with a laugh. Two weeks later, he received a call from the legendary singer/songwriter, who told him that she couldn't get enough of his voice and had begun singing his songs around the house. "It was surreal," James recalls. "She was so complimentary, not only of my voice, but of the songs. She told me I needed to keep writing." Simon asked James to come to Martha's Vineyard, where the two recorded a version of her Oscar-winning song "Let the River Run," for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. Encouraged by his new mentor, James continued to write and perform and eventually caught the attention of Capitol Records, which signed him to a recording contract in 2005. However, when the infrastructure at the label imploded, James became a free agent. Seeing a golden opportunity, he took the money from his termination agreement with Capitol and recorded As Oceans Rise on his dime and his own terms, enlisting producer Mikal Blue before James even knew how, or if, the album would be released. Blue, who would go on to score a platinum record with Colbie Caillat, helped James capture the intimacy of his live performance. "I said to Mikal, 'I've done a lot of shows over the last few years and I want to give the audience as real and genuine a performance as possible when it comes to the vocals and piano playing.' And what I like most about Mikal is that he really listens to the artist and tries to figure out how to give them what they want." James finished tracking the songs on The Day Is Brave in June and released a four-song digital EP via iTunes, entitled The Ballroom Break-In in honor of his days sneaking into hotel ballrooms. The EP reached 13 on iTunes' Alternative/Pop chart and the digital retailer's editorial staff dubbed James a top singer/songwriter to watch in 2008. Since then, James, who's played with Carly Simon, Joss Stone, Corrine Bailey Rae, Robert Cray, and Keb Mo, among others, has kept busy performing in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Chapel Hill as he waits for The Day Is Brave to be released by his new label Decca/ Velour Records. "It feels great to make this record on my own terms," James says. "These songs have been pent up in my mind for years and to get them finished and out there for people to hear is extremely exciting. I'm looking forward to playing for anyone that will listen." |
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