The Bonkers Musical Universe of Jason Beers

 

When you visit Jason Beers’ bandcamp page, you are struck by the bizarre, somewhat feral imagery of the record album art, beguiled and mystified by the names of album and titles, then blown away by the endless display of album covers as you scroll and scroll and scroll through more than 120 albums he’s released.

You wonder what rabbit hole you fell into, and who are all these oddball characters on these recordings? Garth Dohlie? Jumbo "Puny" O'Dainty? Mrs. Helen Marf?  It’s all Jason, inhabiting the many musical personas he’s created. 

He not only invents these fictional artists, he also creates a whole backstory and bio for them, and records entire albums of their material, whether it be surfer rock, farmer rap, or timpani music.  No genre or concept is too strange for Jason to breathe life into it, if it’s something that would amuse him. He gets an idea of something that does not exist in this world, but that he would very much like to hear, and so he heads right down into his home recording studio and makes it happen.

I was lucky enough to hear about Jason's creative madness firsthand when he joined my sister and me on our  podcast, Lost Prairie Signal. We explored his interests and influences, from Mad magazine to Sasquatch to an obscure Vienna, Missouri musician named Tom Coffey. 

On top of all that, Jason also records earnest music under his own name, performs with several Kansas City bands, and is a mean banjo player.  

The album covers pictured above are just a small sampling of Jason's prolific output. The rest can be viewed on his bandcamp page. 

Check out our fascinating conversation with Jason on the Lost Prairie Signal podcast.