Another Music Faucet gig, but a bit of confusion here as this show has been labeled as being done on January 24, 1993, yet according to this gig listing, there's no bootleg, and the track listing is different. Nonetheless, I'll go with what's been listed on the original audio...enjoy!
Saturday, January 26, 2019
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Ultimate Understanding
The Irish Times, January 20, 1995
By Kevin Courtney
It's a wet Saturday afternoon, and bright new music star Jeff Buckley has just touched down in Dublin to start the second leg of his tour, only right now he doesn't look so shiny and stellar. Huddled in a corner of the Tivoli Theatre, where he's playing later tonight, smoking Marlboros and snuffling with a cold, the son of Tim Buckley looks knackered, drained of all energy, sapped by the rock'n'roll circus. He's already done two interviews, one soundcheck, and he's got more interviews after this one-a pretty busy first day in Europe for Sony's golden boy, and a million miles away from when all he'd have to do was just strap on his guitar and play.
Now he's got a band, an entourage, and a schedule as tight as an E string. When he finds out that tonight's gig will be his only concert in Ireland, and that he's due to be whisked over to London in the early hours of Sunday morning, he reacts with tired resignation: "This is the only Irish date? Drag. I thought we were going to do more dates in Ireland. I love Ireland, especially Dublin."
Does all this music biz baggage get to you? "I don't really fit into the rock'n'roll circus. The music we play is enough of a circus. I'd rather we all be alone in the room and just forget about what rock'n'roll's supposed to be. It's so confining, very unromantic. In the future, when we have more time, we'll take a van out, me and the guys, and go to places where nobody knows."
But wherever the 27 year old Buckley goes, the "Next Big Thing" tag follows close behind, and plaudits are piling up around him like firewood around Joan Of Arc. What if, despite all his efforts to remain unaffected, Jeff Buckley finds himself thrust into the role of demigod?
"I don't want that to happen because I'm far from being a consummate artist. I mean, this is just my first album, and the work is very new and it's just, em, beginning. I'm certainly not worthy of demigod status. There's absolutely no danger of that."
But while not every artist wants to be Jesus Christ or John Lennon, doesn't everybody want to be liked and accepted?
"I do too. It just depends on what you hold as important. I don't know any artist who doesn't do what they want to do, and doesn't do what they hear and feel. Aphex Twin can only do what he does, and Suede and the Grifters and Patti Smith, they're just doing what they do, even The Archies. It's an honest statement."
Not everybody has taken to Jeff Buckley's singular style of music; for every laudatory line, there's also a twisted maze of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Could this be because Buckley's songs are too intense, too close to the bone for some people to swallow without choking?
"Those people wouldn't tell you that, though," he asserts. "They'd just tell you it was a load of shite. They'd just want to kill me. Some people just completely hate me on sight. I remember hearing an account of (one critic) getting drunk in a bar and just saying I was a complete fake. I've never even met the man. He doesn't really know me at all. I'm certainly not a fake, and I'll certainly outlive him, I'm sure."
"It hurts when I'm insulted, and it makes me angry, but it's just the nature of music. Nobody can like everything and not everybody needs a certain kind of music. It's a huge world, and I don't seek to dominate the world."
If he did want to rule the world, though, he couldn't have picked a bigger record label, the giant multinational Sony corporation, which owns Columbia Records.
"I really got on to the label because of the chemistry of the people I knew I'd be working with. With them I was very comfortable, and to this day I still am, and I think we'll do good work, because I'm terribly, terribly paranoid of the music business."
Did you feel you were entrusting your soul to them, that you might have to compromise on your vision? "No. I felt that because I was entrusting my soul to them, that I'd have to over communicate what my soul was, for them to gain an understanding."
Buckley has been saddled with a "loner" image, partly because of his James Dean good looks, partly because he made his name as a solo artist, and partly because he's still seen as the orphaned offspring of Tim. Yet he's always had a family and he's always had friends, although solitude is something he values very highly.
"I gain a lot from solitude, and I need it. Everybody does, you know. We need space from each other, and we need each other. I need the relationship. If I played solo for years and years and years I'd probably go crazy, completely insane. And it would be very sterile."
The media tend to focus on the famous father, but the Jeff Buckley we hear is very much the product of his mother's influence.
"I'm actually the son of Mary Gulbert," he says, pronouncing the French sounding surname softly. "My mother was born in the Panama Canal zone, and came to America when she was five, with her family, my grandmother and grandfather; and that was the family I knew. My uncle's name is George Gulbert, and he sang - he was actually the first person I ever knew who was in a band. Everybody sang; everybody loved music. It was just all around. My stepfather is a car mechanic, but he was always an inveterate record buyer, and to this day I still have the bug, and my place is filled with records."
Perhaps it was Buckley's eclectic collection which started him off doing covers of other people's songs, but by the time he moved to New York, he was interpreting a range of songs in his own unique style. How does he choose which songs to cover?
"The songs just choose me. There are some songs that I just like to make live, that are not necessarily mine. There was a part in my life, there was a time during the solo shows when I was a bit of a human jukebox, but of my own tastes.
Put a coin in the jukebox and, along with the covers of Leonard Cohen and Benjamin Britten, you'd have also gotten Van Morrison. Was he a big influence?
"No, he wasn't ever. I love and admire his work, but he wasn't, like, one of my seminal heroes. Basically the reason I did "The Way Young Lovers Do" was because Michael (Tighe, Buckley's guitarist) had a dream that he and I were singing it. And so I sang it for him. And I just got the song, and I fell in love with the album, Astral Weeks, and I absolutely played it out, played it out of my system. But you know, six years would go by and I would go right back to it as heavy as ever. It's just the way I am, I'm very copious with an album, I'll stay there and obsess on it."
Buckley tackles his own obsessions through his original songs, seven of which feature on the debut album, Grace. Listening to them, you're immediately struck by their unconventiality, their defiance of set structures and sequence. It's certainly not your straight 12 bar rock'n'roll.
"It's just my taste. I mean, take something like "Last Goodbye". It's a song that doesn't halve anything really repeating, it's just all one thing, and that's good. 'Coz you know, everybody's heard the standard forms over and over and over again, and people make them work, and sometimes they just buzz by you like flies and you don't notice them. I prefer to go from my deepest eccentricities and provide a different slant on this whole thing. And the thing about songs is, songs can hang around for a long time, and you may hate them and totally despise them, but somewhere down the line you may need them. They just fly into your life and have meaning somehow."
People have said he's deep and mature for one so young. Doesn't that imply that anyone under 30 is frivolous?
"I am frivolous. Terribly childish. Bob Dylan was deep. Rimbaud was deep. Joni Mitchell was deep. Just because somebody, is younger doesn't mean they're stupid. That's a known fact. Because there's still a mind there. The trend I've seen is that people are more audacious when they're younger, and their ideas are better. I don't plan to have that be the case with me. I admire a whole career, like Picasso or Billie Holiday or like Leonard Cohen. To this day he can still deliver a song and it's all you hear. You're completely captured. Or Iggy Pop. The man, like, rocks over every band I've seen. He just rocks his ass off.
"I dig maturity. I don't like complacency in anyone. Neil Young is still doing it. And he's done lots of things that failed in the public eye. But it'sall necessary. You need to have ups and downs, it's a human thing. You follow what music demands of you, and through it you can get it's gifts."
Right now, Jeff Buckley's music demands that he share the stage with bandmates Michael Tighe, Mick Grondahl and Matt Johnson. Is it difficult to weave the delicate fabric of his music in this potentially fractious band situation?
"No, not at all. The emotion of the song dictates the arrangement, it dictates the sound and the texture and the colours that you use, and it's not hard to do with Michael, Mick and Matty. I'm completely a part of them and they're a part of me. It's just that was there from the beginning."
So where will the music take Jeff Buckley in the future? He has no big career masterplan, but does he have any ultimate artistic goals?
"What I really want is to have a life where I learn more about my poetry, learn more about myself as much as possible. I wanna get as deep into it as I can, 'coz that's how more work, is possible and more understanding is possible.
How much more understanding? "Ultimate understanding."
By Kevin Courtney
It's a wet Saturday afternoon, and bright new music star Jeff Buckley has just touched down in Dublin to start the second leg of his tour, only right now he doesn't look so shiny and stellar. Huddled in a corner of the Tivoli Theatre, where he's playing later tonight, smoking Marlboros and snuffling with a cold, the son of Tim Buckley looks knackered, drained of all energy, sapped by the rock'n'roll circus. He's already done two interviews, one soundcheck, and he's got more interviews after this one-a pretty busy first day in Europe for Sony's golden boy, and a million miles away from when all he'd have to do was just strap on his guitar and play.
Now he's got a band, an entourage, and a schedule as tight as an E string. When he finds out that tonight's gig will be his only concert in Ireland, and that he's due to be whisked over to London in the early hours of Sunday morning, he reacts with tired resignation: "This is the only Irish date? Drag. I thought we were going to do more dates in Ireland. I love Ireland, especially Dublin."
Does all this music biz baggage get to you? "I don't really fit into the rock'n'roll circus. The music we play is enough of a circus. I'd rather we all be alone in the room and just forget about what rock'n'roll's supposed to be. It's so confining, very unromantic. In the future, when we have more time, we'll take a van out, me and the guys, and go to places where nobody knows."
But wherever the 27 year old Buckley goes, the "Next Big Thing" tag follows close behind, and plaudits are piling up around him like firewood around Joan Of Arc. What if, despite all his efforts to remain unaffected, Jeff Buckley finds himself thrust into the role of demigod?
"I don't want that to happen because I'm far from being a consummate artist. I mean, this is just my first album, and the work is very new and it's just, em, beginning. I'm certainly not worthy of demigod status. There's absolutely no danger of that."
But while not every artist wants to be Jesus Christ or John Lennon, doesn't everybody want to be liked and accepted?
"I do too. It just depends on what you hold as important. I don't know any artist who doesn't do what they want to do, and doesn't do what they hear and feel. Aphex Twin can only do what he does, and Suede and the Grifters and Patti Smith, they're just doing what they do, even The Archies. It's an honest statement."
Not everybody has taken to Jeff Buckley's singular style of music; for every laudatory line, there's also a twisted maze of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Could this be because Buckley's songs are too intense, too close to the bone for some people to swallow without choking?
"Those people wouldn't tell you that, though," he asserts. "They'd just tell you it was a load of shite. They'd just want to kill me. Some people just completely hate me on sight. I remember hearing an account of (one critic) getting drunk in a bar and just saying I was a complete fake. I've never even met the man. He doesn't really know me at all. I'm certainly not a fake, and I'll certainly outlive him, I'm sure."
"It hurts when I'm insulted, and it makes me angry, but it's just the nature of music. Nobody can like everything and not everybody needs a certain kind of music. It's a huge world, and I don't seek to dominate the world."
If he did want to rule the world, though, he couldn't have picked a bigger record label, the giant multinational Sony corporation, which owns Columbia Records.
"I really got on to the label because of the chemistry of the people I knew I'd be working with. With them I was very comfortable, and to this day I still am, and I think we'll do good work, because I'm terribly, terribly paranoid of the music business."
Did you feel you were entrusting your soul to them, that you might have to compromise on your vision? "No. I felt that because I was entrusting my soul to them, that I'd have to over communicate what my soul was, for them to gain an understanding."
Buckley has been saddled with a "loner" image, partly because of his James Dean good looks, partly because he made his name as a solo artist, and partly because he's still seen as the orphaned offspring of Tim. Yet he's always had a family and he's always had friends, although solitude is something he values very highly.
"I gain a lot from solitude, and I need it. Everybody does, you know. We need space from each other, and we need each other. I need the relationship. If I played solo for years and years and years I'd probably go crazy, completely insane. And it would be very sterile."
The media tend to focus on the famous father, but the Jeff Buckley we hear is very much the product of his mother's influence.
"I'm actually the son of Mary Gulbert," he says, pronouncing the French sounding surname softly. "My mother was born in the Panama Canal zone, and came to America when she was five, with her family, my grandmother and grandfather; and that was the family I knew. My uncle's name is George Gulbert, and he sang - he was actually the first person I ever knew who was in a band. Everybody sang; everybody loved music. It was just all around. My stepfather is a car mechanic, but he was always an inveterate record buyer, and to this day I still have the bug, and my place is filled with records."
Perhaps it was Buckley's eclectic collection which started him off doing covers of other people's songs, but by the time he moved to New York, he was interpreting a range of songs in his own unique style. How does he choose which songs to cover?
"The songs just choose me. There are some songs that I just like to make live, that are not necessarily mine. There was a part in my life, there was a time during the solo shows when I was a bit of a human jukebox, but of my own tastes.
Put a coin in the jukebox and, along with the covers of Leonard Cohen and Benjamin Britten, you'd have also gotten Van Morrison. Was he a big influence?
"No, he wasn't ever. I love and admire his work, but he wasn't, like, one of my seminal heroes. Basically the reason I did "The Way Young Lovers Do" was because Michael (Tighe, Buckley's guitarist) had a dream that he and I were singing it. And so I sang it for him. And I just got the song, and I fell in love with the album, Astral Weeks, and I absolutely played it out, played it out of my system. But you know, six years would go by and I would go right back to it as heavy as ever. It's just the way I am, I'm very copious with an album, I'll stay there and obsess on it."
Buckley tackles his own obsessions through his original songs, seven of which feature on the debut album, Grace. Listening to them, you're immediately struck by their unconventiality, their defiance of set structures and sequence. It's certainly not your straight 12 bar rock'n'roll.
"It's just my taste. I mean, take something like "Last Goodbye". It's a song that doesn't halve anything really repeating, it's just all one thing, and that's good. 'Coz you know, everybody's heard the standard forms over and over and over again, and people make them work, and sometimes they just buzz by you like flies and you don't notice them. I prefer to go from my deepest eccentricities and provide a different slant on this whole thing. And the thing about songs is, songs can hang around for a long time, and you may hate them and totally despise them, but somewhere down the line you may need them. They just fly into your life and have meaning somehow."
People have said he's deep and mature for one so young. Doesn't that imply that anyone under 30 is frivolous?
"I am frivolous. Terribly childish. Bob Dylan was deep. Rimbaud was deep. Joni Mitchell was deep. Just because somebody, is younger doesn't mean they're stupid. That's a known fact. Because there's still a mind there. The trend I've seen is that people are more audacious when they're younger, and their ideas are better. I don't plan to have that be the case with me. I admire a whole career, like Picasso or Billie Holiday or like Leonard Cohen. To this day he can still deliver a song and it's all you hear. You're completely captured. Or Iggy Pop. The man, like, rocks over every band I've seen. He just rocks his ass off.
"I dig maturity. I don't like complacency in anyone. Neil Young is still doing it. And he's done lots of things that failed in the public eye. But it'sall necessary. You need to have ups and downs, it's a human thing. You follow what music demands of you, and through it you can get it's gifts."
Right now, Jeff Buckley's music demands that he share the stage with bandmates Michael Tighe, Mick Grondahl and Matt Johnson. Is it difficult to weave the delicate fabric of his music in this potentially fractious band situation?
"No, not at all. The emotion of the song dictates the arrangement, it dictates the sound and the texture and the colours that you use, and it's not hard to do with Michael, Mick and Matty. I'm completely a part of them and they're a part of me. It's just that was there from the beginning."
So where will the music take Jeff Buckley in the future? He has no big career masterplan, but does he have any ultimate artistic goals?
"What I really want is to have a life where I learn more about my poetry, learn more about myself as much as possible. I wanna get as deep into it as I can, 'coz that's how more work, is possible and more understanding is possible.
How much more understanding? "Ultimate understanding."
Sunday, December 23, 2018
The Lost Jeff Buckley Interview
February, 1994
By Jay Sosnick
Submitted by Angela from the book L'impressione di Essere Eterno (The Impression of Being Eternal)
Translated by me
Did everything happen faster than you thought?
Faster, but not early enough.
Columbia has a great tradition of folk songwriters: Dylan, Leonard Cohen. Does it make sense that you stay with them?
I do not know exactly what they see in me or why they want me to represent a genre. For me the Sex Pistols are folk. All these labels that record companies and the media create do not belong to me. When someone talks about singer-songwriters, they immediately think of James Taylor, any guy with an acoustic guitar, people like Marc Cohn. But there are also singers who write songs, so fuck it. Jimi Hendrix was a singer-songwriter.
Was it a problem for you to switch from taking care of only the creative aspect to the work you have to do for the label?
No, because it's all creative. All art is made 75% for problem solving. The attention, the photos...are annoying because I come from a place where you only think you're shit, when you're not. I wonder every day if I release too many interviews. I do not think we need to make a lot of fuss.
Is it different to be in front of a camera than to be the center of attention of an audience?
No, because I'm up there and there is all this energy directed towards me that I give back to them. So it's the same thing. We are beings made of energy. Seperate life in these terms. I always understand when someone lies, they haven't grown up or are full of fear. The biggest fear that people have is that everyone knows that they are full of fear. People can not completely hide themselves, but they spend their lives trying to do it.
What's the weirdest thing about being the center of attention? Are you embarrassed at times?
By Jay Sosnick
Submitted by Angela from the book L'impressione di Essere Eterno (The Impression of Being Eternal)
Translated by me
Did everything happen faster than you thought?
Faster, but not early enough.
Columbia has a great tradition of folk songwriters: Dylan, Leonard Cohen. Does it make sense that you stay with them?
I do not know exactly what they see in me or why they want me to represent a genre. For me the Sex Pistols are folk. All these labels that record companies and the media create do not belong to me. When someone talks about singer-songwriters, they immediately think of James Taylor, any guy with an acoustic guitar, people like Marc Cohn. But there are also singers who write songs, so fuck it. Jimi Hendrix was a singer-songwriter.
Was it a problem for you to switch from taking care of only the creative aspect to the work you have to do for the label?
No, because it's all creative. All art is made 75% for problem solving. The attention, the photos...are annoying because I come from a place where you only think you're shit, when you're not. I wonder every day if I release too many interviews. I do not think we need to make a lot of fuss.
Is it different to be in front of a camera than to be the center of attention of an audience?
No, because I'm up there and there is all this energy directed towards me that I give back to them. So it's the same thing. We are beings made of energy. Seperate life in these terms. I always understand when someone lies, they haven't grown up or are full of fear. The biggest fear that people have is that everyone knows that they are full of fear. People can not completely hide themselves, but they spend their lives trying to do it.
What's the weirdest thing about being the center of attention? Are you embarrassed at times?
The real discomfort comes from noticing how people allow you to carry this light on their behalf, they refuse to do it themselves. But it's a transitional phase, maybe one day I won't feel the way I do today while doing the same things I do now. Maybe that's just the kid hiding inside me who doesn't want to be rejected, I guess. The only downside is that I spend so much time being photographed, interviewed, meeting people, that I don't have much left to compose. I want to improve as an artist, and I have so little time. I feel like I'll never have a steady girlfriend, that I'll never have a home. I am constantly on safari.
What do you think about the interviews?
I think they are very dangerous. I make the mistake of talking to these people as if they were my friends, as if they were able to understand everything I say. But then there is the transcription, the revision, where the shit is cut, or maybe added something I did not want to say. You must speak very clearly and defined. If I were not afraid of being misinterpreted, things would be easier. I am rather shy about this aspect. I'm more for concerts. The live experience is essential for me if not, I'd die.
What is your biggest fear about success?
What will fly away, what will be taken away from me. But fear is an indication of exit, fear is only a door that leads you to both transformation and enlightenment...or perhaps just a tragic illusion.
Have you ever been aggressive in order to stand out?
No not at all. The only thing I do aggressively is express myself, even when I'm passive; it's still penetration. It's part of the movement. I am only interested in glorifying the energy of music for what it is. Exalting myself in it, learning its gifts, unhinging it. I get it wrong a lot of times, you know? But I'm not competitive. If I were, I'd be way ahead of where I am now. Even David Bowie would ask me for a job.
Did you have to work a lot on music, or is it something that simply came?
I've never made the conscious decision to play or sing. It was like a toy, another parent. It was my best friend, because I was almost always alone.
And now? What is the priority now?
Having the freedom to go where I want. Not to control the music, but dance with it, instead of making it dance with me. It is like growing, becoming mature and not burning like a piece of wood, like Jesus.
What do you mean?
The crucifixion is a monument to what people really want to believe, which is the unhealthy idea that suffering is the ultimate expression of this life. Don't dance, don't make love, but sacrifice. This view is quite insane. But without us, this God that people talk about wouldn't be able to dance, laugh, cry or whatever. I am therefore aware that we have a direct, daily relationship with the creator. I mean, when we become disinterested by acting like drunken children, we have war in the Gulf. But there's no point in getting pissed off at Him to make your life better.
What is the biggest challenge you have to face?
Being a person and bringing this to different levels, to the point that everything I get from music is completely altered. I want to find different ways to show joy, sadness, discover all that I have to offer. And to do this you need discipline, time to develop ideas, to create different sounds.
And a nut that does not make the guitar seem out of tune.
No, I like that too, it's still a possibility. The possibility is music.
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Voice of an angel in a hard and dirty realm
Prince Patrick Hotel review
The Age, September 4, 1995
By Dugald Jellie
Submitted by Sai
A CONFESSION. I first heard Jeff Buckley only several months ago, early on a Sunday morning on the car radio. The Triple J announcer, Francis Leach, I think, was talking about an evangelical New York singer by the name of Buckley. The song was Hallelujah.
I heard there was a sacred chord/That David played and it pleased the Lord/but you don't really care for music do you?
On Saturday night at the Prince Patrick Hotel, Jeff Buckley, and his music, were alive. From the moment he started crying-his voice transformed into the sounds of a sitar as if to tell the audience: "if you want me to, this is what I can do"-everyone knew that tonight, in the bowels of a pub somewhere in Colingwood, they were in for something special.
Buckley, squeezed into a pink top with the words "take that, love you" across his chest, mesmerized the audience for an hour-and-a-half with his visceral voice, playing the hymnal tunes from his debut album Grace.
At times, with songs such as Lover, You Should've Come Over and Last Goodbye, his body writhing and contorting to each lyric, it was as though rock music was merging with the ecclesiastical.
Was it that the lone spotlight shining down on the singer, guitar slashed across shoulder a halo?
But between moments of haunting elegance, Buckley's voice and music also divulged, as with So Real, a hard and dirty realm, immersed in anguish.
When I first heard Buckley's voice on the radio I didn't know it came from the son of the venerated late-1960s Los Angeles fringe folk singer, Tim Buckley; that the song he was playing, Hallelujah, was penned by the post Leonard Cohen.
And it's not a cry that you hear at night/It's not somebody who's seen the light/It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.
I didn't know that Jeff Buckley only met his father once, aged eight, before he died of a heroin overdose. Or that he grew up singing with his mother, a classically trained pianist and cellist, in the car, bundled around southern California.
All I knew was that his was an exquisite voice. It was as though an angel was singing for us.
The highlight of the show was a mournful solo rendition of Morrissey's I Know It's Over, perhaps the saddest song ever penned. The audience, many of whom had queued for tickets (which sold out in two hours) for this small venue tour, were breathless.
The only lowlight was the background clinking of drinks being served, and the sing-along vocals of over-exuberant fans.
When it was all over, the audience exhausted, my companion turned and asked: "Did I just die and go to heaven?" Such was the mood of the room.
The Age, September 4, 1995
By Dugald Jellie
Submitted by Sai
A CONFESSION. I first heard Jeff Buckley only several months ago, early on a Sunday morning on the car radio. The Triple J announcer, Francis Leach, I think, was talking about an evangelical New York singer by the name of Buckley. The song was Hallelujah.
I heard there was a sacred chord/That David played and it pleased the Lord/but you don't really care for music do you?
On Saturday night at the Prince Patrick Hotel, Jeff Buckley, and his music, were alive. From the moment he started crying-his voice transformed into the sounds of a sitar as if to tell the audience: "if you want me to, this is what I can do"-everyone knew that tonight, in the bowels of a pub somewhere in Colingwood, they were in for something special.
Buckley, squeezed into a pink top with the words "take that, love you" across his chest, mesmerized the audience for an hour-and-a-half with his visceral voice, playing the hymnal tunes from his debut album Grace.
At times, with songs such as Lover, You Should've Come Over and Last Goodbye, his body writhing and contorting to each lyric, it was as though rock music was merging with the ecclesiastical.
Was it that the lone spotlight shining down on the singer, guitar slashed across shoulder a halo?
But between moments of haunting elegance, Buckley's voice and music also divulged, as with So Real, a hard and dirty realm, immersed in anguish.
When I first heard Buckley's voice on the radio I didn't know it came from the son of the venerated late-1960s Los Angeles fringe folk singer, Tim Buckley; that the song he was playing, Hallelujah, was penned by the post Leonard Cohen.
And it's not a cry that you hear at night/It's not somebody who's seen the light/It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.
I didn't know that Jeff Buckley only met his father once, aged eight, before he died of a heroin overdose. Or that he grew up singing with his mother, a classically trained pianist and cellist, in the car, bundled around southern California.
All I knew was that his was an exquisite voice. It was as though an angel was singing for us.
The highlight of the show was a mournful solo rendition of Morrissey's I Know It's Over, perhaps the saddest song ever penned. The audience, many of whom had queued for tickets (which sold out in two hours) for this small venue tour, were breathless.
The only lowlight was the background clinking of drinks being served, and the sing-along vocals of over-exuberant fans.
When it was all over, the audience exhausted, my companion turned and asked: "Did I just die and go to heaven?" Such was the mood of the room.
Sunday, December 2, 2018
Friday, November 23, 2018
From White Trash to Poetic Soul
Australian Herald, July 13, 1995
By Nui Te Koha
Submitted by Brett
Jeff Buckley, son of the legendary Tim Buckley, was just another aimless teenager in California before realizing his musical talent in a small cafe in New York City.
A grimy trail of equipment cases, empty bottles and show business handshakes leads to the backstage area at the Boston Apollo.
Jeff Buckley bounds up the stairs to have an after-show beer with his band, peers into an empty ice bucket, then looks momentarily lost. He searches the room for other fun.
A joint bypasses Buckley and finds its way to Juliana Hatfield, who smiles at the gift and heads towards the main stage.
While Hatfield maintains the lop-sided grin through her opening song Universal Heartbeat, Buckley bounces around the room signing autographs and indulging in chit-chat.
He's been on the road for two and a half weeks, and each night injects passion into a faultless 45-minute set before Hatfield.
The bombastic Eternal Life deteriorates into a mess of feedback and cluttered ideas, before Buckley's lonesome wail resurfaces and he leads the band into the haunting Mojo. From there it's anything that'll test Buckley's amazing voice (The Last Goodbye, Grace); anything that'll bare the soul a little more (Lilac Wine, Lover...).
"I'm fighting for my life, to get it happening," Buckley sighs. "I'm feeling like an old man with nothing to say. I'm wanting some new life in my life."
A few days later, at home in New York City, Buckley flits about his apartment with the same lost expression. "This city is waiting to live without me," he mumbles, looking down on the traffic and people below.
Grace, Buckley's debut album from last year, is a mirror on his poetic soul. It is a quiet storm which weathers the universal themes of the search for happiness, love and detachment.
As it cuts between blues and rock flavors, Grace is fuelled by intense emotion, often confused and extreme, but never false.
"I wanted the songs to be alive," Buckley says. "I wanted them to carry across their own emotion somehow. It's also the first time I've had to deal with the process of making an album.
"It's like, 'If I let this choice go, it'll end up on this plastic disc to be there until the day I die.' That can be a real concern.
"I've had to learn how to let it go. Let mistakes be put on, be more relaxed with with the creation process. It's stressful to bear a child, but you just do the best you can."
Buckley smiles. "I think it's a great album considering the band had been together for only five weeks."
The songs on Grace all come from Buckley's teen years. He jumped into a van and road-tested the songs with his band in small venues on the American east coast. "It was the key to producing some great moments," Buckley says. "The more you depend on each other when you make music, the more powerful the experience and the overall emotion becomes.
"I've literally watched the the songs that I had written bloom into other wonderful forms."
Buckley lived what he describes as a "white trash" existence in California until his late teens. The son of seminal folk singer/songwriter Tim Buckley, Jeff never met his father.
The family name would've been a foot through the door, and there were record company offers from the age of 17, but Buckley says he never actively pursued a career in music.
His change of heart came when the moved to New York, and an important venue in that transition was Sin-E, a small Irish cafe in The Village, where Buckley's seminal EP Live at Sin-E was recorded.
"I was huddled there on Monday nights, and other cafes on different nights, just working my ass off for small pay, paying off my phone bill and rent as best I could," Buckley says.
"The offer to record came around one more time and I took it. I felt I could rise to the occasion."
Buckley equates New York City with the feel of his music.
"I consider New York City to be part of my soul," he says. "Los Angeles did nothing for me as an artist. The silliness and artifice of that city is something that blows into your house with the wind."
You never met or knew your father, I say to Buckley. What impression do you get of him through his music?
The question is met with unease. "That he was a man," Buckley says slowly, "who conducted his career like a man who was convinced he was going to die before 30.
"I think I still characterize some of that crazy show business world of Los Angeles. It becomes part of you.
"It's the dirty dream world you never asked for."
Eternal Life (Sony) is released on Monday. Jeff Buckley's shows in August and September are sold out.
By Nui Te Koha
Submitted by Brett
Jeff Buckley, son of the legendary Tim Buckley, was just another aimless teenager in California before realizing his musical talent in a small cafe in New York City.
A grimy trail of equipment cases, empty bottles and show business handshakes leads to the backstage area at the Boston Apollo.
Jeff Buckley bounds up the stairs to have an after-show beer with his band, peers into an empty ice bucket, then looks momentarily lost. He searches the room for other fun.
A joint bypasses Buckley and finds its way to Juliana Hatfield, who smiles at the gift and heads towards the main stage.
While Hatfield maintains the lop-sided grin through her opening song Universal Heartbeat, Buckley bounces around the room signing autographs and indulging in chit-chat.
He's been on the road for two and a half weeks, and each night injects passion into a faultless 45-minute set before Hatfield.
The bombastic Eternal Life deteriorates into a mess of feedback and cluttered ideas, before Buckley's lonesome wail resurfaces and he leads the band into the haunting Mojo. From there it's anything that'll test Buckley's amazing voice (The Last Goodbye, Grace); anything that'll bare the soul a little more (Lilac Wine, Lover...).
"I'm fighting for my life, to get it happening," Buckley sighs. "I'm feeling like an old man with nothing to say. I'm wanting some new life in my life."
A few days later, at home in New York City, Buckley flits about his apartment with the same lost expression. "This city is waiting to live without me," he mumbles, looking down on the traffic and people below.
Grace, Buckley's debut album from last year, is a mirror on his poetic soul. It is a quiet storm which weathers the universal themes of the search for happiness, love and detachment.
As it cuts between blues and rock flavors, Grace is fuelled by intense emotion, often confused and extreme, but never false.
"I wanted the songs to be alive," Buckley says. "I wanted them to carry across their own emotion somehow. It's also the first time I've had to deal with the process of making an album.
"It's like, 'If I let this choice go, it'll end up on this plastic disc to be there until the day I die.' That can be a real concern.
"I've had to learn how to let it go. Let mistakes be put on, be more relaxed with with the creation process. It's stressful to bear a child, but you just do the best you can."
Buckley smiles. "I think it's a great album considering the band had been together for only five weeks."
The songs on Grace all come from Buckley's teen years. He jumped into a van and road-tested the songs with his band in small venues on the American east coast. "It was the key to producing some great moments," Buckley says. "The more you depend on each other when you make music, the more powerful the experience and the overall emotion becomes.
"I've literally watched the the songs that I had written bloom into other wonderful forms."
Buckley lived what he describes as a "white trash" existence in California until his late teens. The son of seminal folk singer/songwriter Tim Buckley, Jeff never met his father.
The family name would've been a foot through the door, and there were record company offers from the age of 17, but Buckley says he never actively pursued a career in music.
His change of heart came when the moved to New York, and an important venue in that transition was Sin-E, a small Irish cafe in The Village, where Buckley's seminal EP Live at Sin-E was recorded.
"I was huddled there on Monday nights, and other cafes on different nights, just working my ass off for small pay, paying off my phone bill and rent as best I could," Buckley says.
"The offer to record came around one more time and I took it. I felt I could rise to the occasion."
Buckley equates New York City with the feel of his music.
"I consider New York City to be part of my soul," he says. "Los Angeles did nothing for me as an artist. The silliness and artifice of that city is something that blows into your house with the wind."
You never met or knew your father, I say to Buckley. What impression do you get of him through his music?
The question is met with unease. "That he was a man," Buckley says slowly, "who conducted his career like a man who was convinced he was going to die before 30.
"I think I still characterize some of that crazy show business world of Los Angeles. It becomes part of you.
"It's the dirty dream world you never asked for."
Eternal Life (Sony) is released on Monday. Jeff Buckley's shows in August and September are sold out.
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Tuttifrutti Article
By Gianni Poglio
Submitted by Sai
Translated by me
He comes from the underground scene of the East Village of New York, the new American prophet of psychedelia. "Grace" is a record that does not leave much room for meditation, it can be loved or hated at first listen, but does not arouse indifference. Mr. Buckley, twenty-seven years old, of California origin, likes to define his music "a small dreamy particle of the psyche." And it could not be otherwise for an artist who still suffers the fascination of Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma."
"It is undoubtedly the album I heard most in my life along with the soundtrack of 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and the early records of Bob Dylan. On my first album I could not not pay tribute to a master like Leonard Cohen. I hope he can listen to my version of 'Hallelujah'. In general I am very attached to the music of the seventies. At that time, boys got in the evening to play or to listen to music. Today there is red light pay-TV and MTV. The power of television, the suggestion of the image are the true new facts of this decade. The words of the songs no longer have any importance, only the visual aspect counts. Through MTV the record industry can control the tastes of millions of people. After Kurt Cobain's suicide everyone had the chance to know, through the media, every detail of his private life. It is something that struck me a lot. I never met him in person, but at that moment I realized how pressure on the leader of a band as well known as Nirvana could be sufficating. Talking about bands, on the other hand, there are also the 'false alternative.' Can Pearl Jam be called an alternative band? In my opinion no! They play excellent rock'n'roll but nothing more. I do not think they invented anything new."
Although originally from California all the stages of your career were held in New York. Did you think that in the "Big Apple" there were more possibilities for a musical genre like yours?
I left home at the age of 17. For some time I played around America with rock and reggae bands, then in 1990 I decided that New York was the right city for me. In the 'Lower East Side' I feel more at home than anywhere else in the world. It's the place I've always thought of belonging to. I can be what I want. I could not do it anywhere else where I lived as a child. In a short time I found the right musicians to create the sound I had in mind.The first one I met was the bassist, Mick, at the end of a concert at Columbia University. We immediately went to my house and started playing what can be called 'two in the morning music'. He had all the qualities I was looking for. There are a lot of bass players that sound good technically, but his style is really unique.
In the songs of your first album there are many references to the typically British sound of bands like the Smiths or Siouxsie and the Banshees...
Maybe, but I can not say that they were decisive in my musical training. Unlike many musicians who are tempted to insert themselves into a genre and then live off private income, I think only of music as it springs from my brain. I can not stand the idea of being labeled. I leave this task to journalists and record companies. There will not be two identical Jeff Buckley records. I want to experiment with different solutions and not just in the studio. Anyone who has seen two or more of my concerts knows that every show is different. Every time I go on stage I do not know how long the concert will last. Music can not become routine for me. The job is to convey to people what you're really feeling, not what you pretend to be. It's happened that I felt like not wanting to leave the stage any more, but also there were some situations where after ten minutes I wanted to be somewhere else. The recording room is a place I do not like very much, but I have to say that during the recording of 'Grace' everything went smoothly. I was lucky to work with a very experienced producer like Andy Wallace. It prevented me from forgetting to eat. When I'm focused on music I lose track of time.
Submitted by Sai
Translated by me
He comes from the underground scene of the East Village of New York, the new American prophet of psychedelia. "Grace" is a record that does not leave much room for meditation, it can be loved or hated at first listen, but does not arouse indifference. Mr. Buckley, twenty-seven years old, of California origin, likes to define his music "a small dreamy particle of the psyche." And it could not be otherwise for an artist who still suffers the fascination of Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma."
"It is undoubtedly the album I heard most in my life along with the soundtrack of 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and the early records of Bob Dylan. On my first album I could not not pay tribute to a master like Leonard Cohen. I hope he can listen to my version of 'Hallelujah'. In general I am very attached to the music of the seventies. At that time, boys got in the evening to play or to listen to music. Today there is red light pay-TV and MTV. The power of television, the suggestion of the image are the true new facts of this decade. The words of the songs no longer have any importance, only the visual aspect counts. Through MTV the record industry can control the tastes of millions of people. After Kurt Cobain's suicide everyone had the chance to know, through the media, every detail of his private life. It is something that struck me a lot. I never met him in person, but at that moment I realized how pressure on the leader of a band as well known as Nirvana could be sufficating. Talking about bands, on the other hand, there are also the 'false alternative.' Can Pearl Jam be called an alternative band? In my opinion no! They play excellent rock'n'roll but nothing more. I do not think they invented anything new."
Although originally from California all the stages of your career were held in New York. Did you think that in the "Big Apple" there were more possibilities for a musical genre like yours?
I left home at the age of 17. For some time I played around America with rock and reggae bands, then in 1990 I decided that New York was the right city for me. In the 'Lower East Side' I feel more at home than anywhere else in the world. It's the place I've always thought of belonging to. I can be what I want. I could not do it anywhere else where I lived as a child. In a short time I found the right musicians to create the sound I had in mind.The first one I met was the bassist, Mick, at the end of a concert at Columbia University. We immediately went to my house and started playing what can be called 'two in the morning music'. He had all the qualities I was looking for. There are a lot of bass players that sound good technically, but his style is really unique.
In the songs of your first album there are many references to the typically British sound of bands like the Smiths or Siouxsie and the Banshees...
Maybe, but I can not say that they were decisive in my musical training. Unlike many musicians who are tempted to insert themselves into a genre and then live off private income, I think only of music as it springs from my brain. I can not stand the idea of being labeled. I leave this task to journalists and record companies. There will not be two identical Jeff Buckley records. I want to experiment with different solutions and not just in the studio. Anyone who has seen two or more of my concerts knows that every show is different. Every time I go on stage I do not know how long the concert will last. Music can not become routine for me. The job is to convey to people what you're really feeling, not what you pretend to be. It's happened that I felt like not wanting to leave the stage any more, but also there were some situations where after ten minutes I wanted to be somewhere else. The recording room is a place I do not like very much, but I have to say that during the recording of 'Grace' everything went smoothly. I was lucky to work with a very experienced producer like Andy Wallace. It prevented me from forgetting to eat. When I'm focused on music I lose track of time.
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