Jeff was the first person to write about my music and the first person to have me on the radio for a live session. He was so kind, endlessly enthusiastic, and always present. We were in touch quite a bit throughout this year, including an email exchange just the week before he died. I have so many joyful memories of Jeff—one I’ll never forget is jamming with him at a fest in Kittery, Maine. Acts were scheduled to play all day but there was a delay in the start time. I asked Jeff if he wanted to “start a band” and we spontaneously got on stage for a short drums and keyboard duo set. It was just perfectly Jeff—he loved music so much and was such a fun hang. He’ll be missed by so many in the northeast and around the country. Rest easy, friend.
appearance: May 26, 2020
Breeze liner notes (from Bandcamp): I met Jason when he came back to the Northeast after spending his collegiate tenure in Oregon. He should have returned a conquering hero as Wolf Colonel was riding the release of a third album on K Records at the time. Maybe it was the fact that there was an overabundance of Lupine naming in the aughts and Wolf* bands were easily confused. Dropping the moniker, his live charisma quickly bridged that gap to the point where he had the whole of Strawberry Bank Park in Portsmouth singing along on the 4th of July within a couple years.
We showed up early to a festival in Kittery once. Like before any of the folks with the audio equipment did. Problem was there were already other people starting to linger around as well. Digging through the Lions Club closet, I found an old console organ that I plugged in and rolled out into the ballroom. Jason took to the drums and we improvised one of the most fun performances that I have still ever played. By the time I looked up, the PA had been put up and things got back on schedule. That joy of playing pours out of Jason all the time and I am so glad for that chance to share in it.
His unironic take on the title cut from Taylor Swift’s sophomore album, was the reason I wanted to get artists to step out of their comfort zone a little bit. We shared a good chat about our admiration for her songwriting and he even convinced me to finally watch the Netflix documentary that I’d been burying in my queue. Most of the really good parts of our chat get lost, but we talked for nearly an hour, so, needless to say, it required a bit of editing.