Garage, Glasgow, review

(Thanks to Gabby for finding!)

Jeff Buckley, Garage, Glasgow

1st March 1995

  ABOUT his voice and singing ability there was no doubt on Monday night: Jeff Buckley is the vocalist as we near fresh twenty-first century vistas. When not insinuating himself into your heart with his plaintive whispers and intimate, little-boy breathiness, Buckley is unrolling vast, creamy swoops or raw-throated, free-form, higher-register shrieks. His voice floats and flutters, feather-light, embodying a complex mix

of pain, pride, and bewilderment. Or it keens and roars with a brutal proto-punk edge.

  The effect on an audience is invariably the same: spine-tingling and awe-inspiring. But as for Jeff Buckley's own songs and his on-stage presentation...well, the jury remains out. His half-dozen or so self-composed songs conform to a samey-sounding formula best summed up as plangent grunge. No wonder then that Monday's genuine show-stoppers were covers.

  His version of Lilac Wine, immortalised by Nina Simone prior to ruination by Elkie Brooks, was eerily astounding. Concluding with Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, Buckley left us rapt, arrested, astonished, sated. Earlier, though, we'd seen him slough his shirt and jacket with an unattractive, self-loving shimmy. His jokey between-song chats were less than necessary too.

  Or, to quote the two Paisley women standing next to me in the sell-out crowd, ''Start the singin' and stop the comedy!'' Otherwise, they kept bellowing ''AC Milan!'' in hormonal appreciation of Jeff's resemblance to Paolo Maldini. Moral? Keep your feet on the ground and your eye on the ball, Jeff.

94-96 tour itinerary

List of shows from 94-96, though unfortunately pages 3 and 5 are missing... hopefully someday they will surface somehow!

Phantom Solo Tour flyer

Flyer for the "Phantom Solo Tour", December, 1996

MM Grace review

August 13, 1994

JEFF BUCKLEY

GRACE

Columbia Col475928

10tks/55 mins/All formats/FP

BECAUSE, after a series of desperate but sadly unsuccessful attempts, he finally realized that it wasn't actually possible to carve lyric poetry into the night sky with a 300-foot flamethrower, Jeff Buckley became a singer.

  "Grace" puts me in mind of what all those bands formed by young Hollywood stars might have sounded like if Hollywood was still HOLLYWOOD, and the square-jawed buggers could boast a single grain of stardust between them-partly due to Jeff's movie-star looks, cool-Californian stage persona, and his habit of talking wonderfully incoherent Utopian stoner babble, but mainly because near enough all these songs are awash with the drama and mystique they first built 25-foot screens for.

  In "Mojo Pin", a choked, meandering vocal weaves through ornate ripples of open-tuned guitar; the title track boasts a chord sequence to cartwheel to. Elsewhere he adds a wonderful feel of doomed, youthful romanticism to covers of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", the "Corpus Christi Carol" and, rather more bizarrely, "Lilac Wine" by perennial "Two Ronnies" guest Elkie Brooks.

  "So Real" is a song of surrender to the raised-vein thunder of The Moment (being, in this case, a night when Jeff and some pretty chum "walked around till the the moon grew full, like a plate, and the wind blew an invocation"). He never stepped on the cracks because he thought he'd hurt his mother.

  "I love you," whispers Jeff. "And I'm afraid to love you." My Bloody Valentine once conveyed that sudden, shocking self-realization with a mesh of bleeding noise; Buckley uses his voice, drawn out like a slow-stretched bolus of heavenly bubblegum (Alright!!!-Ed).

  It's a voice that leaps tall buildings in a single bound, smells of sex and Chanel and never stoops to showboating. Dull people would remark "He could sing his shopping list and it would sound fantastic," (Like, YOU'D never slip it in a review, right?-Ed) which, luckily, legitimizes his more embarrassing stabs at lyrical flash. Indeed, when Jeff sings about girls with green eyes and "butterscotch hair", you don't just picture them, you fancy them rotten (but that's the thing about the Nineties, don't you think? The most alluring quality one can possess is to be fictional). Anyway, "Grace" is a massive, gorgeous record, a record that floats all talk of famous dads out onto the lake on a makeshift raft and leaves it there, and starts where every other singer-songwriter in town says, "Whoa!", pulls up his horse and backs off.

  Because the point at which others are struck dumb with rapture is the moment Jeff Buckley finds his voice, and starts singing.

Jeff Buckley appears on the MM stage on Sunday, August 28

TAYLOR PARKES

MM Sin-e review

April 9, 1994

JEFF BUCKLEY

LIVE AT SIN-E

Big Cat ABB61XCD/4tks/27 mins/MP

FOLKIES-Arran sweaters, sandals and a face that would disgrace even Captain Birds Eye after a night on the lager. Jeff Buckley-young and electric with the kind of fanny-moistening good looks only a Hollywood surgeon could chisel. And he can write a good tune too. Nirvana!

  The highlight of Buckley's two recent London shows was to watch someone actually working for their wage-going for notes which, by rights, they had only an even chance of hitting, yet, in the process, creating an atmosphere which left everybody in the room stunned into silence.

  This four-track mini-LP (fat bastid of a single?) retains the edge an abandon that characterized those shows yet, because it was recorded in a tiny bar in Greenwich Village, loses none of the intimacy that makes JB so special live. Take the lovelorn "Mojo Pin", with its dreamily insistent guitar motif that sounds like it's been beamed in from the edge of sleep or "Eternal Life" which starts off like the most depressed Hendrix reflection then turns inward into a drama-filled confrontation with his own mortality.

  Buckley's version of Van Morrison's "The Way Young Lovers Do" is a fine example of what I was on about earlier, his cavalier approach to creating time-stopping, wonderous moments.

  He actually picks out the individual instruments from the thick mesh of the "Astral Weeks" big-band arrangement and wails, hollers, cries, and croons their parts. Somehow, none of the churning urgency of the original is lost. It could so easily be a grand folly but isn't, simply because of his sheer brass-neck, his intuitive knowledge of what made the song so brilliant in the first place and the small fact that he could sing the wallet out of Pavarotti's back pocket.

  I get blank looks trying to order a vodka in Paris, but I think "Je N'en Connais Pas La Fin" is one of those heart-destroying paeans to lost youth that only the frogs-Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel (I know he's Belgian) knock out so lovingly.

  Jeff Buckley has created one of the albums of the year with just a Telecaster and a voice that sounds like a choirboy singing from the rafters of a whorehouse. Buy it and melt.

MAT SMITH

94/95 tour itinerary

Itinerary booklet for the Autumn 94/Winter 95 tours...how I wish I had this!

Mahare Buckham flyer and ticket

Some rare gig things from his high school days courtesy of Jason Hamel 🙂

1982

1983

David's autograph

Grace Under Pressure

The Advertiser: December 15, 1994

By Mike Gribble

  Jeff Buckley met his dad, 70s rock contemporary Tim Buckley, only once but in music both have been struck by a similar sense of love-sickness and devotion to raw, spontaneous passion. Jeff Buckley's debut album, Grace, is a soaring, unique mix of styles, without consistent or specific direction, but is underscored by lyrics pleading for understanding.

  Buckley's voice carries flecks of operatic strains, rock angst, and even reveals glimpses of child-like hesitancy. Captain Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas paints Buckley's soundscapes with sparse and well placed caresses of strings.

  "A trademark of my presence has been that, at first glance, people either hate me and run away screaming, or we sit down and talk and get on with knowing each other," says Buckley, 27. "I've lived in bars since I was 14, doing gigs in southern California. I remember any gigs I did had a lot of range to them but I didn't do things with the same focus I have now.

  "Music is a force of nature; it's not really an art. The conventions built around music are art forms. I experience music as being like the wind, or ocean, or fire.

  "It comes perfectly natural to humankind. It gets into the bloodstream and you can hate it, or it can totally elate you.

  "Initially, songs come to me very easily but bringing them to full bloom takes a lot out of me. The way you see the song in your mind and the shape it takes...if you see any apprehension in the song, that's usually the way it came out when I first did it and I don't like to change it. I don't like to say it any better than that. I'm hard-pressed to find a different expression for it.

  "If it's a little rusty at the beginning, if it's like stars gathering in the galaxy, that's the way it comes out.

  "I love the place music takes you. It's like a whole other universe where all musics exist. Music takes time and it takes moments for people. It hovers like flies over a picnic before it goes in for the kill and you really...like, really experience it."

• Jeff Buckley will perform at the Big Day Out in Sydney and Melbourne. Adelaide fans should start requesting an SA visit through Sony Music.

Lex's autograph

"Met Jeff on his Lucky 13 Tour of Australia... he played an In-store in Melbourne (Gaslight). You had to purchase a release to get a ticket, which was a laminate. I bought CD singles...and got 3 laminates. 

    He played about 40 minutes, then signed autographs...the band played acoustically/ stripped back. Its was amazing.

    I asked Jeff for a guitar pick, as I play guitar... he spat this pick out of his mouth into my hand...ummm ewww...but EPIC !! I have a lot of clippings from when he died, and stuff when hed tour, also tour posters and the Lucky 13 Tour shirt."

"The reason he wrote on the CD cover 'Lex I can't really play pool' was because I had asked him, if he could play pool. I had just watched him and I didn't know what else to say....I could say 'OMG you're amazing' hahahaa...he said he couldn't play pool, and that he hung out a lot at a pool halls across the road from a venue he played, and always like it, so they took a photo and used it....I think the club was the Sin-é."-Lex Frumpy on FB (note: in this case, the photo used is by Merri Cyr, taken December 4, 1994 at the Stephen Talkhouse show)

Fall 94 tour flyer

A flyer for the fall 94 "Grace" tour

(Edits: Sony National Branch Meeting was on Dec 7, not 💯 about the Ace of Clubs, but it seems to have been scrapped in favor of the Sony thing, Club Babyhead was on the 14, Irving Plaza was on the 17, Maxwell's on the 18 and was the finale)

Siobhan's autograph

from Siobhan Begley on Facebook (thanks to Gabby for finding)

Rockin'on, January, 1995

Jeff Buckley

Ohh! The song comes down!!
Bathe the expression, touch the existence!  The last “Artist”, Jeff Buckley’s telephone interview right before his visit to Japan & tickets giveaway!!

Interview: Hiroaki Tanaka, Interpretation: Steve Harris

Translation by Tutu Fujimoto

(audio of the interview can be found here)

It's said that 10 people with 10 different colors (Ed: this is Japanese proverb that means “no flakes fall on the same spot” or like that), but I wonder indeed, there is someone who doesn't select “Grace” as one of the best albums of 1994. A surprise at the fact that the one singer’s album, which is just trying to "express" himself, can ring beyond your favorites or genre. Honestly, I had been listening to music so far, always with my heart worrying that something called "universal expression" might never come out again. Music, it should be with different perspectives by each person. But I have a conviction that everyone’s first feeling is the same when they listened to “Grace”. I also have a conviction that it will turn to each person’s “Grace” and the album will take root into each person’s life after awhile. I think those who haven't listened to it should do it quickly. His first visit to Japan will may be a historic moment, for sure.

I heard that you asked the recording company for three conditions in the contract: honesty, patience and non-interference. What's going on, it's about time you finally saw the reality of the industry and began to feel a sense of compromise?

Nah, not really. Well, it was hard to fill the gap, but in the end, everyone understood that It was me myself who knew the best about my work...Not especially, I’m not saying what's going on with people in the music industry. Frankly speaking, the way of thinking itself in the industry is totally behind the curve. What it’s about is, they just keep on selling it without knowing what they’re selling...For example, they try to sell things in the same way as they sell substantial value things like steel, apples, or oranges or cats. So they make a very narrow-minded decision which is nothing but a strangely unequal and give-and-take. They've been doing things like scraping things by picking and dragging up from somewhere, and that's what the music business is all about. That kind of situation is starting to show up more clearly.  So, first, we make sure of our values, and then we communicate properly with the people who need to get along with. There’re only five people in my line of work in person. Make sense? That’s enough. It's in Sony, a world-class religious cult (lol). Oh well, the tribe of Sony, they’re everywhere.

Hahaha. It seems that some people are planning to make you a cult star in a ten-year plan.

Wah...Whaaat??? Who’s saying like that thing...woo, even if it’s so, that’s not my business.  If they had a plan, they would give me a place where I could make an album and then make more and more better ones. My works reflect the life. It’s alive. It doesn’t mean it has to be a yogurt (lol).

Okay, so...is there any artists whom you think “I want to be this kind of person”?

...Tom Waits, Lou Reed, and Allen Ginsberg, De Niro. Dylan, too. A person who has lived a real life.  A person who has gone through the flames one after another. Whether it be your own flame, or a flame which has been hated by others or raised to the position of God. Dylan’s previous album, and the one before that are fabulous in that meaning.

I think those people who just mentioned are people who have paid attention only to their works regardless of the times or trends. Is that around the point what you sympathize with them?

But I guess it reflects the time a little bit. I'm also writing something that reflects my own life. So as time goes on, the contents of the songs will change naturally.

But now everyone is crazy about you, isn’t it. Strange to say, it seems you are the person who is much talked about in personal computer communication.

You mean, among the internet? Kiddinnnnng?...(I’m) Glad. I simply appreciate it, but it's still weird...yeah, it's way too strange. How can I say..., Thank you Madam, Would you like French fries with it? Like that??

(lol). Well, but seriously I've never seen an article about you in a bad way.

Is it? I wonder how they like me. Music is kinda strange. For example, song you hate has been playing years and years. It’s so lame and insistent that you don’t even want to listen anymore. But one time, the moment that song becomes so important has come. Maybe it's because of your girlfriend, maybe it's because you met someone, or someone is dead...music is like that. It's not like Sega games. Once or twice: you touch it or not, it’s not like that simple. Song is, music is, it’s always hanging around you, tagging along like a hornet. Music is, it takes time to get its breath and live. So, I'm happy with all the praise, but on the other hand I think we need to keep everyone having a conversation with music.

Pearl Jam also has the same kind of mentality as you have, that is like being honest with yourself or not to be swallowed by the business, doesn’t it?

Yeah, it might be. Ah yeah, Jeff Ament has come to my show before. But no one wants to betray themselves? But I know I’m a prostitute. I'll do anything I can to do music. Those prostitutes do the same, huh? To do with fun as long as they do.

But you are more picky than prostitute?

Well, it's too early to pretend to be a conceptual artist. No need to hit your head against the wall like this way early. I’m just okay with that I could play for people who really want to listen. Besides, the art is, it can show its ability especially at the place where you can show the eccentricity inside of you as much as you want. So we need a really suitable place for that. That’s a bar, or a church. I’ve played at the burrito shop once. That was amazing.

It should be like those small space?

Because if you play in a stadium or something, the audience would go out to buy hot dogs and beer and so on. That's not a musical experience or anything. It’s just an event. If it was about me, it’s too sad to death. And in places like that, you can't hear a sound without such a good monitor. It's like wearing a condom and having sex, so I get frustrated.

By the way, I heard that the fact that there’s no lyrics translation in Japanese Edition is due to your own will?

That’s right. It took only five minutes to decide. Rilke's German poetry had to go through many translators to achieve a honest, accurate and poetic English translation. Even in the languages of Mexico, Pakistan or France, they have their own identities, and the logic itself is full of satire or rhyming games. You should “experience” those things by yourself. That’s why I thought that a translation was good for nothing. Ultimately, I guess I have no choice but to learn Japanese myself. But I need two pages of Japanese for one word, maybe? (lol)

So, do you mean that Japanese people should feel something more from the sound?

Yeah, and I want you to take the time to figure it out. About what meaning it has, for yourselves.

Terry's autograph

He's too much...😂❤️ (thanks to Gabby for finding)

Jeff takes on...

Because I love me some snarky Jeff taking down Jakob Dylan (all the while being astute enough to realize he could also be talking about himself), George Carlin and Gavin Rosedale 😂❤️🔥😈

Shelly's autograph

"I got this autograph at the show in Lyon on July, 4th, 1995 during the show of dEUS, (my brother went to ask him 😉) before his own show."-Shelly Happart

Jeff's wedding note

"Jeff's card to my dad on my parents wedding day"

“My dad worked with him and they were close. Jeff wrote this at my parents wedding.” via @bobthecrockpot on TickTock

Correggio autograph

Courtesy of @beran1962 on IG

Tanya's autograph

Courtesy of Tanya Martin (@taj_martin on IG)

Peter's autographs

Courtesy of Peter B (@bwana3 on IG)

😂❤️

Brooke's supa mix

Yesterday and today, Jeff's friend Brooke Smith shared these pics of a mixtape he made for her (according to her, "He chose the songs!")...I love how him this tape is ! 🥰✨ (You can listen to the playlist here)

I wish I could hear it too! 😭❤️

From Jeff's record/tape collection...those interested can see the full thing here...you can also see more of his record collection on my Tumblr under the "jeffy's record collection" tag, where I've compiled all the available pics so far.

Roseland review

By Greg Fasolino

Juliana Hatfield

Jeff Buckley

Roseland

  Although technically the special guest on this bill, Jeff Buckley proved to be the one to warrant close attention. Son of legendary late '60s folk/jazz balladeer, Tim Buckley (a tragic 1975 suicide), Buckley the Son thankfully inherited his father's genetic vocal gifts, showcased on his recent debut full-length disc, Grace (not counting an earlier, appetite-whetting CD EP, Live at Sin-E). Indeed, Buckley's throat is a limber, liquid, unfettered instrument, somewhat like a cross between Robert Plant and Marc Bolan-able to turn and bite delicately into a tune with Kate Bush-like agility, and as simultaneously wry and touching as Morrissey or Morrison (Van, that is, his frequent cover choice). At Roseland, shiny-suited Buckley-backed by a sympathetic rhythm section-began small and ended big. An initially poor sound mix that occasionally drowned out Buckley's pipes (especially on a raw cover of the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams") held back the first bunch of numbers, but as the sonic background cleared, the incredible range, control, and power of this man's voice began to work its magic. The centerpiece of Grace, the loping, majestic "The Last Goodbye" really got the electricity flowing, with its alternating moods of delicacy and fat-riffed rock energy, followed by the fragile "Lilac Wine" and Grace's haunting title track. The finale found Buckley alone, accompanying himself on spare, sad guitar chording for an extended, moving version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." He even prompted a joyous murmer from the crowd when he inserted some old Smiths lyrics in the middle of the song.

  Since her beginnings with the Blake Babies, headliner Juliana Hatfield's winsome tunesmithery has held its own, but she simply wasn't strong enough a personality or singer to follow something as stunningly original as Buckley. Hatfield's latest album, Only Everything (featuring the terrific single, "Universal Heart Beat"), is a solid piece of hard bubblegum whimsy, similar to (but at this point, far eclipsing) her contemporary and former bandmate Evan Dando's Lemonheads. But this night, Hatfield's crunchy guitar and sugary pixie vocals didn't have the same kick as on the CD-the sonic whole lacked the buzzing gig energy of otherwise comparable combos like, say The Breeders or Elastica, which would have given Hatfield's impressively catchy songs (like the lovely "Live on Tomorrow") some juice. And it wasn't as if you could get swept away in a Dinosaur Jr.-like wash of noise, either; her band didn't seem to offer anything out of the ordinary. While Juliana's wholesome, waifish, alternative-girl-next-door image is cute on magazine covers, in a live setting, she suffers from a severe lack of star quality.

A Conversation with Jeff Buckley

Quotes from Beat, May, 1998 done in Wolverhampton, England, March 2, 1995

By Steve Morris

"It was very shocking to read. It's fiction."-about the suggestion that he's a phoney in this NME article

But surely part of the process of selling the music.

"Well, the performance of the music is the only selling point."

You still have to do interviews, meet and greets...

"I don't really do that very well. It takes a very small amount of time actually, it's very harmless but very draining."

"Yeah, it's strange. It's good."-about being surprised by the response to his music

Where did his music come from? What did he hear as a child?

"Mendelssohn, Chopin, the Messiah, erm, Funny Girl, West Side Story, Elton John, Joni Mitchell from my mom. From my stepfather, Pink Floyd, Grand Funk Railroad, Moody Blues, Cat Stevens, Crosby Stills and Nash, Bob Dylan. I think that was my mom too. Beatles of course and Hendrix and Zeppelin. And also the popular music of the time like Stevie Wonder had Innervisions and that was all over the radio."

His mom was an accomplished and respected musician. Had he been "guided" toward playing?

"No, no, I found it in my grandma's closet. It was an acoustic guitar, gut string. My mom never wanted me to play 'cos she had been through so much bullshit with lessons as a kid, so much pressure, she didn't want to put it on me. So she never pushed me in any one direction, ever, she saw I was doing something I liked. She just enjoyed it."

At what point did he realize he had a talent for music?

"I don't know how to tell you that, because I really don't get that sense. I mean, how do you get the sense that you are male."

"They said that about, er, pick 'em, Cocteau, Picasso whatever...some people fall short 'cos they're just gesticulating, but sometimes in art you need to be ridiculous, you have to be the clown. As long as you don't stay too long, man!

"Last night it was somebody's birthday and I did the Marilyn Monroe Happy Birthday Mr. President thing; really fun and wonderfully faggy, happy and..."

Being a Buckley of course such "fun" is not going to remain "just fun," people will "interpret."

"Yeah, that's a danger for them actually 'cos they'll never perceive anything correctly."-about his meditative style being seen as pretentious

"The album is like some of flavor you taste in the distance and it's coming close. It's pretty easy to rely on your instincts and basically you just concentrate on what you don't want to have happen."-about the making of his album

It gets harder though, life on the road making the writing of another album a lot harder.

"Totally warped and thwarted. I spend most of my time traveling, sound checking, eating bad food and being interviewed. There's not a lot of time to be alone. I get key fragments into my notebooks that I'll try to nurture later.

  "I need some time off. I want to be able to reload, I want to have something new out this year ('95). I'm so tired being afraid of sucking all the flavor out of this material, 'cos I need new material to mend this old material. Not to say that I'm tired of playing it 'cos it's always a new journey but I'm just afraid of the future being not as bright as I think it could be."

"Even if I'd called myself Johnny Goat people would still catch wind of my heritage and make the same oddity out of it."

And the people waiting for him to become his father?

"They're safe and there's no rebuttal to what they have to say. It takes a certain amount of resolve and some maturity that I'm trying to dredge up but I don't manifest yet 'cos it still hurts."

Yet there are some folks who'll want, for whatever dumb reason, to see history repeated.

"That I'm destroyed? If that exists then there'll be full on war because my only act of rebellion is to continue to live. It's probably the thing that'll piss them off the most."