A natural frontman who's also one of the most down to earth people you could meet, Jason is a something of a legendary figure in the DIY scene, earning friends, fans, and sometimes fanatics one transcendent show at a time. In the absence of publicists or an agent, word of mouth and video footage have mostly had to tell the story. One popular YouTube clip shows Anderson orchestrating a huge sing-along around a bonfire in the middle of the woods, another shows him tearing through Jackie Wilson's Higher and Higher at a New Year's Eve party while the packed house goes ballistic. Others find him in backyards, in overflowing art spaces and tiny bars, sometimes, literally, leading rapturous audiences out into the street.
All the while, Anderson has been steadily releasing off-the-radar gems, lo-fi epics like Omaha and Summer Style that have become cherished collections amongst his devoted and steadily growing audience. What's so exciting about Anderson's new material is that it feels simultaneously like both a debut and a capstone by an artist who has found his voice. Reappraising old songs from Anderson's catalog—fan favorites like Watch Your Step, El Paso, This Will Never Be Our Town, or July 4, 2004—it's apparent that he’s always been a writer in the Paul Westerberg tradition of rugged, romantic rock ‘n’ roll storytellers. Recent recordings have seen Anderson lucidly, euphorically playing to his strengths as a gifted storyteller and earworm melodicist. It sounds like Jason knows exactly what he wants to say and how he wants to say it, and the results are breathtaking.
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