The Guitar Player's Resource
Jason Kelly is a guitarist from West Virginia who is using the Internet and all of its resources and services (YouTube, MySpace, etc.) to help find an audience for his music. He submitted a four-song demo CD-R of instrumental rock songs that he multi-tracked with a simple, bare-bones beat box backing. He writes in a melodic rock style, shunning the shred techniques so popular in the instrumental guitar community in favor of songs which are closer to vocal tunes in style and substance ("Far Apart", "Where Is The Sky?"). An exception might be the last track on his demo, "Endgame", with its harmonized guitar parts and metallic main riff, but it doesn't have the expected guitar solo and has an unfinished feel (it clocks in at 2:38). It might be a good idea for Kelly, at this point, to try to 'round out' his demo songs by collaborating with other musicians in his area.
Born in 1974 in Cleveland, Ohio, Jason began playing guitar seriously at the age of 17. He practiced up to 16 hours a day, until he literally couldn't feel his fingers anymore, and would then study music theory the rest of the time! By the time he was 19 he began giving lessons. After surviving a serious car accident around Christmas 2005, in which he and his family were hit by a drunk driver, Jason has approached his music with a new energy, determined not to procrastinate any further, reaffirming that life is unpredictable. Jason is currently working on his first album and the demo versions of the songs can be heard on his MySpace page, and ordered from there in the form of a 5-song CD. He states, "Through outlets such as MySpace and YouTube, I've reached an audience I wouldn't have had access to otherwise. It's often a surreal feeling, that I can write and record something, and almost instantly have it receive thousands of listens and comments."
Kelly is currently writing and recording new material, as well as redoing the material from the demos that appear on his web site. He hopes to eventually obtain a recording contract and to tour, in order to reach even more people with his music.
Jason Kelly
United States
Web site: www.myspace.com/jasonsnewmusic