Rhythms, July, 1995
By Christie Eliezer
Submitted by Gabby
If you're one of those whose copy of Jeff Buckley's Grace is still In the CD player a year after it's release, you'd already know about that stunning, gorgeous voice, the heart-pounding melancholy of the ballads and the grittiness of thevrock-out tracks.
Onstage, Buckley is much more than that. With songs like "Dream Brother" and "So Real" (which, incidentally, have been opening his shows in Europe), it was accepted Grace was the sort of album that really come alive in the live context. After touring nnon-stop with his band for almost a year, the set is crackingly good.
"The Last Goodbye", for instance, is just a bundle of intensity, as Buckley dissolves into a loud "kiss me, ooh, KISS ME!" while the on-stage renditions of "Grace" and "Mojo Pin" acquire a beauty only hinted at on record. A recent addition to the show, "What Will You Say" (written by good friend Chris Dowd, former ivory tinkler and trombone player with Fishbone, who incidentally, was the real inspiration behind "Dream Brother", not father Tim as commonly assumed) breaks away from his image as the good loking angel les chique tragique.
You ain't heard nothing yet till you hear ol' Jeff take high vocals on "Lover You Should've Come Over", or the way he and his band gleefully punch holes into the lyrics of Big Star's "Holocaust" and come up gasping for air, mouth turned down in junkie chic while dripping with blood. For the final song, Buckley stands alone, turning "Hallelujah" into more of a melodramatic opus than its writer Leonard Cohen intended it to be Buckley clings to rock music for the simple reason Lennon or Dylan grasped at it. It allowed him to reinvent himself and claw himself out of life's claustrophobia. Being part of a band has given him a family for the first time. If you heard the themes behind "Grace" and "Eternal Life"-how music makes him feel so goddamn good-you'd know that anyway.
"Do you know what it's like when you're having sex and you're about to have an orgasm, and your entire mind and body are concentrating every single molecule on that one thing?" Buckley murmurs. "That's what music is for me. It's a white light, it's my mother and father, it's my best friend, it's my blood.
"Nothing else matters. When I'm working, I'm thinking music. When I'm resting, I'm thinking music. People say I bend my body into the weirdest shapes when I'm performing onstage. I can understand that. When I'm singing, I can feel that force just push my face, my body, everything into all kinds of shapes."
Does that explain the amount of people who've written to him saying how Grace saved them from suicide?
"Is that such a big deal? I don't think my music attracts weirdos. The people at my shows are pretty normal. They're not coming because they want to see some rock god-which I'm NOT!-they enjoy playing Grace in their homes and they want to see the songs delivered in person.
"Maybe if they're feeling kinda down, maybe it's hearing the songs and realizing that they're not alone, that other people-a lot of other people-are feeling those things too. Everyone feels like shit. I certainly have. I spent most of my teenage days feeling real empty inside, feeling I had nothing to offer anyone. A lot of people think angst is something to revel in. It's not. You have to contend with it. You can either be self indulgent and boring. Or you can create a masterpiece."
So how would he react if someone in the audience told him they'd come to see a rock god or, travesty, the spirit of Tim Buckley revived?
"Yeah, well, the joke's on them. I hardly knew my father. He left my mum when I was six months old. I never saw him again until a week or so before he died. My mum gave me the name Jeff Scott Moorhead. Moorhead was the name of my stepfather. Until my mid-teens I actually was known as Scott. I changed my name when I was old enough. I don't really know why. Or maybe I do."
It may be significant that Grace made Buckley a star at 28, the same age as when Sr died of an overdose. Jeff spent the last year explaining to people that, no, aside from the name, there's no connection with his father. Now he's changed his tack. At a recent press conference in Milan, when hit with a question about his father's death, he replied, "I dunno, man, maybe I should give you some phone numbers in America and they could help you answer that."
Ma Buckley was a hippie who turned him on to "that real post-Dylan acoustic stuff, marvelous to listen to even today." She was a bit of a gypsy, and the young boy's childhood was spent being the perennial "new kid in class" at yet another Californian school. He made a deal with music: it would become his best friend, and he in turn would listen to everything from the Beatles to Joni Mitchell to classical to '40s soundtracks.
Life was no swing through the Fun House for Buckley. He remembers as a teenager he was "dead inside", writing "endless poetry and stories, real shit stuff". It didn't alleviate his feelings of worthlessness. One day he raged, burned all his writings. Symbolically, two weeks later, the riots broke out in L.A.
So nowadays, New York-based Buckley is a bit of a '90s teen idol and "rock icon". He once jammed with Chrissie Hynde and John McEnroe during a visit to London, and is rumored to have had a fling with Liz of the Cocteau Twins. In interviews, he admits to having some horrific nightmares. Like doing his homework while listening to the radio, and being grabbed by the music and smashed into the floor until he screams. Or being invited back to an artist's studio to see his work-which turned out to be displays of living things with their vocal cords cut out. So is working on his next album a similar nightmare?
"No. It'd be interesting to see if having to project to a large group of people at shows will change the style. You always have this...uh, fear, that people might hate it or the ideas might not come when you're making it. But I figure I'm gonna be doing this for the rest of my life, so I might as well try and enjoy it now while I can."
Does continually being on the road disillusion him?
"No, I was always on the move as a kid. I enjoy it. It can be a bit hard at times, but, hey, the concerts make up for everything. If I get some backlash, that's OK. The more you're attacked, the more you're forced to defend this thing you love."
By Christie Eliezer
Submitted by Gabby
If you're one of those whose copy of Jeff Buckley's Grace is still In the CD player a year after it's release, you'd already know about that stunning, gorgeous voice, the heart-pounding melancholy of the ballads and the grittiness of thevrock-out tracks.
Onstage, Buckley is much more than that. With songs like "Dream Brother" and "So Real" (which, incidentally, have been opening his shows in Europe), it was accepted Grace was the sort of album that really come alive in the live context. After touring nnon-stop with his band for almost a year, the set is crackingly good.
"The Last Goodbye", for instance, is just a bundle of intensity, as Buckley dissolves into a loud "kiss me, ooh, KISS ME!" while the on-stage renditions of "Grace" and "Mojo Pin" acquire a beauty only hinted at on record. A recent addition to the show, "What Will You Say" (written by good friend Chris Dowd, former ivory tinkler and trombone player with Fishbone, who incidentally, was the real inspiration behind "Dream Brother", not father Tim as commonly assumed) breaks away from his image as the good loking angel les chique tragique.
You ain't heard nothing yet till you hear ol' Jeff take high vocals on "Lover You Should've Come Over", or the way he and his band gleefully punch holes into the lyrics of Big Star's "Holocaust" and come up gasping for air, mouth turned down in junkie chic while dripping with blood. For the final song, Buckley stands alone, turning "Hallelujah" into more of a melodramatic opus than its writer Leonard Cohen intended it to be Buckley clings to rock music for the simple reason Lennon or Dylan grasped at it. It allowed him to reinvent himself and claw himself out of life's claustrophobia. Being part of a band has given him a family for the first time. If you heard the themes behind "Grace" and "Eternal Life"-how music makes him feel so goddamn good-you'd know that anyway.
"Do you know what it's like when you're having sex and you're about to have an orgasm, and your entire mind and body are concentrating every single molecule on that one thing?" Buckley murmurs. "That's what music is for me. It's a white light, it's my mother and father, it's my best friend, it's my blood.
"Nothing else matters. When I'm working, I'm thinking music. When I'm resting, I'm thinking music. People say I bend my body into the weirdest shapes when I'm performing onstage. I can understand that. When I'm singing, I can feel that force just push my face, my body, everything into all kinds of shapes."
Does that explain the amount of people who've written to him saying how Grace saved them from suicide?
"Is that such a big deal? I don't think my music attracts weirdos. The people at my shows are pretty normal. They're not coming because they want to see some rock god-which I'm NOT!-they enjoy playing Grace in their homes and they want to see the songs delivered in person.
"Maybe if they're feeling kinda down, maybe it's hearing the songs and realizing that they're not alone, that other people-a lot of other people-are feeling those things too. Everyone feels like shit. I certainly have. I spent most of my teenage days feeling real empty inside, feeling I had nothing to offer anyone. A lot of people think angst is something to revel in. It's not. You have to contend with it. You can either be self indulgent and boring. Or you can create a masterpiece."
So how would he react if someone in the audience told him they'd come to see a rock god or, travesty, the spirit of Tim Buckley revived?
"Yeah, well, the joke's on them. I hardly knew my father. He left my mum when I was six months old. I never saw him again until a week or so before he died. My mum gave me the name Jeff Scott Moorhead. Moorhead was the name of my stepfather. Until my mid-teens I actually was known as Scott. I changed my name when I was old enough. I don't really know why. Or maybe I do."
It may be significant that Grace made Buckley a star at 28, the same age as when Sr died of an overdose. Jeff spent the last year explaining to people that, no, aside from the name, there's no connection with his father. Now he's changed his tack. At a recent press conference in Milan, when hit with a question about his father's death, he replied, "I dunno, man, maybe I should give you some phone numbers in America and they could help you answer that."
Ma Buckley was a hippie who turned him on to "that real post-Dylan acoustic stuff, marvelous to listen to even today." She was a bit of a gypsy, and the young boy's childhood was spent being the perennial "new kid in class" at yet another Californian school. He made a deal with music: it would become his best friend, and he in turn would listen to everything from the Beatles to Joni Mitchell to classical to '40s soundtracks.
Life was no swing through the Fun House for Buckley. He remembers as a teenager he was "dead inside", writing "endless poetry and stories, real shit stuff". It didn't alleviate his feelings of worthlessness. One day he raged, burned all his writings. Symbolically, two weeks later, the riots broke out in L.A.
So nowadays, New York-based Buckley is a bit of a '90s teen idol and "rock icon". He once jammed with Chrissie Hynde and John McEnroe during a visit to London, and is rumored to have had a fling with Liz of the Cocteau Twins. In interviews, he admits to having some horrific nightmares. Like doing his homework while listening to the radio, and being grabbed by the music and smashed into the floor until he screams. Or being invited back to an artist's studio to see his work-which turned out to be displays of living things with their vocal cords cut out. So is working on his next album a similar nightmare?
"No. It'd be interesting to see if having to project to a large group of people at shows will change the style. You always have this...uh, fear, that people might hate it or the ideas might not come when you're making it. But I figure I'm gonna be doing this for the rest of my life, so I might as well try and enjoy it now while I can."
Does continually being on the road disillusion him?
"No, I was always on the move as a kid. I enjoy it. It can be a bit hard at times, but, hey, the concerts make up for everything. If I get some backlash, that's OK. The more you're attacked, the more you're forced to defend this thing you love."
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