Jason Baskin/Bard Eclectic is a musician who I first saw at a skater-stoner bar in St. Joseph, Missouri called Sk8bar back in March 2023. It was an open-mic show where anyone could go up and perform a song or two, or however many one wished. Baskin had a setup of keys, loopers, and other pedals. Once the music started, it was unlike anything I had heard before on the Sk8bar stage: a combination of synthesizer, percussion, melodica, and soulful vocals - all performed by one man.
On Friday, April 5, Baskin performed at The Black Pony Brewery in Maryville, Missouri. I went to the show and interviewed him about the gig, musical influences, and his approach to music.
Bard Eclectic’s artist bio has this excerpt:
Bard Eclectic is a canvas for the creative output of multi-instrumental composer-performer-educator Jason Baskin.
Built around themes like agency, self-discovery, relationships, cats, language, and a genre-blended repertoire of original music, selected covers, improvisation, and ever-shifting instrumentation, no two BE shows are alike. Supporters are encouraged to attend more than one performance in the St. Joseph and Kansas City, MO area to see the fuller scope of the project, but a “default” solo performance involves percussion, keyboard, looper, and vocals, occasionally growing or reducing to include steel drum, mandolin, flower pots, special guest performers, and more.
Currently focused on live shows and original social media content, BE is also in development stages for a series of albums, a novelized storyline, and music education outreach.
I interviewed Baskin after the show:
KP: Have you played in Maryville before? What did you expect?
Baskin: I’ve never played in Maryville before, but I’ve been interested in getting a feel for its music scene. I expected a preference for country music and classic rock, which seemed reinforced by conversations and a survey of the performances at local venues, though I still felt welcomed there.
There seems to be a strong and mutually supportive connection between the town and Northwest Missouri State University, which could draw a wider palette of musicians to the area, but I imagine many visiting musicians approach either the university or local venues for performance opportunities, and not both. I think that’s common in smaller towns with universities, whereas that barrier is thinner in a more metropolitan area like KC.
KP: What was something unique about the show?
Baskin: I think every Bard Eclectic show is pretty unique already, but it’s less common for me to do an extended performance than one set either alone or in a multi-act show. Getting to fill three hours was fun—I think this was my third three-hour show—and it gave me a chance to explore wider instrumentation and a much larger contour of sound over my set list. With it having been my first show in Maryville, I wanted to offer a more comprehensive representation of my music. The middle set, my fifth iteration of “Strand” (a set-long improvisation depicting a journey across desert and ocean), has always been a one-set presentation in a multi-act show, so I enjoyed including it as part of a bigger Bard Eclectic performance for Black Pony.