Combining catchy, oddball melodies with obscure but cohesive chord changes. All of this matched with existential and surrealistic lyrical content.  To me, this is the best kind of music, and I once heard a tip that you should try to make the kind of music you want to hear.”   Jeff Beam grew up in a small town in the woods. At one point in his youth, he realized he could not dance very well. But before he could be paralyzed by this painful reality, this thought entered his head: “you don’t need to dance if you’re the one making the music!”    Thus, a musician was born.  Due to his parents’ constant barrage of The Beatles “White Album,” Electric Light Orchestra, The Who’s Tommy, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when he was still just in swaddling clothes, Beam suspects that his mother and father attempted to infiltrate his developing young mind with beautiful melodies, hoping that they would stick and perhaps one day generate new melodies in the same vein as these classic offenders.  The success of their dastardly plan is played out over Venus Flying Trapeze, Beam’s newest LP.  Presented is a 12-song psychedelic affair; the songs feature melodies that are warped and catchy, placed on top of clever chord changes that find new ways to come together.  The Brooklyn-via-Boston-via-Maine musician has drawn comparisons to the studio musings and melodic flourishes of Elliott Smith and Harry Nilsson.  His music also brings to mind the vigor of a young Elvis Costello, and the unconventionality of Beck and The Flaming Lips.   At 23 years of age, Beam already boasts a broad discography. Aside from a handful of self-produced full-length solo albums, he also fronted the Boston-based The Stereo Flys. The year of 2010 was fruitful; aside from the recording of Venus Flying Trapeze, The Stereo Flys released Hello Greetings From A Bunker and subsequently embarked on a three-week summer tour of the United States.   Described by one reviewer as “a mad scientist/multi-instrumentalist”, Jeff Beam’s catalog of psychedelic pop nuggets are packed with aural experiments ripe for a good pair of headphones. Venus Flying Trapeze, along with all of Jeff Beam’s other albums, is available at jeffbeam.bandcamp.com.