L'evenement du Jeudi: February 9-15, 1995
By Yann Plougastel
Submitted by Sai
Translated by me
In the 1970s, Tim Buckley was the rock poet of his generation. Twenty-five years later, the son he did not know carries the torch.
The rumor began to take off in April 1991, in New York, in a smoky club where a band of nostalgic hippies were hosting a tribute to Tim Buckley, a rock star with a tormented personality, who died of an overdose in 1975.
A lanky boy, dark-haired and austere, stepped on stage to sing I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain, whose lyrics say: "Flying fish / Tells me of my child /Wrapped in bitter tales and sorrow / He begs just for a smile / He never asked to be his mountain / He never asked to fly..." There was silence. The audience thought they were dreaming. It was him. The man introduced himself, "My name is Jeff Buckley." The son...Then there was a disconcerting mini-CD where Jeff, in a harshly contralto voice, on a powerful and repetitive rhythm, covered "I Do Not Know The End", a title immortalized by Edith Piaf. He said: "She was enjoying that amazing voice with incredible vibrato, thanks to the street, where she had to be heard, I understand her, to be psychologically in the middle of nowhere, lost in an ocean of despair, I know what it is."
The rumor became more and more insistent. There, in New York, in a Village club, a strange bird was burning with black lyricism. At the rendezvous, there was Led Zeppelin, Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, Charlie Mingus, and Van Morrison...
We knew more about him. His father and mother separated in 1967 when he was born. He only saw his father once, a few months before his death: "I am no one's son, a clueless guy, born in southern California, who was raised singing in the car with his mother, a classical pianist and cellist", he explained, annoyed by the questions about his parentage. There was Tim. There is Jeff...
And to point out the important role held by his stepfather, who was working as a mechanic in a garage listening to Led Zeppelin at full volume: "I grew up with this music." As well as that of his mother: "My phrasing, my melodies, I believe that they also come from the tears of my mother. To hide them, she shut herself up in the shower. The sound of the water and her sobs made me think of a siren..."
At age 17, with a diploma in his pocket, he makes his way to Hollywood, accumulates several jobs: a gas station attendant, a waiter for a strip club, and starts a band with the old guitarist of Captain Beefheart, the hallucinated companion of Frank Zappa. "We were playing like Phil Glass on angel dust trying to be Sun Ra or whatever." This is surrealism, but there is already something, a way to bet on mystery, trance and sound to bring the listener to a stage of pure emotion, without critical look or distanced judgment. "To make music is to get into the skin of a scared kid or a passionate romantic lover..."
With "Grace", his first album released last summer, he immediately enters the big leagues and gives the full measure of its originality. A convulsive party. A sensual chaos. A caustic dive into the land of sounds. In his quiet and orderly times, he returns to an aesthetic blur, which refers to Dylan, Cohen, or Buckley, Tim. It is rage or orgasm.
"For me, the trance is the perfect unity between my body and my mind...There is no longer any separation between what I say and what I feel, a feeling that has always attracted me. It's like sex: there comes a time when we can not intervene, where we have to give in. For me, only sex can save this earth. All combinations, all positions are possible, but, at the arrival, there is only that precise moment when I let myself go with the impression of being eternal," he comments.
Remember this name. Jeff Buckley. Because this flamboyant boy, a whirlwind of melancholy and screams, is simply graceful...
February 11, 8 PM, the Bataclan
50, Blvd Voltaire, Paris, 11, tel: 48.06.21.11
"Grace", Sony CD
By Yann Plougastel
Submitted by Sai
Translated by me
In the 1970s, Tim Buckley was the rock poet of his generation. Twenty-five years later, the son he did not know carries the torch.
The rumor began to take off in April 1991, in New York, in a smoky club where a band of nostalgic hippies were hosting a tribute to Tim Buckley, a rock star with a tormented personality, who died of an overdose in 1975.
A lanky boy, dark-haired and austere, stepped on stage to sing I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain, whose lyrics say: "Flying fish / Tells me of my child /Wrapped in bitter tales and sorrow / He begs just for a smile / He never asked to be his mountain / He never asked to fly..." There was silence. The audience thought they were dreaming. It was him. The man introduced himself, "My name is Jeff Buckley." The son...Then there was a disconcerting mini-CD where Jeff, in a harshly contralto voice, on a powerful and repetitive rhythm, covered "I Do Not Know The End", a title immortalized by Edith Piaf. He said: "She was enjoying that amazing voice with incredible vibrato, thanks to the street, where she had to be heard, I understand her, to be psychologically in the middle of nowhere, lost in an ocean of despair, I know what it is."
The rumor became more and more insistent. There, in New York, in a Village club, a strange bird was burning with black lyricism. At the rendezvous, there was Led Zeppelin, Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, Charlie Mingus, and Van Morrison...
We knew more about him. His father and mother separated in 1967 when he was born. He only saw his father once, a few months before his death: "I am no one's son, a clueless guy, born in southern California, who was raised singing in the car with his mother, a classical pianist and cellist", he explained, annoyed by the questions about his parentage. There was Tim. There is Jeff...
And to point out the important role held by his stepfather, who was working as a mechanic in a garage listening to Led Zeppelin at full volume: "I grew up with this music." As well as that of his mother: "My phrasing, my melodies, I believe that they also come from the tears of my mother. To hide them, she shut herself up in the shower. The sound of the water and her sobs made me think of a siren..."
At age 17, with a diploma in his pocket, he makes his way to Hollywood, accumulates several jobs: a gas station attendant, a waiter for a strip club, and starts a band with the old guitarist of Captain Beefheart, the hallucinated companion of Frank Zappa. "We were playing like Phil Glass on angel dust trying to be Sun Ra or whatever." This is surrealism, but there is already something, a way to bet on mystery, trance and sound to bring the listener to a stage of pure emotion, without critical look or distanced judgment. "To make music is to get into the skin of a scared kid or a passionate romantic lover..."
With "Grace", his first album released last summer, he immediately enters the big leagues and gives the full measure of its originality. A convulsive party. A sensual chaos. A caustic dive into the land of sounds. In his quiet and orderly times, he returns to an aesthetic blur, which refers to Dylan, Cohen, or Buckley, Tim. It is rage or orgasm.
"For me, the trance is the perfect unity between my body and my mind...There is no longer any separation between what I say and what I feel, a feeling that has always attracted me. It's like sex: there comes a time when we can not intervene, where we have to give in. For me, only sex can save this earth. All combinations, all positions are possible, but, at the arrival, there is only that precise moment when I let myself go with the impression of being eternal," he comments.
Remember this name. Jeff Buckley. Because this flamboyant boy, a whirlwind of melancholy and screams, is simply graceful...
February 11, 8 PM, the Bataclan
50, Blvd Voltaire, Paris, 11, tel: 48.06.21.11
"Grace", Sony CD
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