NME, March 19, 1994
By John Mulvey.
Contributed by Sai
"I'm a loser baaay-beee!" JEFF BUCKLEY is staggering down a freezing New Jersey street, swathed in a huge furry coat, scaring small children and turning Beck's dumb-ass anthem into a bellowing operatic aria. He's not a loser by a long way, but he is an incredible misfit.
Buckley doesn't fit any comfortable stereotypes of what either a singer-or a human being come to that-should be. Watch him live as, accompanied by only himself on electric guitar, his voice swoops and sobs with an extraordinary passion. It's like Mark Eitzel possessed by the spirit of Otis Redding. His natural father, Tim Buckley, re-invented folk music on his own terms in the late '60s and early '70s, flying off on wild jazz tangents with a nerve-damaging voice. And now Jeff is scrambling expectations as a post-punk troubadour. When he sings, it's as remarkable as anything you'll hear all year. Honestly.
Meet Jeff Buckley offstage-distant, lost, swinging from an idealistic hippy intensity to a parallel universe sense of humor-and you'll find a weird wired loner totally out of step with the world: "Not even behind, or ahead...just not...in sync," as he puts it in his own charismatic, pause-punctuated way. He's a star...by accident.
Buckley grew up in southern California, shunted from school to school and town to town by his wandering mother and stepfather. He met his father once, when he was six or seven, towards the end of Tim's maverick life.
"He left before I was born, and he never wrote or called or anything. I met him for a week, and he sat me on his knee but we really didn't talk. I didn't really go to him for inspiration or instruction, but yeah...I've got the same parts..."
By his mid-teens, Buckley had been to over a dozen schools, including a spell in Anaheim, home of Disneyland and a place he calls "A well-spring of hatred for me, because of its straightness and conservatism and how debilitating that is to any artistic soul (Ahhhhh-Ed)." And at every school he was a misfit.
"Maybe it's because I just have a different experience of people. When I see them I see...their mothers and fathers, I see how old they are inside. It's strange, it's like seeing ghosts everywhere. I don't go on what people say so much, I go on their voice, I go on their energy.
"And sometimes when I talk," he says, completely deadpan, "I just don't make sense."
What do you see when you look in the mirror?
"A little geeky kid. Er, an old man...Both. Sometimes I see...a really sexually obsessed woman."
Does that ever come out?
"Oh yeah, when I sing. I just see sex in everything, it's the energy that surrounds everything. I appreciate sex like I appreciate my skin, and my teeth, and my dreams."
Meanwhile, back in the material world...Buckley left California in his late teens, arrived in New York's arty East Village, dumped the bands that were dragging him down and picked up a vast and suitably eclectic selection of influences-"The typical holy trinity of Beatles, Hendrix and Zeppelin. Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Edith Piaf, Bob Dylan, the Pistols, Duke Ellington, the Velvets, Pixies, I'm a Patti Smith freak-f-reak!"
He also picked up a mad and ragged band of followers, thanks to his status as a freak magnet.
"My identity, my soul, welcomes...extraordinary, possibly dangerous, possibly stupid experiences. And New York is full of beautiful strange people. Like Quentin Crisp, Allen Ginsberg, like The Tree Man, a street guy who's a good luck charm. If you're ever in New York and you see him, tip him and you'll have good luck with the rest of the evening. He walks around with various shrubbery strapped to his back that shoots out over his head like a crown of ferns, or huge palm fronds or flowers."
Buckley's about to leave all this behind for a while to bring his mesmerizing show to Britain for a few low-key dates. His album-with a band-is just about finished and set for a June release, and a live EP, that goes some way to catching all this fantastic, pretentious, ambitious, endlessly beautiful music, is out any day now on Big Cat. Don't miss any of it.
Do you want to be a star Jeff?
"That's secondary. No, I wanna find these things that I smell way in the distance, I wanna dig to them, I wanna swim down to them, I want to drown in them."
Do you think you take things too seriously?
He pauses then stares intently, with his father's eyes. "I don't know what that means."
No mere mortal without a doubt.
By John Mulvey.
Contributed by Sai
"I'm a loser baaay-beee!" JEFF BUCKLEY is staggering down a freezing New Jersey street, swathed in a huge furry coat, scaring small children and turning Beck's dumb-ass anthem into a bellowing operatic aria. He's not a loser by a long way, but he is an incredible misfit.
Buckley doesn't fit any comfortable stereotypes of what either a singer-or a human being come to that-should be. Watch him live as, accompanied by only himself on electric guitar, his voice swoops and sobs with an extraordinary passion. It's like Mark Eitzel possessed by the spirit of Otis Redding. His natural father, Tim Buckley, re-invented folk music on his own terms in the late '60s and early '70s, flying off on wild jazz tangents with a nerve-damaging voice. And now Jeff is scrambling expectations as a post-punk troubadour. When he sings, it's as remarkable as anything you'll hear all year. Honestly.
Meet Jeff Buckley offstage-distant, lost, swinging from an idealistic hippy intensity to a parallel universe sense of humor-and you'll find a weird wired loner totally out of step with the world: "Not even behind, or ahead...just not...in sync," as he puts it in his own charismatic, pause-punctuated way. He's a star...by accident.
Buckley grew up in southern California, shunted from school to school and town to town by his wandering mother and stepfather. He met his father once, when he was six or seven, towards the end of Tim's maverick life.
"He left before I was born, and he never wrote or called or anything. I met him for a week, and he sat me on his knee but we really didn't talk. I didn't really go to him for inspiration or instruction, but yeah...I've got the same parts..."
By his mid-teens, Buckley had been to over a dozen schools, including a spell in Anaheim, home of Disneyland and a place he calls "A well-spring of hatred for me, because of its straightness and conservatism and how debilitating that is to any artistic soul (Ahhhhh-Ed)." And at every school he was a misfit.
"Maybe it's because I just have a different experience of people. When I see them I see...their mothers and fathers, I see how old they are inside. It's strange, it's like seeing ghosts everywhere. I don't go on what people say so much, I go on their voice, I go on their energy.
"And sometimes when I talk," he says, completely deadpan, "I just don't make sense."
What do you see when you look in the mirror?
"A little geeky kid. Er, an old man...Both. Sometimes I see...a really sexually obsessed woman."
Does that ever come out?
"Oh yeah, when I sing. I just see sex in everything, it's the energy that surrounds everything. I appreciate sex like I appreciate my skin, and my teeth, and my dreams."
Meanwhile, back in the material world...Buckley left California in his late teens, arrived in New York's arty East Village, dumped the bands that were dragging him down and picked up a vast and suitably eclectic selection of influences-"The typical holy trinity of Beatles, Hendrix and Zeppelin. Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Edith Piaf, Bob Dylan, the Pistols, Duke Ellington, the Velvets, Pixies, I'm a Patti Smith freak-f-reak!"
He also picked up a mad and ragged band of followers, thanks to his status as a freak magnet.
"My identity, my soul, welcomes...extraordinary, possibly dangerous, possibly stupid experiences. And New York is full of beautiful strange people. Like Quentin Crisp, Allen Ginsberg, like The Tree Man, a street guy who's a good luck charm. If you're ever in New York and you see him, tip him and you'll have good luck with the rest of the evening. He walks around with various shrubbery strapped to his back that shoots out over his head like a crown of ferns, or huge palm fronds or flowers."
Buckley's about to leave all this behind for a while to bring his mesmerizing show to Britain for a few low-key dates. His album-with a band-is just about finished and set for a June release, and a live EP, that goes some way to catching all this fantastic, pretentious, ambitious, endlessly beautiful music, is out any day now on Big Cat. Don't miss any of it.
Do you want to be a star Jeff?
"That's secondary. No, I wanna find these things that I smell way in the distance, I wanna dig to them, I wanna swim down to them, I want to drown in them."
Do you think you take things too seriously?
He pauses then stares intently, with his father's eyes. "I don't know what that means."
No mere mortal without a doubt.
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