This year’s Music in the Park in Paris is slated to be a high-talent affair, says organizer and sponsor Jason Christensen. The show’s lineup features bluegrass whizzes Gibbsarippin’, and headliner Jordan Matthew Young.
“Getting Jordan here is a big deal,” said Christensen (no relation to Phillip on this page). “He made it to number three on ‘The Voice.’ He’s played for me for years in Utah, where I used to do the Beaver Mountain Festival. Before he got super famous, he’d played for me already, so I had a little pull there. And this is a chance to bring a caliber of talent that’s pretty unusual for a small-town show.”
This is Christensen’s second year operating the KM Ranch produce and supply store in Paris; in years prior he’s been creating and expanding Kiesha’s Preserve for wildlife in Paris Canyon. “The community has supported us, and I’m huge on giving back. We sponsor the high school rodeo kids, we sponsor a bunch of 4H kids, and we pay for this music on the Fourth of July.”
In an earlier life, Christensen was himself a performer.
“I was a deejay in the ‘90s,” he said. “I opened for the Beastie Boys on the ‘Hello Nasty’ tour—all sixteen shows. I played all over the world in the ’90s.”
Did he play any instruments?
“No no, on that I’m white as a sheet. I practiced forty hours a week to get out as a deejay on the road. And I never was a perfect deejay. I come from a Grateful Dead background, rather than a hip-hop background, which most of them at that time were coming from. My sets instead of [an up and down trajectory], I’d be like [constant rising trajectory]...and then drop you off the other side. I played a lot of four- and six-hour sets.”
On early musical experiences and growing up:
“I went to 282 Grateful Dead shows before Jerry died. My father—my foster dad—used to take me. My dad was married seven times before I was fifteen; I got kicked out of my house at fifteen. I kept going to school, I had a job, and didn’t miss a day of school. They found out I was living alone at seventeen, and they put me in foster care. That’s how my foster dad and I hooked up. He said, If you want to party on Friday, fine, but on Monday you gotta get straight A’s. I said, Okay, I can do that.”
Realizing we’d been at several of the same shows in 1995, this writer asked if Christensen passed through Las Vegas during his deejay days. “Yeah, we used to play this crazy club there. It was...well I don’t remember much—it was the ‘90s.” Presumably this was due to his advanced age and the intervening years.
In large part Christensen’s environmental efforts are channeled through Yellowstone To Uintas Connection, whose core mission is to protect the wildlife corridor between Greater Yellowstone and the Uinta Wilderness. Christensen co-founded the organization with his father, and now serves as executive director.
“I critique environmental impact statements and environmental assessments on BLM and state land, on behalf of wildlife and on behalf of keeping it like this,” he said, gesturing to the land around the valley.
Jordan Matthew Young and Gibbsarippin’ play for free in the Paris city park, July 2 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.