9. Jason Anderson
“July 4, 2004”
www.wolfcolonel.com

Jason Anderson is like the Johnny Appleseed of music. The 27-year-old loves nothing more than touring and performing (currently in Europe with Dylan Metrano (Tiger Saw) and Kimya Dawson (Moldy Peaches)). Wiry and energetic, his live performances are case studies in audience participation, regularly inciting the ecstatic crowd to clap, snap, boo-yeah, scream, and sing on cue. Anderson’s earnest, no-frills rock songs sound for all the world like a nouveau lo-fi Bruce Springsteen. Everyone leaves their first Jason Anderson show knowing the words to at least one of his songs.

Raised in the Lake Sunapee region, he made  his name on the West Coast as Wolf Colonel, releasing five albums on the Olympia, Wash., label K Records. Now he’s back in Newburyport, Mass., pulling out all the stops. This summer, he and friend Dylan Metrano of Tiger Saw offered Rock Camp for teens, inspired by the Northwest’s Rock and Roll Camp for Girls. The idea, he says, is “to encourage aspiring musicians whose sole definition of success may very well be limited to what they see on MTV and read in Rolling Stone.”

He seems to be inspired by everything around him, which makes him passionate about the local scene and all things New Hampshire—from the Old Man of the Mountain to Storyland and Santa’s Village (“New Hampshire has the strangest, creepiest, most triumphant theme parks!” he once noted in an e-mail). On his horizon, he’s got four months of touring planned, plus recording (on his Web site, he asks, “and if anyone has ideas as to what I should do for my next record, please write! A concert? Electric? Acoustic? Full-band? Studio? So many songs! So many ideas!”).

He and a friend also dream of doing an all-New Hampshire tour of small bars in small towns this winter, from White River Junction to Bethlehem to Brookline. Who’s to say if it will happen—but with Anderson, you just wouldn’t be surprised.