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."