Jason Bemis Lawrence profile picture

Jason Bemis Lawrence

About Me

New York City drummer and multi-instrumentalist Jason Lawrence was born in Louisville, KY.
He loves his hometown.
He has recently played shows and toured with Dean & Britta, Dawn Landes, Caithlin DeMarrais, Balthrop Alabama, The Caledonia Mission, The Kelsey Jillette Group, Moby, April Smith and the Great Picture Show, El May, The Ne'er Do Evers.
In 2007 Jason graduated from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music where he studied jazz with Ari Hoenig, Reggie Workman, Carl Allen, Buster Williams, Chico Hamilton, Ben Street, Junior Mance, Rory Stuart, Bobby Sanabria and many more.
He can be heard playing drums on recent recordings by El May, Caithlin DeMarrais, Balthrop Alabama, The Caledonia Mission, and the New School Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra with special guest Sonny Fortune. Jason is a current member of Balthrop Alabama, the Kelsey Jillette Group, The Caledonia Mission.
In the summer of 2009 he performed on drums, bass and guitar for Dean and Britta's "13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests" at the LA Film Festival.
Balthrop, Alabama has toured extensively all over the country in the last year and a half.
In 2008, he toured Australia with El May, including opening for Feist at a sold-out show at the Metro in Sydney.
Jason continues to play, write, work, build.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 25/07/2006
Influences: Brian Blade, Philly Joe Jones, Glenn Kotche, Carl Allen, Larry Levis, Radiohead, The Beatles, U2, Tony Williams, Rob Collier, Wayne Shorter, Chet Baker, Elvin Jones, Jason Tiemann, Anthony LaMarca, Bob Dylan, Levon Helm, Bela Bartok, Kurt Vonnegut. That's not even the beginning
Type of Label: Unsigned

My Blog

We played with Feist

OK, I've just had a nice day off during which I completely randomly ran into El May herself and one Mr. Kyle Fischer near the Sydney Opera House, I've just shared a nice bottle of New Zealand Sauvigno...
Posted by on Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:51:00 GMT

Approaching the half way point of the tour

The last week has gone fast here in Melbourne! After the show with Explosions in the Sky, I enjoyed several days on my own in Melbourne, seeing sights, eating Australian food, shopping a little bit, w...
Posted by on Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:50:00 GMT

Rocked it

El May played our first show of the Australian tour at the Corner in Melbourne on Saturday night. Gillian arrived from Sydney that morning and the three of us had a long rehearsal to put the finishing...
Posted by on Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:46:00 GMT

El May in Melbourne

Lara and I got up very early this morning to fly from Sydney to Melbourne. I somehow didn't realize exactly what time we were supposed to leave (man, I guess it is really not possible for me to surviv...
Posted by on Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:43:00 GMT

I am in Sydney

So, I've just met up with Lara in Sydney and we are going to start El May rehearsals in a little more than an hour. It's almost 8pm here and almost 4am in NYC so I'm a little tired and discombobulated...
Posted by on Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:44:00 GMT

Bemis Down Under!

Some already know that the wonderful, awesome, generous, amazing, etc etc El May (Lara Meyerratken) is taking me to Australia to play shows in a little more than a week. Oh my good gracious!!! I will ...
Posted by on Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:30:00 GMT

Curb

Finally saw the first episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, season 6. I'm a bit of a diehard fan but I must admit that my interest--and I have heard the same from others--was waning a little in s...
Posted by on Thu, 22 Nov 2007 11:33:00 GMT

top friends

Sitting at home late on a Friday listening to a new remastered version of John Whitaker's record, to be released in Spain, thinking about the show (concert? benefit? whatever you call it) I just playe...
Posted by on Sat, 17 Nov 2007 01:11:00 GMT

galapagos

Man, just finished Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos. Is it me or did he totally nail it with that one? I mean I've read pretty much all of them (including the play "Happy Birthday Wanda June," thank you Wash...
Posted by on Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:33:00 GMT