photo by Kat Buchanan
story by Ingrid Holmquist
Jason Meyer is not a bird. He is also not a plane.
Gone are the capes of years past. Masks from the earlier days of his band Talking Mountain lie dormant on the basement floor of his Omaha home.
At concerts these days, with his fog machine spewing and lasers blinding, Meyer cuts a different but recurring sense of style through the colored smoke.
“It’s funny to see photos from a few different shows where I’ve got the same clothes on,” Meyer says, “like a cartoon character.”
photo by Shelby Wolfe
The vibrant colors on his gear and on his person further illustrate his point. Whether it’s the bright yellow rain jacket that “makes him feel like a fisherman” or the old Mickey Mouse T-shirt he wears to acoustic shows, Meyer’s repertoire of clothing tends to repeat and establishes his own look.
“I come from a visual/artistic background, so personally, doing some sort of ‘band’ without a visual aesthetic doesn’t make sense to me,” Meyer says.
Meyer is an artist by day, but you won’t find him in an art gallery. Instead, he works for Urban Outfitters, where he builds the Omaha store's sculptural art installations. He also enjoys traveling across the country to plan for aesthetic changes in shops nationwide.
While he occasionally peruses the Urban Outfitters sale racks for striped shirts and thin pants, he said he rarely buys anything without making alterations. He laughs as he talks about altering his music gear, too, by painting his more vintage instruments, which thereby lowers their value.
In turn, Meyer appreciates bands that embrace DIY and innovation in their work.
“I like to find bands that have a hand in every aspect of what they’re doing,” Meyer says. “How things sound, how things look, making their own videos, making their own merch, recording in their basement or bedroom.”
A "'90s boy," Meyer says, Meyer says he was influenced by all the K Records, an independent record label based out of Olympia, Washington that is a self-proclaimed “passionate revolt against the corporate ogre.” Meyer was officially swayed to join a band in high school after discovering Beat Happening. Having a variety of musical influences, such as Built to Spill, The Ramones, Love as Laughter, the Make-up, the Queers, Meyer says “everything changed when I found Jonathan Richman.”
“I’ve seen him play countless times,” he says. “All of that definitely shaped my brain into its basic form that it still exists in today.”
Meyer quit playing live shows around 2003. He worked on a solo project of recorded songs that Meyer eventually released online. Soon after, people started requesting that Meyer take the stage again, he says. Meyer had friends eager to entertain a crowd. Since then, lots of people have been in and out of Talking Mountain, though Meyer has most recently performed solo.
Today, Meyer’s musical style is more affected by bands such as Mount Eerie, The Flaming Lips and Jason Lytle/Grandaddy.
Now Talking Mountain is working toward a new album. Distributed by Saddle Creek, the new album, Mysterious Knowledge/Unknown Colors, is set to officially release on March 26. Like many of Meyer’s projects and possessions, the physical album is handmade.
photo by Kat Buchanan
Meyer’s sound has changed slightly over the years, but he presents a visually appealing show as always. Cue the lasers, lights and, of course, Meyer’s fashion sense.
“If a band shows up in cutoffs and flip-flops, I may be less likely to pay attention,” Meyer says, explaining why he deliberates over what to wear. “I can go to the grocery store and find people in cutoffs and flip-flops who are probably doing weirder and more interesting things than that band.”
Ingrid Holmquist is a Hear Nebraska intern. Her favorite cartoon growing up was the Rugrats and her least favorite was Ren and Stimpy. Reach her at ingridh@hearnebraska.org.