Spex, August, 1994
By Jutta Koether
Submitted by Niella
Translated by me
Jeff Buckley has a handicap that is both a weapon and a means. His appearance and his voice are eternal; more than a resemblance to his birth father, the singer-songwriter and shifter between folk, jazz and improvisatory music, Tim Buckley, who died of a drug overdose in 1975, when Jeff was eight years old. Although, or perhaps because, he had to cope with such a father-cult-myth, he has developed techniques and decision making patterns that are amazing and interesting. Despite all the coquetry that goes into it, Jeff Buckley is completely cynicism-free. The New York Times titled an article about him "The Unmade Star." Solving the dilemma and working with it at the same time is the result of his story.
"How do you even know about me?" When he asked this at the beginning of the meeting, it sounded like a joke or a request and a question he probably did not have to ask himself. But I did not go into this father. I wanted to find out what it's like to be able to ignore this fact and later-as a stylistic problem-pick it up. At some point he started to talk about it, but neither said the name nor called "father" but only "he". That "his" music was not the one he grew up with. That he did not even find it particularly interesting. Not today. That his mother, Mary Guibert, who completed a classical piano and cello education, and his stepfather, a Led Zeppelin fan, were much more responsible for direct influences.
Jeff Buckley took a lot of time for all sorts of detours. For a while, Miles Davis was his idol. But he also worked in hardrock and reggae bands, went to a guitar school in LA Excessive fan-tum. Exhausting enthusiasm for jazz, blues, and finally learning to listen to big voices: Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, also Bob Dylan, Robert Plant, and Van Morrison. It was more than private enjoyment because it maintained his ambition, constantly corrected him.
You can see Jeff Buckley running around N.Y., in the East Village, with a blaster and a briefcase of about 50 CDs. He loves and praises his turf as the only currently inspiring place. The moment we left the Indian restaurant, Fifth Street was lit up with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
He is also known to at least once a week, sometimes even unannounced at two in the morning in Sin-e, a kind of Irish club coffee shop, to show up and just make a gig. So it was before he was a recording artist (Columbia / Sony) and went to the studio. The not-so-long story goes like this: in 1991 he made the decision to put forward the exorcism. Before that, he could only negate and hide his origin / properties; now he was ready to express and exploit them. He fully understands that the part of the attention given to him is "his" heritage. In any case, the raw materials, where it can be driven, is another matter. So it should be the voice that has this pure tenor, which ranges at least two octaves and is loaded with a sentimental repertoire that ties in with the "old guys", redesigned according to Jeff Buckley's rules. The first significant gig in N.Y. was a Tim Buckley tribute concert hosted by Hal Willner at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn. Buckley played for a while in Gods and Monsters, the band of Gary Lucas. In 1992, the solo performances began. For a handful of dollars, you know.
Buckley has a propensity for the dramatic on the stage, for EXPRESSION. This enables him to interpret other people's songs from Van Morrison to "I Loves You, Porgy" to a Sufi chant or an obscure Elton John song as well as to perform his own. The special equal treatment of the others and his own voice becomes clear on his 4-song debut "Live At Sin-e". A juxtaposition of two of his own songs, Edith Piaf's "Je N'En Connais Pas La Fin" and Van Morrison's classic "The Way Young Lovers Do". Oh, gut wrencher. Oh, heartbreaker. Although one might now think it's a clever thought or something and how piggy pretentious it all sounds, that is not the case. Rather, it sounds like an expression of the place where sentimentality and minimalism come together without the grand conceptual idea.
Meanwhile, he has also collected his own band. With Mick Grondahl (bass) and Matt Johnson (drums). Woodstock produces the first "full" LP produced by Andy Wallace. A matter that Buckley found extremely divided at the time of the conversation. As if it annoyed him, as if he already wanted to be somewhere else again. "Flying Away" is one of his favorite motives. "Every time someone tells you they love you, the 'I love you' flies away, you wait until the next one comes." This is how it is in life and with the making of plates. Although the LP is barely out, it has already flown away from him for a long time. He writes on new songs, even harder. In the way he insists on the raison d'être of the ultra-personal in public.
His solo live time, he says, taught him how to force the audience to share responsibility, how to feel it as part of the experience of the performance. And now it's up to the band to try: "I want the band to be willing to go into these intimate places, to learn how to make 'big magic in little areas', things nobody can forget!"
So much for the practice of public idealism. How this all goes together, even embarrassing things in something beautiful, or can coexist, can be understood better when you look at Jeff Buckley's true hero / father: Above all, he is a Gerorge Carlin fan! (This was a TV comedian in the early 1970s whose super-successful "routine" was that of the hippie.) And that sooner or later all of this will turn into a star-profile / image / persona is already clear.
By Jutta Koether
Submitted by Niella
Translated by me
Jeff Buckley has a handicap that is both a weapon and a means. His appearance and his voice are eternal; more than a resemblance to his birth father, the singer-songwriter and shifter between folk, jazz and improvisatory music, Tim Buckley, who died of a drug overdose in 1975, when Jeff was eight years old. Although, or perhaps because, he had to cope with such a father-cult-myth, he has developed techniques and decision making patterns that are amazing and interesting. Despite all the coquetry that goes into it, Jeff Buckley is completely cynicism-free. The New York Times titled an article about him "The Unmade Star." Solving the dilemma and working with it at the same time is the result of his story.
"How do you even know about me?" When he asked this at the beginning of the meeting, it sounded like a joke or a request and a question he probably did not have to ask himself. But I did not go into this father. I wanted to find out what it's like to be able to ignore this fact and later-as a stylistic problem-pick it up. At some point he started to talk about it, but neither said the name nor called "father" but only "he". That "his" music was not the one he grew up with. That he did not even find it particularly interesting. Not today. That his mother, Mary Guibert, who completed a classical piano and cello education, and his stepfather, a Led Zeppelin fan, were much more responsible for direct influences.
Jeff Buckley took a lot of time for all sorts of detours. For a while, Miles Davis was his idol. But he also worked in hardrock and reggae bands, went to a guitar school in LA Excessive fan-tum. Exhausting enthusiasm for jazz, blues, and finally learning to listen to big voices: Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, also Bob Dylan, Robert Plant, and Van Morrison. It was more than private enjoyment because it maintained his ambition, constantly corrected him.
You can see Jeff Buckley running around N.Y., in the East Village, with a blaster and a briefcase of about 50 CDs. He loves and praises his turf as the only currently inspiring place. The moment we left the Indian restaurant, Fifth Street was lit up with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
He is also known to at least once a week, sometimes even unannounced at two in the morning in Sin-e, a kind of Irish club coffee shop, to show up and just make a gig. So it was before he was a recording artist (Columbia / Sony) and went to the studio. The not-so-long story goes like this: in 1991 he made the decision to put forward the exorcism. Before that, he could only negate and hide his origin / properties; now he was ready to express and exploit them. He fully understands that the part of the attention given to him is "his" heritage. In any case, the raw materials, where it can be driven, is another matter. So it should be the voice that has this pure tenor, which ranges at least two octaves and is loaded with a sentimental repertoire that ties in with the "old guys", redesigned according to Jeff Buckley's rules. The first significant gig in N.Y. was a Tim Buckley tribute concert hosted by Hal Willner at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn. Buckley played for a while in Gods and Monsters, the band of Gary Lucas. In 1992, the solo performances began. For a handful of dollars, you know.
Buckley has a propensity for the dramatic on the stage, for EXPRESSION. This enables him to interpret other people's songs from Van Morrison to "I Loves You, Porgy" to a Sufi chant or an obscure Elton John song as well as to perform his own. The special equal treatment of the others and his own voice becomes clear on his 4-song debut "Live At Sin-e". A juxtaposition of two of his own songs, Edith Piaf's "Je N'En Connais Pas La Fin" and Van Morrison's classic "The Way Young Lovers Do". Oh, gut wrencher. Oh, heartbreaker. Although one might now think it's a clever thought or something and how piggy pretentious it all sounds, that is not the case. Rather, it sounds like an expression of the place where sentimentality and minimalism come together without the grand conceptual idea.
Meanwhile, he has also collected his own band. With Mick Grondahl (bass) and Matt Johnson (drums). Woodstock produces the first "full" LP produced by Andy Wallace. A matter that Buckley found extremely divided at the time of the conversation. As if it annoyed him, as if he already wanted to be somewhere else again. "Flying Away" is one of his favorite motives. "Every time someone tells you they love you, the 'I love you' flies away, you wait until the next one comes." This is how it is in life and with the making of plates. Although the LP is barely out, it has already flown away from him for a long time. He writes on new songs, even harder. In the way he insists on the raison d'être of the ultra-personal in public.
His solo live time, he says, taught him how to force the audience to share responsibility, how to feel it as part of the experience of the performance. And now it's up to the band to try: "I want the band to be willing to go into these intimate places, to learn how to make 'big magic in little areas', things nobody can forget!"
So much for the practice of public idealism. How this all goes together, even embarrassing things in something beautiful, or can coexist, can be understood better when you look at Jeff Buckley's true hero / father: Above all, he is a Gerorge Carlin fan! (This was a TV comedian in the early 1970s whose super-successful "routine" was that of the hippie.) And that sooner or later all of this will turn into a star-profile / image / persona is already clear.
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