Jason Falkner Takes on the Fab Four

THE LITE ALBUM Fans of power-pop favorite Jason Falkner (Jellyfish, the Grays) might have missed his latest album. Titled Bedtime With the Beatles: Instrumental Versions of Classic Beatles Songs, the CD—put out by kids’ label Sony Wonder—could easily be mistaken for Muzakish cheese. In fact, Falkner’s name doesn’t appear anywhere on the generic-looking cover or spine (there is, however, a ”Produced Arranged And Performed by…” credit on the back). ”I kind of like that it’s anonymous like that,” says Falkner, who also recently released Necessity: The 4-Track Years, a disc of archival home recordings. ”I didn’t want it to be, ‘Jason Falkner presents…’ I was torn, because in my experience these kinds of records are not something I’d want to listen to. A lot of them are kind of dumbed down. My biggest challenge was to not make it like one of those records.” Sure enough, Bedtime is a cut above other such projects, although it’s still unmistakably easy listening. Says Falkner: ”My objective was to not wake anybody up, which is the opposite of how you normally make a record.”