New Year's Day at Sin-e

Another heads up I received a month ago and failed to post here! Apparently, on New Year's Day of 1996, Jeff turned up at his beloved Sin-e and did a short set...what a pleasant and unexpected surprise!

Buckley takes on the world

(submitted by Lex Frumpy)

In just over two and a half years the enigmatic Jeff Buckley has risen from relative obscurity to the top of the cult ladder. He talks about life on the way up to Ray Purvis.

  JEFF BUCKLEY has grown from being a sensitive, expressive, New York cafe performer to a...sensitive, expressive, worldwide auditorium performer.

  And he has done it without compromising any of his innate charm and essential musical perversity.

  Buckley defies easy categorisation. A listen to his one-and-only full-length CD Grace or the extended live workouts on the B-side of his singles shows that he is totally out of whack with almost all of today's formatted guitar-based rock.

  He believes in just letting things happen. As his bass player Mick Grondahl describes him, "he is a person who wants to just fall into the abyss and trust that he'll land on his two feet-just like a cat."

  Leaving aside the obvious comparison with his legendary father-the late Tim Buckley-the handsome singer, who has the same taut, wild good looks as the actor Matt Dillon, has few peers when it comes to vocal gymnastics.

  He is blessed with a unique and marvelously intricate voice. Imagine something like a cross between Nick Cave, Van Morrison and Maria Callas.

  Besides having the reckless affrontery to tackle covers such as Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, Alex Chilton's KangaRoo and Benjamin Britten's Corpus Christi Carol, the 29-year-old Buckley has the ability to write complex and subtly structured songs.

  Born in 1966, Buckley was raised by his Panamanian mother Mary Guilbert in California. His biological father, the legendary singer Tim Buckley who recorded eight jazzy, ahead-of their-time records in the 60s and 70s and died of an accidental drug overdose at about the same age Jeff is now.

  When Buckley Jun. was about eight he spent a week with his natural father "I met him one time and a couple of months later he died," Buckley explained two years ago to a songwriting magazine. "But between that he never wrote and never called and I didn't even get invited to the funeral. There is no connection really."

  Speaking from New York on the eve of the Hard Luck Tour of Australia that brings the charismatic singer to Perth for concerts at the Belvoir Amphitheatre on Saturday and the Sandringham Hotel on Sunday, Buckley is quite willing to sketch in the background to his rise to fame, including his early years in suburban Los Angeles.

  "I wrote songs when I was in high school and I had had a band in my room almost every day but we didn't play out, we just played. The first band I had was in northern California and we played a few dinky places." Buckley joined various hard rock and reggae bands in California and studied guitar at the LA Musicians' Institute.

  "I went through this period where I couldn't find my own voice. I was chewing myself from the inside and I didn't know why. I laid off for maybe like two years...I got this huge depression or something. I didn't do anything, I was like this kind of tumbleweed guy. So I went to New York... actually I went twice...and when I got there I got these ordinary jobs but I always got fired for sleeping or being accused of stealing something when I hadn't."

Phantom Solo Tour flyer

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

Nusrat after-show hang

Kenosha News: February 9, 1996

  Here we have JEFF BUCKLEY's synopsis of the after-gig hang as practiced by Pakistani qawwali master NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN (who recently collaborated with EDDIE VEDDER on two songs for the Dead Man Walking soundtrack): "We went to this greasy spoon Punjabi diner (after Nusrat's New York show at Town Hall) and just drank tea and talked. Nusrat's ensemble was watching low-budget Punjabi comedy shows and reading the news." Enamored of the Buddha-like singer, a wide-eyed Buckley couldn't get a hold of himself. "I love him, I'm in awe of him; what can I do?" What inspired this effusiveness, you ask? "They turned me on to this sweet, gummy tobacco wrapped in grape leaves. Your head spins-like smoking 12 packs of cigarettes at once."

Gambler runs out of luck

The Sydney Morning Herald: February 19, 1996

By Bruce Elder

Jeff Buckley, Enmore Theatre, February 15

  THE average rock concert is like an old poker machine in a suburban RSL club. You pay your money, you pull the handle, and God knows what's likely to come out. Every few pulls, you get a reasonable payout and, far too rarely, you amaze yourself when the aces come up and the machine disgorges pure gold.

  When Jeff Buckley toured Australia at the end of last August, he was like "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo." Every night the aces came up. He played both The Metro and the Phoenician Club and audiences staggered away amazed at the concentrated power and intensity of his performance. His voice was a wonder to behold-a great soaring instrument which could roar and whisper and bring tears to the eyes of those who listened. His songs were all so passionate and his guitar playing ranged from wild, fiery chunks of neo-punk agression to a delicacy and sensitivity worthy of his late father.

  So, one wondered about halfway through his rather tedious performance at the Enmore, what's happened in the past six months? Did the gambler run out of luck? You can offer many plausible explanations.

  1. The Enmore is always a crappy venue and not even Buckley could conquer its awful acoustics and its shabby ambience.

  2. Buckley and his band have been touring on the back of their debut Grace which they recorded two years ago and which contained 10 songs, two of which-Hallelujah and Corpus Christi Carol-they never perform live. They are just sick of playing the same old eight songs and throwing in a version of the MC5's Kick Out the Jams for good measure.

  3. They're in the middle of writing new songs for their second album and their collective mind isn't really on the task at hand, playing a halfway decent gig to a bunch of enthusiastic fans.

  4. They average a great performance about one time in five (reasonable odds for a gambler) and Sydney just got lucky last time they visited.

  Whatever the reason, this was not a great concert. There is little doubt that, when the circumstances are right, Jeff Buckley is amazing. At points during this concert, that wonderful voice soared and swirled and dived. At other points, the urgency and intensity was almost palpable.

  Grace was delivered with memorable feeling and there was an almost a capella version of Lilac Wine. But, for most of the night, this was a concert played by numbers. The bass player got to sing a song (who cares?). Buckley talked, or rather mumbled, at the audience a couple of times. In the end this was a performance without focus or commitment. The sub-Sonic Youth encore was a suitably forgettable ending to  a very forgettable night.

  I'll see him next time he comes to town but he better be much better. In the interim, those who can remember will have to live with memories of last August.

Agony and Energy

 The Age: February 29, 1996

Jeff Buckley may not wish to be adored, but try telling that to Tuesday night's crowd, writes Wendy Tuohy.

  PERHAPS BECAUSE commercial radio has elevated Jeff Buckley to the status of Rock God since he came here last year, perhaps because the fans who flock to him-in bigger venues-on this tour seem groupie-like, this otherworldly artist has had less than favorable reviews this time.

  Sitting in the Palais Theatre, being transported, riven, lifted and dashed by a voice as shimmeringly ethereal as the notes that pour off a saw blade when it's played with a violin bow, it was hard to understand how anyone who hears Jeff Buckley could be anything but moved.

  A fragile figure with a boy's white arms told us wrenching stories of loss, pain and aching. He used a musical language so beautiful-and sang at times in a voice as rich but tortured as a male Nina Simone-that the pain became a thing of beauty.

  We do not know the exact origins of Jeff Buckley's intensity, or what causes the compressed tension that sometimes makes him rigid at the microphone, but the "lots of bad things" he speaks about to journalists, the "lots of irreparable damage...the agony of learning all over again" certainly came through in his coiled-spring stage presence.

  The musical influence of his father, the revered 1960s folk artist and poet, Tim Buckley, who met his eight-year-old son only once before his death by overdose, was also felt. Buckley modulated the emotional and musical tenor of the evening with waves of sound from gentle finger-strummed riffs to crashing explosions of guitar noise.

  Those who saw Buckley here last August say he has gained stage confidence and become more rockstarlike since then. This is not surprising since he has become used to larger audiences by playing many of the big European music festivals.

  It did not matter that this 28-year-old had nothing new on show. With the exception of the medley he did around Bob Dylan's Just Like a Woman as an encore, and a cover of MC5's Kick Out the Jams, the material Buckley and his band played was from their lauded release of 1994, Grace. The sensation of being swept up by waves of Jeff Buckley's energy made the night new.

  Contrary to his stated wish: "I do not want to be adored," Buckley wrote his name on the hearts of the people who saw him on Tuesday night.

Jeff Bukley plays the Palais Theatre again tonight.

Buckley's burden

 The Age: February 23, 1996

  For those who saw him late last year, the waiting is over. But can Jeff Buckley, the man who whose talent enraptured Melbourne audiences, do it again? He spoke with Dugald Jellie.

  THERE IS a certain precedent wth Jeff Buckley. The precedent of last year's whistlestop tour, in which the New York-based singer-songwriter mesmerized those who saw his shows and heard those aching, soulful vocals. His three Melbourne performances were rightly lauded by the music press, with tags such as "gig of the year" tossed about freely.

  In Buckley, audiences across Australia were seeing something new-a story that was being told for the first time. His visceral voice, his hymnal tunes, his haunting elegance, all captured on his 1994 album Grace, struck a deep and resonant chord.

  And then there is the precedent of his father. Jeff Buckley is the son of the venerated late-1960s Los Angeles fringe folk singer, Tim Buckley, who possessed one of the most distinctive and lyrical voices of his generation. His live performances were such that the rock music critic Lillian Roxon once wrote: "There is no name yet for the places that he and his voice can go."

  The story of father and son is tragically short. Jeff Buckley only met his father once, when aged 8, before he died of a heroin overdose. He was to spend most of his childhood singing with his mother, a classically trained pianist and cellist, in the car, bundled around the white trash settlements of Southern California.

  Perhaps because of the legacy, the burden, of his father, Buckley, 28, baulks at any discussion of his bloodlines. It is a connection riddled with mystique and, yet so important, with his vocal style echoing that of his father's, albeit with other strongly original elements. "I've accepted that this is my life," he whispers. "I wouldn't change it. Lots of bad things have happened and lots of irreparable damage has been done. It's the agony of learning all over again."

  It's a heritage that has given Buckley so much strength and inspiration. He personifies the maxim that those who bleed the deepest give the most love and joy through their art.

  His days at school, for instance, were unhappy, and much of his youth was spent on the road. "I always felt I was born into an environment that had no use for me until I moved some place I chose, like New York. I was born into circumstances, either surrounded by the Disneyland Nazi youth of Anaheim, California, or being moved around, dealing with whatever."

  The past is history, with Buckley embarking on yet another tour of the Antipodes, presumably still on the strength of Grace, the hype surrounding his shows late last year, and possibly even the resurgent interest in the music of his father. Melbourne's Shock Records has recently released a back catalog of five Tim Buckkley CDs, including the live recordings Honeyman and Dream Letter.

  But for those who saw him in September, here's the rub: the man has no new material since he last played, or given any indication where his writings in New York are taking him. "No direction really. It just sounds like the music sounds now," was his only suggestion. If that's the case, expect more of the poetry of Leonard Cohen and Allen Ginsberg and the politics of Noam Chomsky and Bob Dylan.

  His recent shows in Sydney, by all reports, suffered because the material sounded stale, the voice tired. Only rarely did his famed voice soar and swirl and dive. Was it the awful acoustics of the venue, or just that you can only sustain vitality for so long when playing the same core of eight songs?

  So for those who saw him first time around, how can the second coming be any better, especially when the sound is likely to be lost in a bigger venue? "Even if we play a song again it will be a very different experience," he says. "If you put your all into it's kinda hard not to get people's attentions."

  Hopefully, that will be the case, and Buckley will be back with all the raw passion of his performances last year. He will, he promises, put on a solid show.

  "I don't want people to love me," he says. "I don't want them to fall in love with me. I don't want them to adore me. What I wish, is for them to be free to enjoy that weird thing that happens to people when they're in a room hearing a story for the first time that they'll never hear again.

  "There's a love, a mutual appreciation, that happens. But it has nothing to do with my name, or my body, it's just a real essential human thing. That's what I hope to happen."

Jeff Buckley plays the Palais Theatre, 27 February with the Dambuilders; 28 February with the Grifters; and the Palace, 29 February, with the Grifters and Crow.

The Palace

Another new gig! Jeff played this gig at The Palace in Melbourne, Australia on February 29, 1996...a special treat of this one: a duet with buddy Dave Shouse ☺❤ It's also the longest show available at 2 hours and 14 minutes (and borderline metallic in places in my opinion)...Enjoy!

Setlist:

1. Dream Brother
2. So Real
3. Chocolate/Mojo Pin
4. I Woke Up In A Strange Place
5. What Will You Say
6. Last Goodbye
7. Moodswing Whiskey
8. Lilac Wine
9. Grace
10. Eternal Life
11. Kick Out the Jams
12. Edna Frau (intro cut due to tape swap)
13. That's All I Ask
14. Lover, You Should've Come Over
15. The Man That Got Away
16. Sweet Thing
17. Dead Already (with Dave Shouse)
18. Hallelujah

Courtesy of Brad Gibson

RIP

L'uomo Vogue

February, 1996
By Manuela Cerri Goren
Submitted by Ana and Ananula
Translated by me and Sol

  Being a child of art can be a double-edged sword, if your father is a legendary figure, an artist who has become almost a cult, his professional life can become decidedly complicated. Jeff Buckley knows this better than anyone else. At the age of 29 this singer-songwriter must compete with the memory of Tim Buckley, a folk-jazz-blues musician who in the '60s and' 70s inspired millions of fans with his music. At best, Jeff is ambivalent towards his father's music, which he has practically never known, but, ironically, he made his debut in a concert held four years ago in Brooklyn, a tribute to the memory of Tim Buckley. "I sacrificed," explains Jeff, "something of my personality in memory of my father, it saddened me that I had not gone to his funeral and could never really talk to him, so, in this way, I managed myself to pay tribute to his memory. I sang one of his songs and I even broke a guitar string towards the end...I did not sing it very well, but I did my best." During almost a decade and with nine albums, Tim Buckley, who died in 1975 of an overdose, has left his mark on the world of music with his folk sound influenced by psychedelic and soul arrays.
  At best, Buckley resembles Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison, with decidedly eccentric and versatile results. Jeff Buckley began to attract the attention of the New York audience and the recorders about three years ago with solo shows, with his guitar, in the bars of Manhattan, in particular at "Sin-e", a local famous for alternative music. His performances were rather theatrical, a mixture of original songs written by him, of known motifs by other authors, interspersed with some chat with the audience and, of course, the fact that Jeff is definitely pleasant in appearance did not hurt. The most important thing, however, was undoubtedly his voice, a virtuous voice, with the ability to draw attention to even the most distracted of the bar's patrons, a warm and sensual voice, different from the strident sound of many of the singers of the groups of today. "In my first shows," explains Jeff, "I wanted to relive my childhood, disintegrate my identity to re-emerge with a new, more real personality. I was a human jukebox, I played all the songs I knew trying to discover the basic elements of my profession. The essential act of singing was like a catharsis for me, and I discovered that music is like an elixir, it's like flirting, courting, having sex."
  With the release, about a year ago, of his CD "Grace", Jeff Buckley has promised himself not to play anymore compositions of others. "Grace" marks the closing of a period of memories, the end of an education, and Jeff from now on has decided to record only original material. There are many memories that Jeff Buckley would prefer to leave in the past, especially those related to his sad, nomadic childhood.
  Born in 1966 from his mother's, Mary, short marriage with Tim Buckley, Jeff had a painful, rootless childhood, with a brief one-week interlude, at eight, spent with his father before he died a couple of months later. Of his early years, Jeff remembers the continuous movements above all, how he even stopped packing his bags, simply carrying his belongings in supermarket paper bags, the alternative lifestyle that he and his mother led, and the first record of his life, "Physical Graffiti" by Led Zeppelin, given to him by his stepfather.
  At the age of 12 Jeff decided that he was going to be a musician like his father and when he finished high school he started working at a hotel and enrolled in the Institute of musicians in Los Angeles, an institution famous for having started a guitarist like Eddie Van Halen. and many others. "I wanted to learn to be a good musician," Buckley says, "but that school turned out to be a big waste of time, so I decided to try the streets of New York." In 1990 Jeff Buckley moved to New York, but his musical career was not yet destined to take off, so he returned to earn a living working as a salesman in "Banana Republic", and as a telephone operator for a message company. An offer from his father's former manager to finance a few hours in a recording room brought Jeff Buckley back to the West Coast where, feeling alone and isolated, he decided to meet in some way with his father's family. After a rather severe meeting with his paternal grandmother, Jeff concluded that he was going to live again on his own, and now he is alone, although his name has recently been related to that of Courtney Love, returning to the old nomadic life. "At the moment I do not belong to any family," says Jeff, "I started moving again from city to city, unattached, playing with my band. I live as a vagabond, I work and I interact with people and then I leave immediately, so I end up keeping in touch only with those friends I do not want to lose." Jeff does not make friends easily, he has had difficulties in bringing together a group of musicians with whom he would really like to work, and his parameters of choice did not include virtuosity and almost everyone who has played in "Grace" and in his tour are novices. For him the most important thing is the freshness of the sound, the innovation, and for that reason he prefers not to work with mature musicians who have already seen and heard everything but lack the enthusiasm that for Jeff is fundamental. "I usually go to Tower Records," says Buckley, "and I see all these famous names, for me it's a very exciting experience. I spend a lot of time in record stores, I would have liked to work there, but I could never do it and now I'm with my name on a shelf next to my father. It is truly ironic: we have been separated all our lives and now our destiny is to divide the same space in a record store. I only hope, in the not too distant future, to be able to feel that I really won that space with honor."

Email: 1996

>From David_Peris@Sonymusic.Com Sat Nov  2 14:19:47 1996

Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 19:59:28 -0400

From: David_Peris@Sonymusic.Com

To: jb-list@pantheon.yale.edu

Subject: october 25, 1996

  Hi it`s Buckley. I know that it`s been a trillion years since you`ve heard anything from me, but well, that`s just me, I don`t really get excited about calling people or making any kind of social contact through computers or phones. I`m just a lazy bastard, I guess. But still, hi all! Hope you`re well. I`m doing pretty nicely. When December comes, I`ll be wandering around in an ugly rented car and dropping by some undesignated venues, maybe in your town if you`re in the northeast. I`m still not sure about where I`ll go. But, they will be solo shows. And I will have to use some other name. The new record will be out supposedly in late spring `97. It`s called  My Sweetheart the Drunk. But you don`t have to call it anything. Watch it get destroyed. Every song will have a quiet part and then a loud part at the shout chorus and the lyrics will totally open up new pathways in the human mind, allowing both sexes to fling themselves into the path of modern boredom and sloth like an oncoming train it`s not just a woman`s job anymore. Both must explode as one. There will be no pain or shock at the time of impact. There will only be Coca Cola and Disney. And hooks, lots and lots of hooks for the kids at summer break. For the employees of the year who suddenly crack under pressure and ascend to the clock towers with their candy bars and automatic rifles, or anyone who has finally come to the answers of life. And lots of songs about chicks, I almost forgot…life. Chicks. Hooks. Life. Chicks. Hooks. Life. Click click. Bang. Click click. Chicks. Click click. Hooks. Bang. Bang. Hooks. Chicks. Hooks. Click click. Candy bar. Bang! Bang! Bang! Snipers are the sex symbols of the future. Every newspaper will send one to the after-show parties. So hot. So sexy. They`ll bang us all. I have to be in the meat district in ten minutes so I`ll sign off now. I love you. Take care.

Jeff

Fullerton Road Trick

Written in a poetry class in 96

Palais Theatre

On this day in 1996, Jeff played this blistering show at the Palais Theatre ink Melbourne, Australia. Here they all are together and in order...enjoy! (website)

1. Moodswing Whiskey

2. Mojo Pin

3. I Woke Up In A Strange Place

4. Lilac Wine

5. Eternal Life

6. Grace

7. Hallelujah

8. Kanga-Roo

Seagulls Stardust Auditorium

On this day in 1996, Jeff played the Seagulls Stardust Auditorium in Queensland, Australia...enjoy! (website)

Setlist:

1. Chocolate/Mojo Pin
2. So Real
3. Eternal Life
4. Lilac Wine
5. Grace
6. Last Goodbye
7. What Will You Say
8.  I Woke Up In A Strange Place
9. Dream Brother
10. Moodswing Whiskey
11. Kick Out The Jams
12. Lover, You Should've Come Over
13. That's All I Ask
14. Hallelujah/I Know It's Over

The location currently 

Enmore Theatre

Lastly, On this day in 1996, Jeff did this show at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney, Australia. Again, not the best of audio, but we make do...enjoy anyway! (website)

Setlist:

1. I Woke Up In A Strange Place
2. Mojo Pin
3. Dream Brother
4. Eternal Life
5. Kick Out The Jams
6. Edna Frau
7. Lilac Wine
8. Last Goodbye
9. What Will You Say
10. Grace
11. Moodswing Whiskey
12. So Real
13. Lover, You Should've Come Over
14. Vancouver
15. Kanga-Roo (cut)

Yes, this is from the next day, but I figured it fits here 🙂

8/25/96

New Zealand Interview

An interview Jeff gave in New Zealand on this day in 1996...supposedly a bootleg of his show there exists, but whether or not we'll ever hear it, we'll never know...I particularly love the spoon chewing lol:

Nusrat Dedication and Interview

Jeff's dedication to (1997) and interview with (January, 1996) Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan.

The first time I heard the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was in Harlem, 1990. My roommate and I stood there, blasting it in his room. We were all awash in the thick undulating tide of dark punjabi tabla rhythyms, spiked with synchronized handclaps booming from above and below in hard, perfect time.
I heard the clarion call of harmoniums dancing the antique melody around like giant, singing wooden spiders. Then all of a sudden, the rising of one, then ten voices hovering over the tonic like a flock of geese ascending into formation across the sky.
Then came the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Part Buddha, part demon, part mad angel...his voice is velvet fire, simply incomparable. Nusrat's blending of classical improvisations to the art of Qawwali, combined with his out and out daredevil style and his sensitivity, outs him in a category all his own, above all others in his field.
His every enunciation went straight into me. I knew not one word of Urdu, and somehow it still hooked me into the story that he weaved with his wordless voice. I remember my senses fully froze in order to feel melody after melody crash upon each other in waves of improvisation; with each line being repeated by the men in the chorus, restated again by the main soloists, and then Nusrat setting the whole bloody thing alflame with his rapid-fire scatting, turning classical Indian Solfeggio (Sa, Re, Gha, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni) into a chaotic/manic birdsong. The phrase burst into a climax somewhere, with Nusrat's upper register painting a melody that made my heart long to fly. The piece went on for fifteen minutes. I ate my heart out. My roommate just looked at me knowingly, muttering, "Nusrat...Fa-teh...A-li...Khaaan," like he had just scored the wine of the century. I felt a rush of adrenaline in my chest, like I was on the edge of a cliff, wondering when I would jump and how well the ocean would catch me: two questions that would never be answered until I experienced the first leap.
That is the sensation and the character of Qawwali music, the music of the Sufis, as best I can describe it.
In between the world of the flesh and the world of the spirit is the void. The Qawwali is the messenger who leaps empty-handed into the abyss and returns carrying messages of love from the Beloved (Allah). These messages have no words, per se, but at the high point of a Qawwali performance, they come in bursts of light into the hearts and minds of the members of the audience. (Of course, by that time the whole house is either hanging from the rafters, or dancing.) This is called Marifat, the inner knowledge, and it is in the aim of the Qawwali tradition to bring the listener into this state: first through the beauty of the poetry and the weight of its meaning; then, eventually, through the Qawwali's use of repetition; repeating the key phrases of the poem until the meaning has melted away to reveal the true form to the listener. I've seen Nusrat and his party repeatedly melt New Yorkers into human beings. At times I've seen him in such a trance while singing that I am sure that the world does not exist for him any longer. The effect it has is gorgeous. These men do not play music, they are music itself.
The texts from which traditional Qawwals are sung come from the works of the great sufi poets: Bulle Shah (1680-1753), Shams Tabrez (d. 1247), Shah Hussain (1538-1599), and the great Sufi poet and scholar, Amir Khusrav (1253-1325), who was the inventor of Qawwali itself. These texts are devotional, of course, meaning poems of worship for Allah (Hamd) and the prophet Muhammad (N'ati-Sharif). There are also love poems (ghazals), where a more secular romantic interplay is happening between man and woman (which I can dig). The Qawwali's, however, see ghazals as a metaphor between Man and the Divine. They don't care about which meaning was derived from where. In the true Sufi way, through their music, any meaning that is needed by the listener is there for the listener to absorb. For the true Qawwali, all meanings of the music exist simutaneously and there is no need of purpose for religious dogma. There is only the pilgrimage to the light within the heart, which is the home of God. There is only a pure devotion and a fierce virtuosity to grow wings and soar through music. To plant a kiss on the eyes of Allah and then sing His loving gaze back home into the hearts of Man.

Pakistani Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan drives people wild with his music, which is an unbelievable combination of rich, soaring, complex sounds including something that is hard to describe but reminds us of yodeling. His music has been featured on movie soundtracks and in concert halls around the world, and his ecstatic voice haunts all who hear it. Here, the sensational singer Jeff Buckley talks with the man who has, for so long, inspired him.

Born in a region where music is as much of a birthright as breathing, singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is held to be the brightest star in Qawwali, a form of Islamic devotional music, in all of Pakistan--"bright," that is, as in blinding. A vocal art over seven centuries old, Qawwali is passed down orally from father to son (in rare cases to daughters) by Sufi masters. Sufism is a Muslim philosophical and literary movement dating back to the tenth century. Borrowing tenets from other world religions, including Buddhism and Christianity, this mystical order stresses the personal union of the soul with God through poetry and symbolism. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has single-handedly transformed this art from a static antique into a brilliant explosion of light. Through his ecstatic performances, Khan's Qawwali acts as a living testament to music's power to link all humans, unashamed of emotion, to the divine. At once soaring and penetrating, these sounds seem to rip open the sky, slowly revealing the radiant face of the beloved. Qawwals don't sing, they are born to sing, and the men who accompany Khan in his ensemble do not just play music, they become music itself. Every Qawwali performer is excellent, mind you, for they all, by definition, must sing from a heart burning with a passionate love for Allah (God), the prophet Muhammad, and the saints, and must be totally open to the divine. For them, there is nothing else. Six years after first discovering his music, I was able to meet the man whose voice has healed the fuck out of me. We talked in a vast hotel room in New York City, through his interpreter, Rashid Ahmed Din, who knows Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's story better than anyone. I wouldn't lie to you, this is the man.

Jeff Buckley: The first real Qawwali I ever heard was called "Yeh Jo Halka Halka," from the album The Day, the Night, the Dawn, the Dusk on Shanachie Records.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: You liked it?

JB: It saved my life. I was in a very bad place.

NFAK: Where were you?

JB: Just depressed.

NFAK: I see.

JB: Like many people in America, I was first introduced to Qawwali through you. I didn't understand any of the words, but your voice carried the message to my heart, which is all that most Western listeners can rely on because we don't know the language. For instance, few people know that halka means "drunkenness."

NFAK: It is not drunkenness in terms of alcohol. It is like when somebody is in love and is drunk in the eyes.

Rashid Ahmed Din: He's not talking about the whiskey bottle, he's talking about...the beauty.

JB: Yes, but it's impossible for English speakers to tell this from the translations of the Sufi poetry, which are always very dry. If one has any sense of Urdu [an official language of Pakistan], one knows that the English translations lack a little soul, they're like wood. But the Qawwalis [the ceremonial songs] aren't written, they're sung by heart.

NFAK: Yes, you've got to sing from the depths of the heart. Without heart you cannot be a Qawwal. You sing the songs every day, so even though there is quite a lot, you remember it.

JB: It must be hard to withstand the feeling you need in order to inhabit the poetry properly.

NFAK: That's right.

JB: You once had a dream that is now very famous. Can you describe it to me?

NFAK: My father [the Qawwali singer Ustad Fateh Ali Khan] died in 1964, and ten days later, I dreamed that he came to me and asked me to sing. I said I could not, but he told me to try. He touched my throat, I started to sing, and then I woke up singing. I had dreamed that my first live performance would be at my father's chilla [funeral ceremony], where we would all sit together again and read prayers from the Koran and so on. On the fortieth day after his death, we held the ceremony, and I performed for the very first time.

JB: How old were you?

NFAK: About sixteen.

JB: What was life like before the dream?

NFAK: I was just studying with my father, a very difficult task for me since he was a great, great Qawwali singer. He didn't want me to become a musician, he wanted me to be a doctor, because he said singing was too hard. You see, many people can sing without any basic background. But this [improvisational] style of Qawwali is what my family does, and to do it well, we have to go through many difficulties.
RAD: Nusrat was the most beloved child in the family. The whole town used to take him around, and play with him and so forth; in other words, spoil him. His father thought, "He will not be able to concentrate." They wanted him to carry on studying to be a doctor. But he used to listen to his father teaching his students and secretly, he would go and practice, hiding his gift. One day, his father discovered him while he was practicing and he got a bit cross, but he found out that Nusrat had a talent, and then he started teaching him, too. Unfortunately, his father died not long after that. After he did though, he said to Nusrat in the dream, "This world will hear a new voice, which will surprise them all." But he didn't know whose voice it would be.

JB: Until it happened.

RAD: That's right. Can you imagine? He started so late and picked up so quick.

JB: There are no recordings of your father available in America.

NFAK: No, he never made records. We have some recordings off the radio in Pakistan, but no commercial releases. He said, "I don't want people to pay a little money and listen to my voice." [laughs]
RAD: His father was a man of dignity. He won many awards. Once the Shah of Iran came to Pakistan and his father performed in fluent Persian. The Shah was so stunned he gave him his car, a Chevrolet. You see, his father brought Qawwali music from the shrines into everyday life, like to weddings, parties, and to the high people in the government.

JB: I had a similar struggle, because I started very late.

NFAK: When did you start?

JB: My first performance was at about age fourteen. And I also hid from my father [the late singer Tim Buckley]. He had died by the time I started, but I hid from him the gift that I was born with. There was a period when I was frozen for about three or four years, starting when I was eighteen. In my dream at that time, the ghost of my father came smashing through the window. It doesn't take a dream to make a singer, but yours was a beautiful gift. When did your own style begin?

RAD: He was well known from very early, but when he recorded a song called "Haq Ali Ali Maula Ali Ali" he became even more famous. What was required was turning the style and making it a little bit softer for the audience.

JB: You made the rhythm softer? Impossible, that rhythm is hard.

NFAK: I made it softer than my father used to do. In his day, the audience was well aware of the music, of the classical beat. Everyone used to listen to the real music. But as times change, people change, and so do their tastes, so I try to undersand what the public wants, what they require. I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.

JB: Did you make it less complex?

NFAK: Yes, I tried to change the classical style in a way that people who don't understand it can enjoy.

JB: It's also very Sufic to do something unseen. To reveal a deeper meaning.

NFAK: Yes, but Qawwals cannot change the form. Slight variations can be made but you cannot change the whole performance ritual. You must sing the Hamd [praise to Allah], the N'at-i-sharif [praise to Muhammad], and the Manqabat [praise to the saints]. These three elements are called Qawwali, and they've got to be there. Only minor technical changes can be done and improvisation all depends on the artist.

JB: I've never heard anything like what you produce.

RAD: With other Qawwals, whatever they perform today, they will perform the same way tomorrow. But with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, what he performs today will be completely different tomorrow.

JB: It surprises me that those other Qawwals are so static. Nusrat is wild, I mean wild.

RAD: But I haven't heard anyone say, "This is unorthodox." Whatever work he does, nobody can go against it, because of the number of recordings [over 100] that he has done. He doesn't look like a major star when you come to meet him. He's a natural man. It's very unusual for a Qawwal to be a classical singer, or for a classical singer to be a Qawwal. It is particularly different to be commercial, like a pop star. He can do anything you ask him to do.

JB: Are you a Sufi?

NFAK: I am not a Sufi, but I follow the Sufi [tradition]. I will tell you one very famous story that will show you something about Sufis. A man came to my father and said, "I want you to perform for me." The man said, "I only have one rupee, that's all I'm going to give you." And my father said, "O.K., fine." So they went to an open field, just him and the old man, and when they started singing, suddenly there were people everywhere. They never knew where they all came from. That is a Sufi. He wasn't in love with money, he was in love with the music and was totally lost to it.

JB: Do you have a family?

NFAK: I have a daughter, she's twenty years old.

JB: I don't know if that's important, but I like to know that you're happy.

NFAK: Yes, I'm very happy.

JB: In America, sometimes there is no dancing allowed at the live shows. At the last one I attended, the cops came and took away anyone who danced. It seems that when American people go to these concerts they are bothered by people basically losing their shit.

NFAK: Yes, the audience goes crazy. In Qawwali we have this effect, even back home. When people start dancing, they dance like they don't know they are doing it. So they just get lost in it and it is very difficult to calm people down. It's like something inside them is pushing them.

JB: The same thing happens in gospel churches here. Have you ever thought to perform, not only with accompanists from other places, but with singers?

NFAK: Yes, I have sung with Peter Gabriel, Shankar, and Yossou N'Dour. There is no recording, it was live, onstage.

JB: What do you listen to? What music do you love most?

NFAK: Indian classical music. I also like Western classical music and jazz.

JB: There seem to be parallels between Qawwali and African-American forms of music. Your styles are so close to jazz. Do you listen to any rock music?

NFAK: We don't have such things in our country. I do listen to other music though, and try to pick up what is good.

JB: I heard a story about you, and I would like to ask if it is true. When you were in England, you were having some problems, so you went to see a doctor. The doctor said, "What does this man do?" And the assistant said, "He is a famous Qawwali singer in Pakistan." The doctor said that if you stopped singing your heart would stop.

RAD: No, no, Nusrat is good. He's still got the same force.

Holiday Message 96

Rise To Grace

Jeff Buckley, Selinas, Friday March 1
By Sacha Molitorisz

In a very short time, Jeff Buckley has ascended to the heavens, deified by an appreciative Australian audience.
When the diminutive American singer-songwriter arrived here last August, the adulation was immediate; and not unexpected. On his debut record, 1994's Grace , Buckley exhibited a near-impossible combination of talents: the voice of an angel, the guitar-playing of a virtuoso, and 10 complex, beautiful songs that seemed to have been written by a man who carried the muses around in his shirt pocket.
And when he stepped on stage Buckley revealed a fourth element: a stupefying charisma born of his dangerous good looks and introverted vulnerability. On stage Buckley was the same but much more than on record: emotional, powerful, seductive, passionate, gentle. He proved a concussion of opposites - from the crashing, anthem-like wail of Eternal Life to the tenuous ache of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah - who seduced his audience with artistry.
Of Buckley's August concert at Metro, Bruce Elder wrote in the Herald: "[It was] a performance of great power and integrity from an immensely gifted performer. As the capacity audience drifted off into the night, there was a feeling that this was one of those performances that will be long remembered and treasured."
I was equally impressed by one of those August shows at the Phoenician Club - Buckley gave me goose bumps: the true sign of a touching show. After this debut, the hype snowballed, and by the time Buckley returned last month his three Enmore Theatre shows sold out promptly. Even there, despite inferior acoustics and a stifling sense of expectation, Buckley triumphed.
Throughout, he made it clear he was enjoying Australia as much as it was enjoying him. So when he announced one final date, for Selinas - a farewell concert - it would inevitably be a night tinged with sadness. Buckley was flying out the following day - ending his two-pronged introduction to Australia. And, heightening the melancholy, later in the evening Buckley announced his drummer, Matt Johnson, had decided that tonight would be his last show with the band.
But Buckley started by making light of it all. "So that's it," Buckley said before he had played a note. "Until the next time. Because there will be a next time." The crowd cheered. "The Reunion tour. Or Jeffapoolooza. Or Jeff's Addiction."
And, thankfully, when he started playing, the performance was tight and mesmerising. Buckley had become voracious, attacking his songs from Grace.
Between-song silences were punctuated by shouts of "We love you, Jeff," or, more to the point, "You're sex on a stick." "I love you too," he returned. He thanked his support acts throughout the tour. Earlier in the evening, Cactus Child had been polished and varied, warming up the audience's goose bumps for the headline act.
But now it was midnight and Buckley was playing with amazing energy. And, through Mojo Pin and Last Goodbye, he was revealing he was no rote performer. He was playing by feel, adapting as he progressed, with markedly different versions of the songs he had brought here six months earlier. The show built for an hour, until Eternal Life provided a frenetic climax: to finish it off, Buckley struck his final chord and let himself topple backwards into the crowd.
The second half of the show, unfortunately, was less focussed. Bassplayer Mick Grondahl sang a song, one of several less familiar tunes. And Buckley exhausted his repertoire: he wanted to keep playing, to keep entertaining for this last show.
Still, there were those precious moments. For his encore, Hallelujah, Buckley sat behind the kit and played the kick drum as he sang and strummed. It was ambitious, silly and beautiful all at once. Not taking himself too seriously, he managed an unusual and appealing improvisation.
Two songs later, after two hours on stage, Buckley departed, but only after he had created and revealed an ephemeral fragility in his songs and in himself. It had been a varied and beautiful show.

Selina's at Coogee Bay Hotel

Today's gig is from Selina's at Coogee Bay Hotel in Sydney, Australia on March 1, 1996. As I'm sure many of you know, this is one of a few bittersweet shows as it was the final one in OZ as well as Matt Johnson's with the band. An absolutely lovely show though, and as usual, he makes me laugh every time...enjoy! (website)

Part 1

Part 2

Setlist:

1. Moodswing Whiskey

2. Dream Brother

3. Mojo Pin

4. Last Goodbye

5. Lilac Wine

6. Grace

7. So Real

8. Eternal Life

9. What Will You Say

10. Kick Out The Jams

11. Edna Frau

12. I Woke Up In A Strange Place

13. Lover, You Should've Come Over

14. All Flowers In Time

15. Dink's Song
16. Hallelujah

17. Vancouver

18. Kanga-Roo