😊💗
Monday, April 30, 2018
Sunday, April 29, 2018
In At The Deep End
Mojo, August, 1994
By Martin Aston
Submitted by Ana
Aware he could be unfairly accused of trading on the family name, Jeff Buckley, Tim Buckley's 27-year-old son, has spent the last three years honing his act in New York's folk clubs and cafes before unveiling his first recordings, The Live At Sin-e EP and his first album, Grace (out August 15), confirm an intensely mesmeric talent with a similarly wild, mercurial voice as his father's, but with his own blazing cache of wounded torch songs, restless rockers and wayward blues.
Did you always want to be a singer?
First there was my mother's breasts, then music. All my life, I sung to the radio. My mum, who was a classically-trained pianist and cellist, used to sing to me too. We'd drive to school with the radio on, playing mellow California stuff-Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills & Nash. I started singing at family gatherings-my stepfather would fall asleep and mum would get embarrassed, so I'd sing every Elton John song I knew. Singing onstage felt natural. It was like, "I'm going into the ocean, to the water!"
Has the subject of your father become a thorn in your side?
My dad left home when I was six months old and I only met him when I was eight, over Easter vacation, a total of nine days. Two months later he died. The people who knew him, they apparently have magic memories of him, but it's been a claustrophobic thing all my life. I guess my dad and I were born with the same parts, like some people have the same bone structure, but when I sing, it's me. Our expression is not the same. The thing is, I've got my own time, and if people expect me to get them off like he did they'll be disappointed. I'm just going to make the most intense, heartfelt statement I can.
You've amassed an amazing repertoire of covers, from The Smiths to Dylan, Billie Holiday to the Sex Pistols, with an Edith Piaf and Van Morrison track on the Sin-e EP.
I saw gifts dangling from those songs and I wanted to take them. Even though punk happened to me, and Robert Johnson too, I guess I wanted to be an archetypal entertainer, a bard, a minstrel, to be a really good storyteller, and those songs have great stories. Also I figured I wouldn't be able to meet these people so I learnt from them by hearing them sing.
I've read somewhere that Robert Plant was your greatest influence.
No, Led Zeppelin was just my favorite music when I was growing up. The thing about Led Zeppelin, and the Cocteaus too, is that they carried with them this unexplainable...thing, this spirit. They let their deepest eccentricities be the music itself. Everything I love and have heard about music-I want to leave it all behind and go someplace else. There's so much more, so many more ways of saying "I love you" or "where the hell do I fit in?" And it's nothing arty, nothing lofty, just fucking different
By Martin Aston
Submitted by Ana
Aware he could be unfairly accused of trading on the family name, Jeff Buckley, Tim Buckley's 27-year-old son, has spent the last three years honing his act in New York's folk clubs and cafes before unveiling his first recordings, The Live At Sin-e EP and his first album, Grace (out August 15), confirm an intensely mesmeric talent with a similarly wild, mercurial voice as his father's, but with his own blazing cache of wounded torch songs, restless rockers and wayward blues.
Did you always want to be a singer?
First there was my mother's breasts, then music. All my life, I sung to the radio. My mum, who was a classically-trained pianist and cellist, used to sing to me too. We'd drive to school with the radio on, playing mellow California stuff-Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills & Nash. I started singing at family gatherings-my stepfather would fall asleep and mum would get embarrassed, so I'd sing every Elton John song I knew. Singing onstage felt natural. It was like, "I'm going into the ocean, to the water!"
Has the subject of your father become a thorn in your side?
My dad left home when I was six months old and I only met him when I was eight, over Easter vacation, a total of nine days. Two months later he died. The people who knew him, they apparently have magic memories of him, but it's been a claustrophobic thing all my life. I guess my dad and I were born with the same parts, like some people have the same bone structure, but when I sing, it's me. Our expression is not the same. The thing is, I've got my own time, and if people expect me to get them off like he did they'll be disappointed. I'm just going to make the most intense, heartfelt statement I can.
You've amassed an amazing repertoire of covers, from The Smiths to Dylan, Billie Holiday to the Sex Pistols, with an Edith Piaf and Van Morrison track on the Sin-e EP.
I saw gifts dangling from those songs and I wanted to take them. Even though punk happened to me, and Robert Johnson too, I guess I wanted to be an archetypal entertainer, a bard, a minstrel, to be a really good storyteller, and those songs have great stories. Also I figured I wouldn't be able to meet these people so I learnt from them by hearing them sing.
I've read somewhere that Robert Plant was your greatest influence.
No, Led Zeppelin was just my favorite music when I was growing up. The thing about Led Zeppelin, and the Cocteaus too, is that they carried with them this unexplainable...thing, this spirit. They let their deepest eccentricities be the music itself. Everything I love and have heard about music-I want to leave it all behind and go someplace else. There's so much more, so many more ways of saying "I love you" or "where the hell do I fit in?" And it's nothing arty, nothing lofty, just fucking different
Thursday, April 26, 2018
The Dream of Music That Becomes Dream
Rockerilla, October, 1994
By Antonio Vivaldi
Submitted by Sai
Translated by Sol and me
Jeff Buckley does not want questions about his father, just those questions that everyone would like to ask. And deep down he's right, given that the EP "Live at Sin-é" and the album "Grace" presents us a mature artist without too much debt to anyone. If the voice then reminds us of dad, better then for Jeff , in any case, another important (and very recognized) influence is that of Robert Plant's iron tonsils. Some will argue that a beginner with another last name would not have had such an easy access to Sony Columbia (not to mention the many representatives of other record labels sent to see him in Sin-é) nor 5 pages of passionate praise about his music by the great Bill Flanagan ("He liked it a lot," Jeff explains.) The counter-objection is not difficult considering that the major record labels in his career to catch the latest underground phenomenon, lately have signed big, useless contracts, and that the music press has been stuck in the game. As well as all those who entered the Rock Planet in Milan with "Starsailor" more in mind than "Grace", they came out sincerely excited at the spectacle of a boy still immature but full of exuberance and capable of a completely satisfying vocal virtuosity that induces applause (thinking it ok years ago that he did not listen to applaud a singer). And to continue the comparisons with other promises of rock, Jeff never plays to become the boring rock star who talks to reporters just because he must. On the contrary, he seems willing to change the game, saying more than what was expected, making you forget the usual questions about the next album and about the next tour. The frame of the interview is quite bizarre: A bar that is not ashamed to display banners and pennants of Forza, Italy, two Japanese who scream like crazy and study the soles of newly purchased shoes and three young girls at the table next to them. They eat with their eyes the beautiful young foreigner busy changing the strings of the guitar and talking about who knows what in front of two microphones. The flow of consciousness of Jeff, unfortunately interrupted in the best part by a rather unfriendly manager, has affected it coming and going. Anyway we reach some essential points: NEW YORK "I came to New York in 1991 and it meant a lot to me. It's said that New Yorkers are unpleasant people, I think that's not true, in New York there are so many things to do and to see that you end up excluding everything that doesn't interest you. It happened to me too, to be judged as incompetent, and in that period I really was.This is especially true in the Lower East Side, where everyone is caught in their own vision.There is a lot of creativity in the air and there are also many thefts of ideas, but this is also part of the game. In Sin-é (small Irish bar in East Village where Jeff plays frequently) I have lived incredible moments, I have been simple and I have been complex, I have been happy and I have been depressed, but I learned a lot". THE MUSIC AND THE CONCERTS "To me, music is what veins are for blood, and a channel for my expressivity. I started composing horrible things at thirteen, and since then I've always been looking for the way in a kind of solo navigation. Gary Lucas created Gods and Monsters, which unfortunately did not last long, it was not a simple group but a great project and that's why it failed. In recent years I have improved a lot, especially in terms of vocal depth.When I arrived in New York I was nobody and, in a certain sense, I still am." THE PRODUCERS "The songs of Grace have been composed in the past two years, those written with Gary too. I took almost all the choices in the recording studio, the choice of the song sequence, darkness-light-darkness too, and Andy Wallace (producer who worked with Nirvana and White Zombie) contributed the most with his technical ability and knowledge. The ideas are mine, he led them in the right direction. I can blame him only for the two minute shortening of "Lover, You Should've Come Over". I loved that song like a newborn child, and I loved it the way it was, but Andy claimed that the last two minutes lacked lucidity and he finally got his own way. Anyway, when I perform live, the song comes back to its original length. The music world is like this: a medicine that you must take even if it has a very bad taste, a bad taste you eventually get used to. For the next album, I'm not going to work with Andy again because he's too expensive. I'd like to work with Hal Willner, but it will not be easy." THE MEDIA "It often happens that you meet people who are not familiar with what you do and who are outside the process of artistic creation, but sometimes the conversation becomes creative and the one who speaks to you manages to bring out things that you thought were forgotten or thought were unimportant. For the moment the routine of the interview does not bother me, the eventuality of being misunderstood is just one of the possible outcomes of this verbal transaction, in any case, I am still not tired of talking about myself and my music." THE SONGS OF OTHERS "With some songs I grew up and the ones I chose to record or sing live meant something important to me beyond musical value. "Hallelujah" by John Cale, for example, I learned it in New York after spending a year working in Sin-é, a very particular and terrible day, a day when I found myself crying like a child and that song expresses exactly how I felt. A title like "Hallelujah" seems to refer to the church, to morality, but inside inside that song there is a deep humanity, there is the idea of making love, losing love, being crucified. Leonard wrote ten verses for that song and I do not know why he did not sing them all. I chose the ones I felt mine. He has an extraordinary capacity to grasp the fundamental element of a certain situation and to "steal" it, make it his own and construct the letter. Lyrically, I'm not so good and my lyrics are born mostly from the reworking of other images taken from poems I love." THE DREAM AND THE CONCERT "Being open to outside influences makes me feel better and now that I'm away from home I feel very receptive to playing too. It's a kind of awareness that goes beyond music, that goes into that part of the soul where everyday life gives way to dreams and where there are a thousand strange objects. Dreams can bring you terrifying things or they can bring you orgasm. Music has more to do with this than sculpture, painting or theatre, not because it is superior to the other arts but because it reproduces the dream process in a way that is visible even to the spectator. Usually we see a painting when it is finished, we can hardly follow the painter while he is painting; in a concert, instead, the music is recreated every time and whoever listens to it becomes part of the event. You tell me that many of the bands playing rock today communicate a feeling of non-redeemable depression but it's also true that many of my peers (Jeff is 27 years old) don't have much to say and the music of people like Dinosaur Jr (music that I appreciate) reproduces this sense of emptiness."
Within a few hours, the powerful and dreamy rock of Jeff will fill up the and crowded room with hot words, heavy words, as well as warmth and energy. T-shirt with copious sweat and eyes that are often closed (eyes that seen close-up are impressively reminiscent of those of his father), longer songs with respect to the originals in a kind of natural fluidity (that is, without solos), and a beautiful band that follows effortlessly a singer who does not lose the suggestions of the moment, the flash of a sound plot that must be seized before it disappears. You'll see Jeff that soon no one will ask you anything about dad and then, maybe, you can talk about it without problems. On the other hand, affection and resentment are always very close.
Monday, April 23, 2018
Garage, Glasgow Review
Melody Maker, April 1, 1995
By Jamie T. Conway
Submitted by Ana
JEFF BUCKLEY
By Jamie T. Conway
Submitted by Ana
JEFF BUCKLEY
THE GARAGE, GLASGOW
EVERY year. Without fail. Teachers would smile at my mate Stephen Parker and say, "Ah, brother of the glorious Robert! At Oxford now, isn't he? I'll expect great things of you." And later wondered why he tried to kill him.
The surefire method of incurring Jeff Buckley's wrath is to invoke the memory of his Famous Biological Relation (He met him twice. This is not a father. This is a car park attendant.) He hates that. Loathes it. Bellows for blood whenever page features written by journalists who remember his father appear.
We shouldn't be surprised he's eager to avoid comparisons; Buckley Snr's legacy is justifiably sacrosanct, and as Jeff isn't charging full-tilt at the windmills of convention, some have begun dismissing him as an unworthy heir, conveniently forgetting the Arran-sweatered tedium of pater's debut, or that it took him five albums to trump Creation with "Lorca"and "Starsailor". Having had the wisdom to begin his recording career later, Jnr is already a more promising proposition than his father would initially have seemed; the eclecticism of "Grace" indicates a talent which will consistently confound and wrongfoot its critics, underlined by tonight's bizzare but invigorating lurch through "Kick Out The Jams". And snigger all you want, but I'm furious when he betrays "Lilac Wine" by inserting "you broke my heart, you bastard." Someone must have told him about Elkie Brooks.
When he's not playing the clodhopping clown, we get a spirited trot through his own material, and once you've got over the undeniable similarity of that bloodied harpoon of a voice and you-know-who, you think more of Van Morrison, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Marvin Gaye, and every other poetic, sensitive soul moved to write songs like snowfall in moonlight because they haven't had any in months.
But his greatest asset-his naive, unalloyed idealism-is also his Achilles heel. The line between purity and puerility is a fine one, and so however lovely his output may be, it's ultimately somewhat facile, and his cover of "Hallelujah" fails; it was made to be sung by grizzled veterans like John Cale, someone buckling under the weight of accumulated regret and who truly understands "Love is not a victory march/It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah". But when Jeff Buckley's dreams have been reduced to ash, and he can't rinse the acrid aftertaste from his mouth, expect Mount Everest on stilts.
Friday, April 20, 2018
Love Songs Reflecting Maturity
The New York Times, September 26, 1994
By Jon Pareles
"I'm not afraid to love you," Jeff Buckley whispered from the stage of the Supper Club on Saturday night, and he meant it. At a time when many rock songwriters (and fans) are gingerly about love, Mr. Buckley's songs plunge into it like a kayak heading for the rapids, riding every surge and whirlpool. Folky guitar licks drift toward hard-rock stomps, which melt away; the words find more longing than bliss.
Mr. Buckley's riveting voice reveals every shade of pain and euphoria, of yearning and shame. He started his set with a display of bravado, volatility and tenderness, singing without words against a hovering guitar chord. A sustained "oh" glided into earshot, holds steady, quavered with the microtonal turns of Indian raga, moved into a blues curlicue and then changed to a liquid, feminine croon.
Mr. Buckley has inherited the protean, androgynous vocal instrument of his father, the songwriter Tim Buckley, although he has also been listening to Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and others. He's not shy about his virtuosity; he unfurls swooping lines that curlicue upward, then loop down with qusai-operatic inflections. Like a soul singer, he also lavishes ornamentation on repeated words, like "baby," or hushes the band so he can sing unaccompanied. He ended his set singing "Hallelujah" (from a Leonard Cohen song) without a microphone. Yet for all its power and control, Mr. Buckley's voice never sounds overbearing; instead, it seems almost humbled by the emotion that pours through it.
There are rhythm-and-blues singers who can match Mr. Buckley's technique, but most of them use their skills to portray love as a realm of simple, escapist sweetness. Mr. Buckley finds turbulence instead; in "Last Goodbye," his determination to break up crumbles when memories and passion overwhelm him, even though he knows better: "It makes me so angry, because I know that in time I'll only make you cry."
Like the Smashing Pumpkins, Mr. Buckley is reinventing psychedelia, this time as a reflection of inner conflict rather than transformed reality. And with his voice, a world of tumult and obsession becomes almost seductive.
The Geraldine Fibbers, who opened Mr. Buckley's C.M.J. Music Marathon showcase, are a Los Angeles band featuring Carla Bozulich, who used to sing with the band Ethyl Meatplow. Her low, sultry voice is perfect for borrowed country songs about distraught characters, and for the band's own material about infatuation and revenge, with songs that build from country and folk-rock to the explosiveness of the Who.
Tindersticks, whose members wore jackets and ties, were more conventional rock romantics, somewhere between Bryan Ferry and the folk-rock side of the American Music Club. Following Mr. Buckley, they sounded overly methodical.
By Jon Pareles
"I'm not afraid to love you," Jeff Buckley whispered from the stage of the Supper Club on Saturday night, and he meant it. At a time when many rock songwriters (and fans) are gingerly about love, Mr. Buckley's songs plunge into it like a kayak heading for the rapids, riding every surge and whirlpool. Folky guitar licks drift toward hard-rock stomps, which melt away; the words find more longing than bliss.
Mr. Buckley's riveting voice reveals every shade of pain and euphoria, of yearning and shame. He started his set with a display of bravado, volatility and tenderness, singing without words against a hovering guitar chord. A sustained "oh" glided into earshot, holds steady, quavered with the microtonal turns of Indian raga, moved into a blues curlicue and then changed to a liquid, feminine croon.
Mr. Buckley has inherited the protean, androgynous vocal instrument of his father, the songwriter Tim Buckley, although he has also been listening to Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and others. He's not shy about his virtuosity; he unfurls swooping lines that curlicue upward, then loop down with qusai-operatic inflections. Like a soul singer, he also lavishes ornamentation on repeated words, like "baby," or hushes the band so he can sing unaccompanied. He ended his set singing "Hallelujah" (from a Leonard Cohen song) without a microphone. Yet for all its power and control, Mr. Buckley's voice never sounds overbearing; instead, it seems almost humbled by the emotion that pours through it.
There are rhythm-and-blues singers who can match Mr. Buckley's technique, but most of them use their skills to portray love as a realm of simple, escapist sweetness. Mr. Buckley finds turbulence instead; in "Last Goodbye," his determination to break up crumbles when memories and passion overwhelm him, even though he knows better: "It makes me so angry, because I know that in time I'll only make you cry."
Like the Smashing Pumpkins, Mr. Buckley is reinventing psychedelia, this time as a reflection of inner conflict rather than transformed reality. And with his voice, a world of tumult and obsession becomes almost seductive.
The Geraldine Fibbers, who opened Mr. Buckley's C.M.J. Music Marathon showcase, are a Los Angeles band featuring Carla Bozulich, who used to sing with the band Ethyl Meatplow. Her low, sultry voice is perfect for borrowed country songs about distraught characters, and for the band's own material about infatuation and revenge, with songs that build from country and folk-rock to the explosiveness of the Who.
Tindersticks, whose members wore jackets and ties, were more conventional rock romantics, somewhere between Bryan Ferry and the folk-rock side of the American Music Club. Following Mr. Buckley, they sounded overly methodical.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
"Zoom" Autograph
From what I remember reading somewhere, he deliberately smeared the hearts to make it look like they were really zooming 😃💗
Crashed Portrait
Guitar and Claviers, October, 1994
By Frederic Lecomte
Submitted by Ana
Translated by me
Jeff Buckley's debut album, Tim's son, is pure genious. Nothing is conventional about it, from compositions to tunings, through the lyrical flights of a haunted voice with imperceptible limits. Explanations of a genuinely tortured prodigy.
The following interview took place in Belfast, in pouring rain punctuated by military patrols. Reclusive in his bus, the abandoned child of Tim Buckley spoke twice, between six in the evening and two in the morning. Meanwhile, he gave a sumptuous concert in a small local club, singing his visions and covering two Van Morrison songs ("Sweet Thing" and "The Way Young Lovers Do") amidst the pearls of "Grace," his first and splendid album. Only one instruction was given by the English press officer: Never tell him about his father!
An enigmatic, tormented and shy visionary, Jeff Buckley lives in an inner world and seems impervious to any form of reality. His speech is mostly rational, like he knows his days are numbered.
"The interpretation of my songs systematically implies a cahotic and strange architecture, this chaos reflects every emotion contained in them. I see my music as a mirror of feelings, reflecting romanticism, ugliness, stupidity or anger, an anger of such intensity that it becomes ridiculous and destructive. I need a sound, a music, a song to express and catalyze these emotions. Every emotion has a voice."
What's the starting point?
I hear sounds in my head. I reproduce them directly on the guitar and on vocals, without any difficulty except, sometimes, that of remembering them. A very illusory process in the sense that I can write music, but I refuse to do so, so as not to freeze it.
Do you consider this facility to directly reproduce sounds that you hear as a gift or as a burden?
Every gift is poisoned.
What's your musical background?
As a child, I used to persecute my mother and grandmother for listening to music on the radio. The first songs I discovered were Simon & Garfunkel, Peter, Paul & Mary, Dylan, Janis Joplin, Ray Charles, The Beatles' Abbey Road...What a bad start! When I think about it, I find it deplorable. My first instrument was a toy drum set for children. It ended up in the trash because I was making too much noise. Then I started playing guitar on an acoustic belonging to my grandmother. She's the one who raised me. My primary motivation was as much about the game (I considered my guitar my favorite toy) as the musical expression. The first songs I played were little songs I composed for fun. It was at this time that I started to slide to enrich the possibilities of the acoustic guitar. When I was thirteen, I was given my first electric guitar for Christmas, a black Les Paul, identical to Jimmy Page's. I wanted to be Jimmy Page, it was the best Christmas of my life! Unfortunately I had to sell it because of money problems. One of my very first compositions was about a fat, unsympathetic girl I knew. A very cruel song called "She's So Fat". Today, I'm thinking of doing soul music as long as my music comes from the soul.
Many people and journalists consider "Grace" to be a masterpiece. Do you share this opinion, and isn't setting the bar so high going to hinder your future creations?
"Grace" is definitely not my masterpiece, far from it. I'm glad I finished this album, because I'm gonna be able to move on and do something deeper. I hope never to know the limits of the depth I intend to explore.
Which material suits you best?
For "Grace" I used Marshall and Fender Twin amps, sometimes an Ampeg or a Roland JC 120. My three main guitars are a Telecaster (which he will use almost exclusively during the concert, most often tuned in open D, NDR), a small acoustic Gibson L1 (on which he will perform crazy solos by triggering feedback from a Fender Vibrolux, NDR) and a Rickenbacker 12 string. Most of the effects present on "Grace" are done only with the fingers. On stage, I plug into a Vibrolux and use an Alesis Quadraverb, a Midimaster Control X11 Art and a Wirldwind selector. For the slide, I prefer copper bottlenecks.
How do you arrange your guitar parts?
Combining fingerpicking, disarticulated chord accelerations and riffs. I particularly like the moving melodic lines. When I think music, I immediately think guitar, even if what I hear in my head is a cello. I adapt my six-string to this imaginary cello...
You sing "blind and tortured", does this state of mind also apply to your guitar playing?
Every guitar sound must evoke a multitude of impressions. That said, it's true that my guitar parts are blind and tortured like my moods. How do we know where we stand?
Compared to "Grace's" rather grungy one, the verson of Eternal Life on "Live at Sin-é" reveals a very funky grain and groove, played in a Hendrixian spirit with lots of reverb. How did you get that sound?
There is no effect except that of the vibrato. I actually hate the sound of the chorus but there was an ambience mic right next to the guitar, which had the effect of making a chorus sound. I had to spend hours at the time of mixing to attenuate this horrible effect.
Conversely, the studio version of "Eternal Life" is very aggressive, consisting of a wall of saturated guitars. How did this metamorphosis come about?
On stage, the interpretation of each song depends on the energy of the room. I change the versions all the time. I don't want to have a list with my repertoire for concerts in a pre-established order. I hate doing things out of habit. In the same way I like to do scales of about twenty minutes, during which I totally improvise and compose new songs. The metamorphosis of Eternal Life between "Live at Sin-é" and "Grace" is simply a matter of great anger.
Speaking of which, for someone as tortured as you are, isn't eternal life synonymous with suicide?
No, it's about the moment just after death. I feel like this moment is perpetual. It's hard for me to think there's no duty to be done down here. To do them, you have to be deadly, break all the mirrors to see what's going on behind them and be in harmony with yourself.
A song like Last Goodbye starts with strange sound effects, then comes the dulcimer, the acoustic and the electric. How do you envision the often very complex arrangements of your songs?
I use the dulcimer in D and hit the strings with a pen. Then I play the sixths, either swinging them or holding them. Then I drag the notes and sometimes make them last thanks to the effect of the feedback. As for the arrangements of the string sections, they are 98% the work of Karl Berger. I bring my arrangement ideas at the end, for example to double the melodic line from guitar to cello. I also draw a lot of harmonic structures from musicians such as Coltrane, Mingus, Parker, Ellington, Robert Johnson, Miles Davis, the Smiths, Siouxie & The Banshees and the Cocteau Twins.
On So Real, you spit out a moving solo with some kind of maniacal distortion.
It is an acoustic guild whose feedback is obtained by playing face to face and pressed against the amp. I closed my eyes and played what hurt my left hand the most. Mentally, I wanted to spray the handle. It was pure destruction.
Your acoustic guitar playing is very special, I've never seen anyone capable of making this instrument cry within a second of using it as a heavy weapon. Your acoustic parts are often more violent than those played electrically...
In the future, I promised myself that I would implement very specific ideas about the work to be done on an acoustic. But not in the folk spirit. Folk bugs the shit out of me. Folk is dead! I prefer to approach the acoustics from an erotic angle. It's a very erotic and sexually violent instrument.
On stage you play most of the time in open-tuning (with two exceptions), using a capo in the sixth box (Cohen's Hallelujah) and in the eighth box ("I Do Not Know The End" by Piaf), playing weird and unusual chords. How do you make these chords?
Depending on what a guitar symbolizes. The guitar is made to be used in various tunings. A real guitar, pure and sincere, shouldn't even have frets. Diatonic scales are just a convention. It's a good system but there are a lot of notes in between, same for the chromatic scales. The different tunings I use allow me to play seconds, notes in unison, to have multiple tones, to modulate sharps and, especially, to amplify the depth of the harmonies. The advantage is also to be able to do phrasing with the thumb of the left hand, which brings the guitar closer to the piano.
Don't you ever feel the presence of a ghost haunting your voice? (A hijacked question to evoke his father, whose allusion he fully grasps)
... (long silence) Yes, but it's a child ghost, the ghost of a newborn, the ghost of an old crown.
By Frederic Lecomte
Submitted by Ana
Translated by me
Jeff Buckley's debut album, Tim's son, is pure genious. Nothing is conventional about it, from compositions to tunings, through the lyrical flights of a haunted voice with imperceptible limits. Explanations of a genuinely tortured prodigy.
The following interview took place in Belfast, in pouring rain punctuated by military patrols. Reclusive in his bus, the abandoned child of Tim Buckley spoke twice, between six in the evening and two in the morning. Meanwhile, he gave a sumptuous concert in a small local club, singing his visions and covering two Van Morrison songs ("Sweet Thing" and "The Way Young Lovers Do") amidst the pearls of "Grace," his first and splendid album. Only one instruction was given by the English press officer: Never tell him about his father!
An enigmatic, tormented and shy visionary, Jeff Buckley lives in an inner world and seems impervious to any form of reality. His speech is mostly rational, like he knows his days are numbered.
"The interpretation of my songs systematically implies a cahotic and strange architecture, this chaos reflects every emotion contained in them. I see my music as a mirror of feelings, reflecting romanticism, ugliness, stupidity or anger, an anger of such intensity that it becomes ridiculous and destructive. I need a sound, a music, a song to express and catalyze these emotions. Every emotion has a voice."
What's the starting point?
I hear sounds in my head. I reproduce them directly on the guitar and on vocals, without any difficulty except, sometimes, that of remembering them. A very illusory process in the sense that I can write music, but I refuse to do so, so as not to freeze it.
Do you consider this facility to directly reproduce sounds that you hear as a gift or as a burden?
Every gift is poisoned.
What's your musical background?
As a child, I used to persecute my mother and grandmother for listening to music on the radio. The first songs I discovered were Simon & Garfunkel, Peter, Paul & Mary, Dylan, Janis Joplin, Ray Charles, The Beatles' Abbey Road...What a bad start! When I think about it, I find it deplorable. My first instrument was a toy drum set for children. It ended up in the trash because I was making too much noise. Then I started playing guitar on an acoustic belonging to my grandmother. She's the one who raised me. My primary motivation was as much about the game (I considered my guitar my favorite toy) as the musical expression. The first songs I played were little songs I composed for fun. It was at this time that I started to slide to enrich the possibilities of the acoustic guitar. When I was thirteen, I was given my first electric guitar for Christmas, a black Les Paul, identical to Jimmy Page's. I wanted to be Jimmy Page, it was the best Christmas of my life! Unfortunately I had to sell it because of money problems. One of my very first compositions was about a fat, unsympathetic girl I knew. A very cruel song called "She's So Fat". Today, I'm thinking of doing soul music as long as my music comes from the soul.
Many people and journalists consider "Grace" to be a masterpiece. Do you share this opinion, and isn't setting the bar so high going to hinder your future creations?
"Grace" is definitely not my masterpiece, far from it. I'm glad I finished this album, because I'm gonna be able to move on and do something deeper. I hope never to know the limits of the depth I intend to explore.
Which material suits you best?
For "Grace" I used Marshall and Fender Twin amps, sometimes an Ampeg or a Roland JC 120. My three main guitars are a Telecaster (which he will use almost exclusively during the concert, most often tuned in open D, NDR), a small acoustic Gibson L1 (on which he will perform crazy solos by triggering feedback from a Fender Vibrolux, NDR) and a Rickenbacker 12 string. Most of the effects present on "Grace" are done only with the fingers. On stage, I plug into a Vibrolux and use an Alesis Quadraverb, a Midimaster Control X11 Art and a Wirldwind selector. For the slide, I prefer copper bottlenecks.
How do you arrange your guitar parts?
Combining fingerpicking, disarticulated chord accelerations and riffs. I particularly like the moving melodic lines. When I think music, I immediately think guitar, even if what I hear in my head is a cello. I adapt my six-string to this imaginary cello...
You sing "blind and tortured", does this state of mind also apply to your guitar playing?
Every guitar sound must evoke a multitude of impressions. That said, it's true that my guitar parts are blind and tortured like my moods. How do we know where we stand?
Compared to "Grace's" rather grungy one, the verson of Eternal Life on "Live at Sin-é" reveals a very funky grain and groove, played in a Hendrixian spirit with lots of reverb. How did you get that sound?
There is no effect except that of the vibrato. I actually hate the sound of the chorus but there was an ambience mic right next to the guitar, which had the effect of making a chorus sound. I had to spend hours at the time of mixing to attenuate this horrible effect.
Conversely, the studio version of "Eternal Life" is very aggressive, consisting of a wall of saturated guitars. How did this metamorphosis come about?
On stage, the interpretation of each song depends on the energy of the room. I change the versions all the time. I don't want to have a list with my repertoire for concerts in a pre-established order. I hate doing things out of habit. In the same way I like to do scales of about twenty minutes, during which I totally improvise and compose new songs. The metamorphosis of Eternal Life between "Live at Sin-é" and "Grace" is simply a matter of great anger.
Speaking of which, for someone as tortured as you are, isn't eternal life synonymous with suicide?
No, it's about the moment just after death. I feel like this moment is perpetual. It's hard for me to think there's no duty to be done down here. To do them, you have to be deadly, break all the mirrors to see what's going on behind them and be in harmony with yourself.
A song like Last Goodbye starts with strange sound effects, then comes the dulcimer, the acoustic and the electric. How do you envision the often very complex arrangements of your songs?
I use the dulcimer in D and hit the strings with a pen. Then I play the sixths, either swinging them or holding them. Then I drag the notes and sometimes make them last thanks to the effect of the feedback. As for the arrangements of the string sections, they are 98% the work of Karl Berger. I bring my arrangement ideas at the end, for example to double the melodic line from guitar to cello. I also draw a lot of harmonic structures from musicians such as Coltrane, Mingus, Parker, Ellington, Robert Johnson, Miles Davis, the Smiths, Siouxie & The Banshees and the Cocteau Twins.
On So Real, you spit out a moving solo with some kind of maniacal distortion.
It is an acoustic guild whose feedback is obtained by playing face to face and pressed against the amp. I closed my eyes and played what hurt my left hand the most. Mentally, I wanted to spray the handle. It was pure destruction.
Your acoustic guitar playing is very special, I've never seen anyone capable of making this instrument cry within a second of using it as a heavy weapon. Your acoustic parts are often more violent than those played electrically...
In the future, I promised myself that I would implement very specific ideas about the work to be done on an acoustic. But not in the folk spirit. Folk bugs the shit out of me. Folk is dead! I prefer to approach the acoustics from an erotic angle. It's a very erotic and sexually violent instrument.
On stage you play most of the time in open-tuning (with two exceptions), using a capo in the sixth box (Cohen's Hallelujah) and in the eighth box ("I Do Not Know The End" by Piaf), playing weird and unusual chords. How do you make these chords?
Depending on what a guitar symbolizes. The guitar is made to be used in various tunings. A real guitar, pure and sincere, shouldn't even have frets. Diatonic scales are just a convention. It's a good system but there are a lot of notes in between, same for the chromatic scales. The different tunings I use allow me to play seconds, notes in unison, to have multiple tones, to modulate sharps and, especially, to amplify the depth of the harmonies. The advantage is also to be able to do phrasing with the thumb of the left hand, which brings the guitar closer to the piano.
Don't you ever feel the presence of a ghost haunting your voice? (A hijacked question to evoke his father, whose allusion he fully grasps)
... (long silence) Yes, but it's a child ghost, the ghost of a newborn, the ghost of an old crown.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Def Jeff
Melody Maker: April 9, 1994
Submitted by Ana
JEFF BUCKLEY's unfettered emotional outpouring have dazzled a multitude of Makerites, DAVE SIMPSON included.
DESPITE what we read in the live pages, many gigs are sterile, perfunctory affairs. Bands arrive, playing the roles they're comfortable with and the music that suits a career and we applaud wildly out of numb obligation-maybe because we've forgotten what it feels to be astonished. Go see Jeff Buckley, however, and the chances are you'll be left staggered, awestruck and drained by electrifying flashes of guitar virtuosity and his amazing, heart-wrenching Voice.
You won't have felt so purified in years.
"I feel it and I wanna go there," says Buckley of his refreshingly intuitive, spontaneous vocal style.
Submitted by Ana
JEFF BUCKLEY's unfettered emotional outpouring have dazzled a multitude of Makerites, DAVE SIMPSON included.
DESPITE what we read in the live pages, many gigs are sterile, perfunctory affairs. Bands arrive, playing the roles they're comfortable with and the music that suits a career and we applaud wildly out of numb obligation-maybe because we've forgotten what it feels to be astonished. Go see Jeff Buckley, however, and the chances are you'll be left staggered, awestruck and drained by electrifying flashes of guitar virtuosity and his amazing, heart-wrenching Voice.
You won't have felt so purified in years.
"I feel it and I wanna go there," says Buckley of his refreshingly intuitive, spontaneous vocal style.
"Every feeling has an articulation. You know when you get drunk or you try Ecstasy for the first time, and all your secrets come tumbling out? That's what it's like every night.
"Sometimes people will f***ing hate it and walk out but I still feel...connected. I just sing what I feel. Emotions are very hard for people to handle. The Greeks made up Gods and goddesses around their emotions, and gave their names and faces and had relationships with them. We don't have that, we have therapy. Which ain't bad. I love therapy. But generally people think they're just meat and that emotions visit on them like in-laws. I've never felt like that."
Jeff is the son of Tim Buckley, who confronted audiences with a similar spiritual barrage in the Sixties/early Seventies and died in 1975. Jeff met him only once, and hasn't come to terms with the rejection. Ask him about his dad and the best you'll get is an ambivalent shrug, and the insistence that his childhood with his musical mother and mechanic stepfather is much more important. Ask him about politics, poverty, Dylan or Duke Ellington and he'll talk you into the floor. Somehow, conversation always comes back to music.
"I write mostly personal poetry," he urges. "From dreams, or sometimes I'll wake up in love."
Does Jeff Buckley ever feel that some weird trick of destiny or genetics has cast him in a similar role to that of his father, some 25 years before?
"No," he spits instantly. "I get it from my mother."
An EP, "Live At Sin-e", is released this week on Big Cat
Jeff is the son of Tim Buckley, who confronted audiences with a similar spiritual barrage in the Sixties/early Seventies and died in 1975. Jeff met him only once, and hasn't come to terms with the rejection. Ask him about his dad and the best you'll get is an ambivalent shrug, and the insistence that his childhood with his musical mother and mechanic stepfather is much more important. Ask him about politics, poverty, Dylan or Duke Ellington and he'll talk you into the floor. Somehow, conversation always comes back to music.
"I write mostly personal poetry," he urges. "From dreams, or sometimes I'll wake up in love."
Does Jeff Buckley ever feel that some weird trick of destiny or genetics has cast him in a similar role to that of his father, some 25 years before?
"No," he spits instantly. "I get it from my mother."
An EP, "Live At Sin-e", is released this week on Big Cat
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Get Your Soul Out!
L'indic, March/April, 1995
by Philippe Perret
Submitted by Niella
Translated by me
94 revealed many new artists who made their mark on the international music scene from the very first album. Among them: Beck, Oasis, Portishead and especially Jeff Buckley who, in the space of six months, has achieved almost mythical status through a luminous album, "Grace", and magical concerts. Meeting and description of the phenomenon during his first French tour.
Scott Moorhead was born on November 17, 1966 in Los Angeles. His father abandoned him shortly after his birth and his mother, Mary Gilbert, raised him. By his own admission, he admits to having had a fairly free childhood and adolescence. Introduced very early to marijuana and especially to music by his mother, a classical cellist, and by his stepfather, a garage owner and a great rock fan. "When an adult asked me what I wanted to do later, I always answered: I want to make music." At the age of eight, he briefly met his father, Tim Buckley, the mythical artist of the 60's (voice flirting with angels, music evolving from pop-folk to celestial jazz, a career led against all logic of commercial success). He will never see him again because he dies two months later, on June 15, 75, of an overdose. He was only 27 years old. Some time later, after his mother divorced, he chose to take the name Jeffrey Scott Buckley, accepting the heavy legacy that this name represents and thus marking his attachment to this father whom he knows only through his records and what others say about him.
Growing up under the Californian sun, he never really felt at home in this idyllic setting, perfect to symbolize America, but not very conducive to the blossoming of a young man with a bubbly and intense inner life. At the age of twelve, he is already convinced that his future lies elsewhere, in this city, New York, where being is more important than appearing. Symbolically, it is on the occasion of a concert in homage to Tim Buckley, where he is invited to sing a song ("Once I Was") that Jeff will make this trip from West to East, synonymous for him with a "new life". Having abandoned all that he possessed and knew, he finds himself alone but ready to assume himself, carried by a faith in himself that transcends him. "The rain is falling... And I know my time has come", Grace.
In his Lower East Side neighborhood, there is a tremendous concentration of artists of all kinds. Jeff finally feels like he exists even if he sometimes has to face loneliness and a dangerous attraction for heroin. He starts to play in cafés such as Fez, Bang On and especially Sin-é where he sometimes practices dishwashing! Night after night, he attracts more and more admirers and acquires a stage experience that allows him to keep the difficult and demanding pub audience on tenterhooks. The memory of this learning period is recorded on his first CD, Live at Sin-é, a 4-track mini-LP released on the Big Cat label. Two covers are included, "Je N'en Connais Pas la Fin" by Edith Piaf and Van Morrison's "The Way Young Lovers Do," as well as two original compositions, "Mojo Pin" and "Eternal Life." Jeff Buckley creates a personal music, inhabited by passion. Simply with his voice, pure and high-pitched, and his guitar from which he draws sounds and harmonies of great richness. Following this magnificent and promising first record, things are going to speed up for Buckley. Alerted by the rumour, Columbia came to offer him a contract where he had complete artistic freedom. Jeff immediately starts looking for a band. "I wanted to find people with an intuitive approach to music, playing with their souls and investing themselves emotionally. Otherwise the music would be sterile...Michael Tighe (guitar) has been my friend for three years. He's been to almost all of my solo concerts. Mick Grondahl (bass) was the first one to come to me and say he'd like to work with me. He was so honest, straightforward and sincere that I knew I had to call him back. Then I contacted Matt Johnson (drums) that was recommended to me. The first night we played together, we put together "Dream Brother". All the ideas, the arrangements came naturally. Just like a dream..." After a few weeks of rehearsals, the band enters the studio with Andy Wallace (producer, among others, of Rage Against The Machine!) and records Grace. Major album, timeless. Of a rare beauty, combining fragility and violence. The reactions of the public and the press are unanimous and the interest around Jeff Buckley is skillfully maintained by Columbia, which feels that it has an outstanding artist. Jeff and his band then go on a world tour. They performed in Paris for the first time on September 22nd at the Passage du Nord-Ouest in a dazzling concert which confirmed all the rumours that had been circulating about him. The group then toured the United States, England and Japan before embarking on their first French tour, which took place in medium-capacity venues (500 to 1000 seats). Proof of France's craze for Jeff Buckley: all the dates are sold out, even before the start of this tour!
Wednesday, February 8 - Toulouse
First stop on February 8 in Toulouse, the magnificent city on the banks of the Garonne. An astonishing city both for the richness of its heritage (the countless pink brick buildings, the Capitol...) and the youth of its inhabitants (more than 110,000 students!). The Bikini, a beautiful room located in the industrial suburb of Toulouse, is therefore sold out. The audience is young (apart from the father's "old" fans), knows Grace by heart, and expects a lot from this concert. The first part is played softly by Dutchmen Bettie Serveert, who, fortunately, will leave the tour the same evening without glory. The tension is palpable in the room when suddenly the audience lets out a cry of happiness when Jeff and his musicians appear. Having arrived in the simplest way in the world, he immediately catches the eye and the attention thanks to his extraordinary charisma. With dishevelled hair, a lived-in look, disarmingly natural smile, casual ease: there is an uncanny resemblance between this character and the early Jim Morrison! Right away, the room is under the spell. Buckley grabs a bottleneck and starts the intro to "Last Goodbye." Right afterwards, "Dream Brother" creates a mystical atmosphere with its oriental intonations and rising tensions. The text evokes in barely hidden words the memory of Tim. Someone in the crowd shouts, "Get your soul out!" Yes, that's what this is all about. Buckley reveals his soul. Not by complacent exhibitionism but rather to get rid of too much emotion and to share it. Then comes "So Real". Then Jeff launches into a long introduction where aerial singing and ethereal arpeggios are mixed together and a brutal attack on "Mojo Pin." The song rises to the end where his voice is on the verge of tearing. At "Grace"'s first notes, people show their pleasure. After its repeated appearances on radio and TV, this song turns out to be an unexpected "hit". The live version differs little from the studio version. "Lilac Wine" starts on a series of dissonant and tortured chords before falling back on the weightless climate of the album version. Jeff appropriates with great ease this masterpiece by Jonas Shelton (an illustrious unknown) which was popularized by Nina Simone. "What Will You Say," a new song that's a little disappointing. The melody is easy and the emotion seems a little forced on this track, set back from the rest of the repertoire. "Eternal Life" appeared on Live at Sin-é in a stripped down version and had already been hardened on Grace. On stage, he goes downright wild. Impressive! "Hallelujah" is one of the most anticipated titles of the public. On this Leonard Cohen song, imbued with great spirituality, Jeff Buckley's voice reaches new heights of purity. An angel passes...As an encore, we'll be treated to another unreleased track, a piece that looks pretty much like the Cure-Disintegration period. "We were playing in Vancouver and there was pressure to record a B-side. We worked on an idea of Michael's, but the song doesn't have a definitive form, we change it every night. I don't really have time to write while I'm on tour. No...just little bits of melody, riffs, lyrics, when I manage to isolate myself for a few moments. On the other hand, the fact that I travel a lot brings special ideas and renews my inspiration." The concert ends with Alex Chilton's hypnotic Kangaroo and Jeff Buckley leaves the stage, to the cheers of the conquered audience. In the dressing room, two groupies try in vain to seduce him. He rejects them politely, remaining in all circumstances kind and attentive to everything that happens around him. He tells me he just turned down the first half of the Page/Plant tour. "I'll never play in stadiums...You see me singing "Lilac Wine" in front of hard-rockers! No it's impossible. But it's an honor and an amazing thing that they offered it to me." Clearly, he has difficulty realizing the phenomenal infatuation he is the object of and he seems disoriented by the exhausting, unreferenced life he is currently leading. "The control of my life is a little out of my hands. They tell me when to get up, where to go, who to talk to, they give me food I don't necessarily like...I sometimes dream of being able to go to a store, buy a piece of bread and make my own sandwich! So I don't get depressed, I need to focus on the one thing I really care about: playing!" Exhausted, he takes his leave of us and heads for the bus where a short night's sleep awaits him.
Thursday 9 February - Montpellier
Montpellier, a southern city in constant mutation which generates a very lively cultural and rock activity in particular. The concert takes place at Victoire 2, a room not particularly welcoming and lacking in warmth. Yet, just as Jeff and the band come on stage, we feel something strong and inexplicable. The attention is greater, the audience reacts instantly and really communicates with the music. Silent, staring at Jeff during quiet and introverted passages or totally unleashed when he finds himself caught in the sound swirl of Eternal life or Kangaroo. The order of the songs is not the same as the day before: "Every night is different. There is no set list. Likewise, each song is played differently depending on the atmosphere and mood." One song follows another. Breathtaking, extremely tense versions of "So Real" and "Lover, You Should've Come Over." To counterbalance this tension, Jeff converses and jokes with the audience, replying tacitly. To an idiot, "Tim Buckley!" he says a scathing, "You're at the wrong concert, baby!" He always rejects all comparisons with his father quite strongly. "I hope people never forget Tim. Because they can't! But I don't listen to his records for inspiration. I have other heroes!" Comes Hallelujah interspersed with a verse from the Smiths' "I Know It's Over," one of his favourite bands. In fact, he frequently cites Johnny Marr among the guitarists who influenced him the most. The concert ends, like the day before, with "Kangaroo." But as the roadies start to turn off the amps and the lights in the hall come back on, the audience, still in shock from this "magical" concert, keeps shouting and applauding. So much so that Jeff returns. He thanks again and again. He is sincerely touched by this token of love. "All I can expect from the audience is for them to smile, to shout...So I say thank you and I totally believe them." He's indulging in some antics. Parodying a dance hit of the moment or playing a Stooges intro. And launches into a mature version of "The Way Young Lovers Do." "I covered this song because one day Michael told me that he had dreamt that we both played it. So, I did it! I realized afterwards that some might find it presumptuous to tackle such a piece. But in the end, it's just a song...It sounds a bit jazzy because at the time I listened to jazz all day long." Cheers. Jeff smiles, shouts a last "sweet dreams!" and walks away. We reluctantly let him go.
Friday, February 10 - Lyon
Arrived in Lyon in the early afternoon, through traffic jams and drizzle, in this city whose image is currently suffering from the media-legal disputes of its mayor. At 3 p.m. sharp, a mini press conference will take place, in order to deepen the subject and get to know this endearing artist better...
What does Grace mean to you?
It's not religious or mystical. It's very ordinary. That's the thing that makes people divine. That's a quality I appreciate in a person. Especially in a man because it is very rare.
What do you think of critics who find that Grace is overproduced?
There is a journalist in New York who loved me when I was soloing in Sin-é. And all of a sudden, when Grace came out, he said: "I was crazy to love Jeff Buckley! His album is totally over-produced. Blah-blah-blah...". He thinks I betrayed him because I've evolved. When I create in the studio, I have the opportunity to experiment with all the ideas I have in mind. I can say, "I need this! I don't want that!" It's a fantastic feeling to be able to give an existence to sounds, emotions that you have within you.
Most of the songs in the album express the difficulty of managing a love relationship and the tearing that brings about a separation. What did you bring to writing these songs?
From my love experiences and what I have expressed on Grace, I have learned not to rely entirely on someone and not to live through a person.
In Europe, the critics are unanimously favorable whereas in the United States it seems different. How do you explain that?
In America, a very influential rock critic, who writes in many magazines and whose opinion is authoritative, insulted me outright! He thinks I'm confused, that I don't know where I'm going, that I'm scattered. He can't figure me out, he can't classify me, so he rejects me outright. I'm not bothered! It's just that I feel different emotions and express them in different ways, with different sounds. Because that's how it should sound! People have multiple personalities on the inside. But they're still themselves. They can be naturally serene or tortured. Everyone has states of mind, totally opposite feelings. And the music reflects these paradoxes. All the arts do it. But music probably more than others. There's something special about music that makes people "crazy" as soon as they listen to it. They either hate it or they love it, but it provokes more reactions than a film, a sculpture or a painting. It's a strange art...the one closest to a dream. I can not explain or make a sound. I wish I could, but I can't.
Which artists do you feel most influence?
I think the artists that have made the biggest impression on me are the ones I listened to as a child like Led Zeppelin, Joni Mitchell, MC5, Billie Holliday, Nina Simone, Patti Smith, John Lennon, and later Siouxie (I have a lot of her in my voice), Nick Cave (especially when he was in the Birthday Party), the Smiths ...I'm a fan of thousands of people. Listening to them, they remind me of all the possibilities of expression. That's inspiration! Currently, there are still a lot of good things but they are more underground. Emulation is an important thing. That's why the 60s and 70s were so fantastic. There was the Beatles and everyone said: "Oooouuaaahh!" Then Jimi Hendrix: "Woohh! We can do that!" and then James Brown, the Stones, the Beach Boys, the Doors ect...
The structures of your songs are quite far from the usual formats of pop music.
Yes, I've heard so many songs built on the same mold (verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-end) that I'm no longer satisfied. I prefer a freer approach to writing. From that point of view, Bob Dylan is one of my main influences. I have nothing but praise for him. He made poetry alive and current, when it was something outdated. And he constantly renewed the rules of what a modern rock artist should be. I met him once. I was terrified and he told me something I will never forget: "Make a good album, man! Just make a good album!" And I made Grace.
Exactly, how do you see your next album?
By becoming a better artist, I would like to be more able to express joy and happiness. I don't want to be like Sisters Of Mercy, always depressed. I love Sisters Of Mercy but I want my music to reflect every part of my life. All I have to do is express myself, be myself. I don't need to crystallize on what I've already done. My success will be to make the next album a success.
The interview could have gone on even longer, but the manager intervened abruptly to stop it. Too bad! The same evening, back to the B-52, a small club with a cosy atmosphere, an ideal setting for an intimate and warm concert. The beginning of the concert is disrupted by a small cabling problem that Buckley diverts to his advantage by launching into an a capella improvisation while the roadie is busy changing the faulty cable. The concert then proceeds normally but Jeff's performance is a little below what he can do. He and his group seem tired and a bit absent tonight. As if there's something in the air that he can't seem to grasp all the time. From a "Mojo Pin" overflowing with electricity, it goes to an approximate Lilac Wine. But that does not mean that he loses his formidable ability to interact with the public, to amuse them to then better assert a devastating "Eternal Life".
Saturday, February 11 - Paris
Jeff is back in the French capital, a city he is particularly fond of being a big fan of Edith Piaf. Around 6pm, after the sacrosanct ritual of the scales, he will spend nearly an hour with Michael Tighe perfecting the arrangements of "So Real." Proof that he is not tired of his songs and that he is constantly trying to improve them. In the evening, you can sense that there's a particular pressure in Paris: France-Inter recorded the concert, a team of M6 travelled to make a report and we notice the presence of many journalists, photographers and other "personalities". The Bataclan is obviously full. The Parisian public welcomes Jeff Buckley in a great clamor. Photographers rush to their cameras ("Only during the first three tracks and above all, no flash!") "Who was there last time?" he asks with a big smile. After an hour and a half of intense performance, he offers a long solo encore with a splendid version of "The Way Young Lovers Do", a medley of Piaf tunes and a long and solemn Hallelujah that rises in cathedral-like silence. We come out of there shaken. Stronger, more vulnerable. Both alone and as part of a communion of thought. In any case, what Jeff Buckley and his music bring is to feel more intensely. No one knows how it will evolve but the memory of these concerts and the magic of Grace will remain. He will be back in France at the beginning of July, at the Olympia, at the Fourvière festival in Lyon and at the Eurockéennes in Belfort. As for the next album, it will have to wait until the spring of 96. In the meantime, Buckley will have to avoid getting caught up in the spiral of success and resist the demons that have taken away his father and so many others. The best thing we can say to him? "Make another good album, man!"
by Philippe Perret
Submitted by Niella
Translated by me
94 revealed many new artists who made their mark on the international music scene from the very first album. Among them: Beck, Oasis, Portishead and especially Jeff Buckley who, in the space of six months, has achieved almost mythical status through a luminous album, "Grace", and magical concerts. Meeting and description of the phenomenon during his first French tour.
Scott Moorhead was born on November 17, 1966 in Los Angeles. His father abandoned him shortly after his birth and his mother, Mary Gilbert, raised him. By his own admission, he admits to having had a fairly free childhood and adolescence. Introduced very early to marijuana and especially to music by his mother, a classical cellist, and by his stepfather, a garage owner and a great rock fan. "When an adult asked me what I wanted to do later, I always answered: I want to make music." At the age of eight, he briefly met his father, Tim Buckley, the mythical artist of the 60's (voice flirting with angels, music evolving from pop-folk to celestial jazz, a career led against all logic of commercial success). He will never see him again because he dies two months later, on June 15, 75, of an overdose. He was only 27 years old. Some time later, after his mother divorced, he chose to take the name Jeffrey Scott Buckley, accepting the heavy legacy that this name represents and thus marking his attachment to this father whom he knows only through his records and what others say about him.
Growing up under the Californian sun, he never really felt at home in this idyllic setting, perfect to symbolize America, but not very conducive to the blossoming of a young man with a bubbly and intense inner life. At the age of twelve, he is already convinced that his future lies elsewhere, in this city, New York, where being is more important than appearing. Symbolically, it is on the occasion of a concert in homage to Tim Buckley, where he is invited to sing a song ("Once I Was") that Jeff will make this trip from West to East, synonymous for him with a "new life". Having abandoned all that he possessed and knew, he finds himself alone but ready to assume himself, carried by a faith in himself that transcends him. "The rain is falling... And I know my time has come", Grace.
In his Lower East Side neighborhood, there is a tremendous concentration of artists of all kinds. Jeff finally feels like he exists even if he sometimes has to face loneliness and a dangerous attraction for heroin. He starts to play in cafés such as Fez, Bang On and especially Sin-é where he sometimes practices dishwashing! Night after night, he attracts more and more admirers and acquires a stage experience that allows him to keep the difficult and demanding pub audience on tenterhooks. The memory of this learning period is recorded on his first CD, Live at Sin-é, a 4-track mini-LP released on the Big Cat label. Two covers are included, "Je N'en Connais Pas la Fin" by Edith Piaf and Van Morrison's "The Way Young Lovers Do," as well as two original compositions, "Mojo Pin" and "Eternal Life." Jeff Buckley creates a personal music, inhabited by passion. Simply with his voice, pure and high-pitched, and his guitar from which he draws sounds and harmonies of great richness. Following this magnificent and promising first record, things are going to speed up for Buckley. Alerted by the rumour, Columbia came to offer him a contract where he had complete artistic freedom. Jeff immediately starts looking for a band. "I wanted to find people with an intuitive approach to music, playing with their souls and investing themselves emotionally. Otherwise the music would be sterile...Michael Tighe (guitar) has been my friend for three years. He's been to almost all of my solo concerts. Mick Grondahl (bass) was the first one to come to me and say he'd like to work with me. He was so honest, straightforward and sincere that I knew I had to call him back. Then I contacted Matt Johnson (drums) that was recommended to me. The first night we played together, we put together "Dream Brother". All the ideas, the arrangements came naturally. Just like a dream..." After a few weeks of rehearsals, the band enters the studio with Andy Wallace (producer, among others, of Rage Against The Machine!) and records Grace. Major album, timeless. Of a rare beauty, combining fragility and violence. The reactions of the public and the press are unanimous and the interest around Jeff Buckley is skillfully maintained by Columbia, which feels that it has an outstanding artist. Jeff and his band then go on a world tour. They performed in Paris for the first time on September 22nd at the Passage du Nord-Ouest in a dazzling concert which confirmed all the rumours that had been circulating about him. The group then toured the United States, England and Japan before embarking on their first French tour, which took place in medium-capacity venues (500 to 1000 seats). Proof of France's craze for Jeff Buckley: all the dates are sold out, even before the start of this tour!
Wednesday, February 8 - Toulouse
First stop on February 8 in Toulouse, the magnificent city on the banks of the Garonne. An astonishing city both for the richness of its heritage (the countless pink brick buildings, the Capitol...) and the youth of its inhabitants (more than 110,000 students!). The Bikini, a beautiful room located in the industrial suburb of Toulouse, is therefore sold out. The audience is young (apart from the father's "old" fans), knows Grace by heart, and expects a lot from this concert. The first part is played softly by Dutchmen Bettie Serveert, who, fortunately, will leave the tour the same evening without glory. The tension is palpable in the room when suddenly the audience lets out a cry of happiness when Jeff and his musicians appear. Having arrived in the simplest way in the world, he immediately catches the eye and the attention thanks to his extraordinary charisma. With dishevelled hair, a lived-in look, disarmingly natural smile, casual ease: there is an uncanny resemblance between this character and the early Jim Morrison! Right away, the room is under the spell. Buckley grabs a bottleneck and starts the intro to "Last Goodbye." Right afterwards, "Dream Brother" creates a mystical atmosphere with its oriental intonations and rising tensions. The text evokes in barely hidden words the memory of Tim. Someone in the crowd shouts, "Get your soul out!" Yes, that's what this is all about. Buckley reveals his soul. Not by complacent exhibitionism but rather to get rid of too much emotion and to share it. Then comes "So Real". Then Jeff launches into a long introduction where aerial singing and ethereal arpeggios are mixed together and a brutal attack on "Mojo Pin." The song rises to the end where his voice is on the verge of tearing. At "Grace"'s first notes, people show their pleasure. After its repeated appearances on radio and TV, this song turns out to be an unexpected "hit". The live version differs little from the studio version. "Lilac Wine" starts on a series of dissonant and tortured chords before falling back on the weightless climate of the album version. Jeff appropriates with great ease this masterpiece by Jonas Shelton (an illustrious unknown) which was popularized by Nina Simone. "What Will You Say," a new song that's a little disappointing. The melody is easy and the emotion seems a little forced on this track, set back from the rest of the repertoire. "Eternal Life" appeared on Live at Sin-é in a stripped down version and had already been hardened on Grace. On stage, he goes downright wild. Impressive! "Hallelujah" is one of the most anticipated titles of the public. On this Leonard Cohen song, imbued with great spirituality, Jeff Buckley's voice reaches new heights of purity. An angel passes...As an encore, we'll be treated to another unreleased track, a piece that looks pretty much like the Cure-Disintegration period. "We were playing in Vancouver and there was pressure to record a B-side. We worked on an idea of Michael's, but the song doesn't have a definitive form, we change it every night. I don't really have time to write while I'm on tour. No...just little bits of melody, riffs, lyrics, when I manage to isolate myself for a few moments. On the other hand, the fact that I travel a lot brings special ideas and renews my inspiration." The concert ends with Alex Chilton's hypnotic Kangaroo and Jeff Buckley leaves the stage, to the cheers of the conquered audience. In the dressing room, two groupies try in vain to seduce him. He rejects them politely, remaining in all circumstances kind and attentive to everything that happens around him. He tells me he just turned down the first half of the Page/Plant tour. "I'll never play in stadiums...You see me singing "Lilac Wine" in front of hard-rockers! No it's impossible. But it's an honor and an amazing thing that they offered it to me." Clearly, he has difficulty realizing the phenomenal infatuation he is the object of and he seems disoriented by the exhausting, unreferenced life he is currently leading. "The control of my life is a little out of my hands. They tell me when to get up, where to go, who to talk to, they give me food I don't necessarily like...I sometimes dream of being able to go to a store, buy a piece of bread and make my own sandwich! So I don't get depressed, I need to focus on the one thing I really care about: playing!" Exhausted, he takes his leave of us and heads for the bus where a short night's sleep awaits him.
Thursday 9 February - Montpellier
Montpellier, a southern city in constant mutation which generates a very lively cultural and rock activity in particular. The concert takes place at Victoire 2, a room not particularly welcoming and lacking in warmth. Yet, just as Jeff and the band come on stage, we feel something strong and inexplicable. The attention is greater, the audience reacts instantly and really communicates with the music. Silent, staring at Jeff during quiet and introverted passages or totally unleashed when he finds himself caught in the sound swirl of Eternal life or Kangaroo. The order of the songs is not the same as the day before: "Every night is different. There is no set list. Likewise, each song is played differently depending on the atmosphere and mood." One song follows another. Breathtaking, extremely tense versions of "So Real" and "Lover, You Should've Come Over." To counterbalance this tension, Jeff converses and jokes with the audience, replying tacitly. To an idiot, "Tim Buckley!" he says a scathing, "You're at the wrong concert, baby!" He always rejects all comparisons with his father quite strongly. "I hope people never forget Tim. Because they can't! But I don't listen to his records for inspiration. I have other heroes!" Comes Hallelujah interspersed with a verse from the Smiths' "I Know It's Over," one of his favourite bands. In fact, he frequently cites Johnny Marr among the guitarists who influenced him the most. The concert ends, like the day before, with "Kangaroo." But as the roadies start to turn off the amps and the lights in the hall come back on, the audience, still in shock from this "magical" concert, keeps shouting and applauding. So much so that Jeff returns. He thanks again and again. He is sincerely touched by this token of love. "All I can expect from the audience is for them to smile, to shout...So I say thank you and I totally believe them." He's indulging in some antics. Parodying a dance hit of the moment or playing a Stooges intro. And launches into a mature version of "The Way Young Lovers Do." "I covered this song because one day Michael told me that he had dreamt that we both played it. So, I did it! I realized afterwards that some might find it presumptuous to tackle such a piece. But in the end, it's just a song...It sounds a bit jazzy because at the time I listened to jazz all day long." Cheers. Jeff smiles, shouts a last "sweet dreams!" and walks away. We reluctantly let him go.
Friday, February 10 - Lyon
Arrived in Lyon in the early afternoon, through traffic jams and drizzle, in this city whose image is currently suffering from the media-legal disputes of its mayor. At 3 p.m. sharp, a mini press conference will take place, in order to deepen the subject and get to know this endearing artist better...
What does Grace mean to you?
It's not religious or mystical. It's very ordinary. That's the thing that makes people divine. That's a quality I appreciate in a person. Especially in a man because it is very rare.
What do you think of critics who find that Grace is overproduced?
There is a journalist in New York who loved me when I was soloing in Sin-é. And all of a sudden, when Grace came out, he said: "I was crazy to love Jeff Buckley! His album is totally over-produced. Blah-blah-blah...". He thinks I betrayed him because I've evolved. When I create in the studio, I have the opportunity to experiment with all the ideas I have in mind. I can say, "I need this! I don't want that!" It's a fantastic feeling to be able to give an existence to sounds, emotions that you have within you.
Most of the songs in the album express the difficulty of managing a love relationship and the tearing that brings about a separation. What did you bring to writing these songs?
From my love experiences and what I have expressed on Grace, I have learned not to rely entirely on someone and not to live through a person.
In Europe, the critics are unanimously favorable whereas in the United States it seems different. How do you explain that?
In America, a very influential rock critic, who writes in many magazines and whose opinion is authoritative, insulted me outright! He thinks I'm confused, that I don't know where I'm going, that I'm scattered. He can't figure me out, he can't classify me, so he rejects me outright. I'm not bothered! It's just that I feel different emotions and express them in different ways, with different sounds. Because that's how it should sound! People have multiple personalities on the inside. But they're still themselves. They can be naturally serene or tortured. Everyone has states of mind, totally opposite feelings. And the music reflects these paradoxes. All the arts do it. But music probably more than others. There's something special about music that makes people "crazy" as soon as they listen to it. They either hate it or they love it, but it provokes more reactions than a film, a sculpture or a painting. It's a strange art...the one closest to a dream. I can not explain or make a sound. I wish I could, but I can't.
Which artists do you feel most influence?
I think the artists that have made the biggest impression on me are the ones I listened to as a child like Led Zeppelin, Joni Mitchell, MC5, Billie Holliday, Nina Simone, Patti Smith, John Lennon, and later Siouxie (I have a lot of her in my voice), Nick Cave (especially when he was in the Birthday Party), the Smiths ...I'm a fan of thousands of people. Listening to them, they remind me of all the possibilities of expression. That's inspiration! Currently, there are still a lot of good things but they are more underground. Emulation is an important thing. That's why the 60s and 70s were so fantastic. There was the Beatles and everyone said: "Oooouuaaahh!" Then Jimi Hendrix: "Woohh! We can do that!" and then James Brown, the Stones, the Beach Boys, the Doors ect...
The structures of your songs are quite far from the usual formats of pop music.
Yes, I've heard so many songs built on the same mold (verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-end) that I'm no longer satisfied. I prefer a freer approach to writing. From that point of view, Bob Dylan is one of my main influences. I have nothing but praise for him. He made poetry alive and current, when it was something outdated. And he constantly renewed the rules of what a modern rock artist should be. I met him once. I was terrified and he told me something I will never forget: "Make a good album, man! Just make a good album!" And I made Grace.
Exactly, how do you see your next album?
By becoming a better artist, I would like to be more able to express joy and happiness. I don't want to be like Sisters Of Mercy, always depressed. I love Sisters Of Mercy but I want my music to reflect every part of my life. All I have to do is express myself, be myself. I don't need to crystallize on what I've already done. My success will be to make the next album a success.
The interview could have gone on even longer, but the manager intervened abruptly to stop it. Too bad! The same evening, back to the B-52, a small club with a cosy atmosphere, an ideal setting for an intimate and warm concert. The beginning of the concert is disrupted by a small cabling problem that Buckley diverts to his advantage by launching into an a capella improvisation while the roadie is busy changing the faulty cable. The concert then proceeds normally but Jeff's performance is a little below what he can do. He and his group seem tired and a bit absent tonight. As if there's something in the air that he can't seem to grasp all the time. From a "Mojo Pin" overflowing with electricity, it goes to an approximate Lilac Wine. But that does not mean that he loses his formidable ability to interact with the public, to amuse them to then better assert a devastating "Eternal Life".
Saturday, February 11 - Paris
Jeff is back in the French capital, a city he is particularly fond of being a big fan of Edith Piaf. Around 6pm, after the sacrosanct ritual of the scales, he will spend nearly an hour with Michael Tighe perfecting the arrangements of "So Real." Proof that he is not tired of his songs and that he is constantly trying to improve them. In the evening, you can sense that there's a particular pressure in Paris: France-Inter recorded the concert, a team of M6 travelled to make a report and we notice the presence of many journalists, photographers and other "personalities". The Bataclan is obviously full. The Parisian public welcomes Jeff Buckley in a great clamor. Photographers rush to their cameras ("Only during the first three tracks and above all, no flash!") "Who was there last time?" he asks with a big smile. After an hour and a half of intense performance, he offers a long solo encore with a splendid version of "The Way Young Lovers Do", a medley of Piaf tunes and a long and solemn Hallelujah that rises in cathedral-like silence. We come out of there shaken. Stronger, more vulnerable. Both alone and as part of a communion of thought. In any case, what Jeff Buckley and his music bring is to feel more intensely. No one knows how it will evolve but the memory of these concerts and the magic of Grace will remain. He will be back in France at the beginning of July, at the Olympia, at the Fourvière festival in Lyon and at the Eurockéennes in Belfort. As for the next album, it will have to wait until the spring of 96. In the meantime, Buckley will have to avoid getting caught up in the spiral of success and resist the demons that have taken away his father and so many others. The best thing we can say to him? "Make another good album, man!"
Monday, April 16, 2018
"Grace" Outtakes
Ok, it's a bit of a stretch, but for those interested in hearing them, I've decided to include the "Grace" outtakes done in Bearsville from September 20-October 30, 1993...I love "Hallelujah (Take 2)" and the outro is my favorite. Enjoy!
Track list:
- Lover You Should've Come Over
- Eternal Life
- Just Like A Woman (Take 1)
- Dink's Song
- If You See Her Say Hello
- Night Flight
- Hallelujah (Take 1)
- Just Like A Woman (Take 2)
- Mama, You've Been On My Mind (Take 1)
- Mama, You've Been On My Mind (Take 2)
- Hallelujah (Take 2)
- Mama, You've Been On My Mind (Riff)
- Hallelujah (Take 3)
- Outro
Nice Singing And Melancholy
Buscadero, November, 1994
By David Sapienza
Submitted by Sai
Translated by me
In the spring there was a small live CD by Jeff Buckley. It was Live at Sin-e, recorded at the small bar in the Lower East Side of New York where the boy had refined a style and a voice soon destined to become unmistakable. My amazement was not really due to the interpretative maturity ("The Way Young Lovers Do" by Van Morrison could eat No Prima Donna (Van Morrison's tribute album) in just one bite), but to the compositive one. ("Mojo Pin" is one of the most beautiful songs of this 'year). Great was the surprise when Musician, prestigious American magazine, by the hand of Bill Flanagan took four pages to tell the story of this young man. His reaction was and still is peculiar: "Bill loves me, he's like that," Buckley apologizes. We are together in a squalid cafe in Milan. The radio is in full blast and obscures the boy's voice. We ask the manager to lower, but pretends not to understand. Once the barista's bad manners has been verified, Jeff turns and continues: "You know how it is, when people older than you love you, they never stop praising you. It was too positive an article towards me and therefore not accurate on the emotional point of view." Throughout the meeting Jeff will continue to change his Rickenbacker's strings. We are close to the Rock Planet in Milan. It is an unsuitable place for a concert so intimate, busy as it is not to suffocate. But despite the lost voice in mixing a wrong locale for this kind of music, the message is that Jeff Buckley is a reality to deal with if you want to speak from now on of the American song that goes around 2000.
UB: The choices that you demonstrate to make seem oriented to sad and melancholy tones, such as "Hallelujah" by Cohen or the theme of love gutted elsewhere in the songs you write.
JB: "Hallelujah" I did not do it because it's Leonard Cohen, but because I like the song. Based on this we proceeded for all the songs, even mine. The version that inspired me is a version of John Cale with all ten verses, unlike what appears in Various Positions. The evening I first proposed it to Sin-è was a special evening, I even acted like a fool. See, the word Alleluia has its own precise sign, it is connected to the church. Instead for me it is a word that celebrates something very human, it speaks of a deep link between pain and the human condition. That word has nothing to do with being nailed to a cross: it's when you're sick, but there's also when you make love, when you lose it...
UB: In your songs there is the presence of this figure, the clash of two great inner positions. How do you see yourself in this dilemma?
JB: I wanted to start this record in the dark, get it to light in the middle, with "Lilac Wine" and "Hallelujah", then come back in the dark. I did it because there will be other works and so the next album could be a continuation, so it starts with "Mojo Pin" and ends with "Dream Brother".
UB: How did you get to Colombia since this is not the music that is trendy at the moment?
JB: It's not like you can believe: I played around the various cafes and I was in a chrysalis, something that I still see of myself. I feel incomplete, I'm incomplete. New York is important to me, it's important in the world. People think we're rough in New York, but it's not like that: the truth is that there's no time for things that do not matter because there are so many things to see and do. People are ruder in Hamburg, for example. There is openness and even if you get rid of the ideas, people actually live in their vision at least in the Lower East Village: they do it because it is necessary and I was doing exactly that, I was living in my vision when I was noticed. I continue to do what I have always done, what has changed is the perception of me, a big change. We do not have a formula, we sail.
UB: This album has brought together fringes of critics generally very distant. Plus, it does not sound like a first album, but something more mature. It will also be the production: who chose Andy Wallace?
JB: Andy is 46 and therefore has a lot of experience. You could not immediately connect his name to Nirvana (he mixed Nevermind) or White Zombie, which were created by him. Andy knows how to focus things and has the energy to keep them framed. He has total mastery of technology, a wealth of ideas, he was a barometer for everything that happened: for example he made me shorten "Lover, You Should Have Come Over". It was like taking a bitter medicine that at first makes you feel like shit then you understand its positive effect. You need to learn certain things. Andy is the person who made Grace happen.
UB: Will you work with him again? Have you thought of a producer like Daniel Lanois, for example?
JB: Wallace costs a lot...Lanois is good, but if I worked with him at his studio I would end up playing like For the Beauty of Wynona, and I do not want this to happen. Surely I would love to work in his studio if he would leave me alone for some time. I would like to work with Hal Willner, or rather I will work on it. He is able to gather the right people in a studio: he's also a strange guy and that's what I need.
UB: What is music for you?
JB: It's like the blood in the veins, it's that kind of vehicle, a channel for ultimate expression. I started writing songs that were horrible at age 13. "Mojo Pin" I wrote it with Gary Lucas a couple of years ago. I carry Gary in my hands wherever I go (feel the last, beautiful Bad boys of the arctic, nda). Music can give you an orgasm, this is its greatness, it's a very physical thing and you're in the middle of it. Music exists only in the present, like every creation. Painters have a trance when they draw, but you can not experience it from the outside. With music you can participate in this continuous creation, which is repeated in the present time. My album is more like a painting, because there was a lot of work, except in "So Real" that was recorded at the first performance, at three in the morning when I got to the studio with that poem.
UB: This is your first European tour; do you believe that the future can reserve you unpleasant surprises, like the routine boredom that many artists see on long journeys?
JB: No, it's bullshit. Playing is magic and even if sometimes it can be a bit 'tired magic, it still remains magic, you can never know what will happen a certain evening, you can not predict what audience you will have in front of you. We never go on stage with a precise lineup, the only guide we have is trusting ourselves and the things that can come from four musicians who want to say something. You see, my songs are born in my dreams with my imagination and my imagination feeds on my life. Boredom can not exist in all this.
By David Sapienza
Submitted by Sai
Translated by me
In the spring there was a small live CD by Jeff Buckley. It was Live at Sin-e, recorded at the small bar in the Lower East Side of New York where the boy had refined a style and a voice soon destined to become unmistakable. My amazement was not really due to the interpretative maturity ("The Way Young Lovers Do" by Van Morrison could eat No Prima Donna (Van Morrison's tribute album) in just one bite), but to the compositive one. ("Mojo Pin" is one of the most beautiful songs of this 'year). Great was the surprise when Musician, prestigious American magazine, by the hand of Bill Flanagan took four pages to tell the story of this young man. His reaction was and still is peculiar: "Bill loves me, he's like that," Buckley apologizes. We are together in a squalid cafe in Milan. The radio is in full blast and obscures the boy's voice. We ask the manager to lower, but pretends not to understand. Once the barista's bad manners has been verified, Jeff turns and continues: "You know how it is, when people older than you love you, they never stop praising you. It was too positive an article towards me and therefore not accurate on the emotional point of view." Throughout the meeting Jeff will continue to change his Rickenbacker's strings. We are close to the Rock Planet in Milan. It is an unsuitable place for a concert so intimate, busy as it is not to suffocate. But despite the lost voice in mixing a wrong locale for this kind of music, the message is that Jeff Buckley is a reality to deal with if you want to speak from now on of the American song that goes around 2000.
UB: The choices that you demonstrate to make seem oriented to sad and melancholy tones, such as "Hallelujah" by Cohen or the theme of love gutted elsewhere in the songs you write.
JB: "Hallelujah" I did not do it because it's Leonard Cohen, but because I like the song. Based on this we proceeded for all the songs, even mine. The version that inspired me is a version of John Cale with all ten verses, unlike what appears in Various Positions. The evening I first proposed it to Sin-è was a special evening, I even acted like a fool. See, the word Alleluia has its own precise sign, it is connected to the church. Instead for me it is a word that celebrates something very human, it speaks of a deep link between pain and the human condition. That word has nothing to do with being nailed to a cross: it's when you're sick, but there's also when you make love, when you lose it...
UB: In your songs there is the presence of this figure, the clash of two great inner positions. How do you see yourself in this dilemma?
JB: I wanted to start this record in the dark, get it to light in the middle, with "Lilac Wine" and "Hallelujah", then come back in the dark. I did it because there will be other works and so the next album could be a continuation, so it starts with "Mojo Pin" and ends with "Dream Brother".
UB: How did you get to Colombia since this is not the music that is trendy at the moment?
JB: It's not like you can believe: I played around the various cafes and I was in a chrysalis, something that I still see of myself. I feel incomplete, I'm incomplete. New York is important to me, it's important in the world. People think we're rough in New York, but it's not like that: the truth is that there's no time for things that do not matter because there are so many things to see and do. People are ruder in Hamburg, for example. There is openness and even if you get rid of the ideas, people actually live in their vision at least in the Lower East Village: they do it because it is necessary and I was doing exactly that, I was living in my vision when I was noticed. I continue to do what I have always done, what has changed is the perception of me, a big change. We do not have a formula, we sail.
UB: This album has brought together fringes of critics generally very distant. Plus, it does not sound like a first album, but something more mature. It will also be the production: who chose Andy Wallace?
JB: Andy is 46 and therefore has a lot of experience. You could not immediately connect his name to Nirvana (he mixed Nevermind) or White Zombie, which were created by him. Andy knows how to focus things and has the energy to keep them framed. He has total mastery of technology, a wealth of ideas, he was a barometer for everything that happened: for example he made me shorten "Lover, You Should Have Come Over". It was like taking a bitter medicine that at first makes you feel like shit then you understand its positive effect. You need to learn certain things. Andy is the person who made Grace happen.
UB: Will you work with him again? Have you thought of a producer like Daniel Lanois, for example?
JB: Wallace costs a lot...Lanois is good, but if I worked with him at his studio I would end up playing like For the Beauty of Wynona, and I do not want this to happen. Surely I would love to work in his studio if he would leave me alone for some time. I would like to work with Hal Willner, or rather I will work on it. He is able to gather the right people in a studio: he's also a strange guy and that's what I need.
UB: What is music for you?
JB: It's like the blood in the veins, it's that kind of vehicle, a channel for ultimate expression. I started writing songs that were horrible at age 13. "Mojo Pin" I wrote it with Gary Lucas a couple of years ago. I carry Gary in my hands wherever I go (feel the last, beautiful Bad boys of the arctic, nda). Music can give you an orgasm, this is its greatness, it's a very physical thing and you're in the middle of it. Music exists only in the present, like every creation. Painters have a trance when they draw, but you can not experience it from the outside. With music you can participate in this continuous creation, which is repeated in the present time. My album is more like a painting, because there was a lot of work, except in "So Real" that was recorded at the first performance, at three in the morning when I got to the studio with that poem.
UB: This is your first European tour; do you believe that the future can reserve you unpleasant surprises, like the routine boredom that many artists see on long journeys?
JB: No, it's bullshit. Playing is magic and even if sometimes it can be a bit 'tired magic, it still remains magic, you can never know what will happen a certain evening, you can not predict what audience you will have in front of you. We never go on stage with a precise lineup, the only guide we have is trusting ourselves and the things that can come from four musicians who want to say something. You see, my songs are born in my dreams with my imagination and my imagination feeds on my life. Boredom can not exist in all this.
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