Jeff: A Son's Startrip

NME, April 2, 1994

By Keith Cameron.
Contributed by Sai

LONDON
BORDERLINE

  "I NEED a Guinness," murmurs Jeff Buckley, after completing one of his many audacious sorties on the collective heartstring this evening. "And I really mean that." One further outbreak of massed nail-chomping later, a glass of the black gold is dutifully placed at Jeff's feet.
  Though he might not quite have the audience eating out of his hands to be drinking out of their pockets-especially at West End prices-is a considerable feat nonetheless. The only surprise is that Jeff Buckley didn't just spirit the stuff out of the barrel, into the glass and onto the stage himself. For in virtually every other department, the Son Of Tim serves warning that the deified status his father achieved in death already belongs to him in this vividly alive life.
  Perhaps the ultimate confirmation of Buckley Jr's talent is that relatively soon people will have given up talking about him in reference to pater. Without doubt the voices share many qualities, chiefly the angel wings that lend their flights through all manner of octaval impropriety a quite effortless ease. Yet while Tim had that ghostly quaver hinting at the darkness to come even in his earliest work, Jeff's is as a far more streetwise instrument; gorgeous, exquisitely expressive but definitely of this world. 
  That said, his opening gambit tonight would have done dad proud: two minutes or so of unaccompanied free-form moaning that wrench the palms immediately into perspiration overdrive. Has this hippy got his shit together, we wonder as visions of all those hours never spent in jazz sellers marveling at the sheer self-indulgence of the human larynx fog the brain. But for the remainder of this session, at least, Jeff plays it straight, allowing us to marvel at the sheer drama wrought by one man, his electric guitar, and a bunch of hymnal treatises on people's seemingly endless potential for f-ing up.
  A scruffy-smart troubadour in the classic freewheelin' mould, the marketing department must have freaked when Jeff B appeared on its agenda. His blend of West Coast idealism and East Side hard knocks suss lends the humanist polemic of 'Eternal Life' ("There's no time for hatred/Only questions") genuine pathos light years removed from the genre's usual trite platitudes. And when the boy picks up Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and wrings out every last sob,  you're at a loss to fathom such wisdom from such tender years.
  That Guinness goes down in one, too. Pure genius would appear to get it just about right.

Club Soda Part 2

Today's gig is Jeff's return to Club Soda on October 25, 1994. I particularly enjoy this one...

Setlist:

1. Chocolate/Mojo Pin

2. So Real

3. Last Goodbye

4. What Will You Say

5. Dream Brother

6. Grace

7. Lilac Wine

8. Eternal Life

9. That's All I Ask

10. Lover, You Should've Come Over

11. Kanga-Roo

The original location now, still hosting live music❤️ (website)

The current location (1225 St. Laurent, website )

,

Vocal Hero

Time Out: March 1-8, 1995

Submitted by Ana

In the world of rock 'n 'roll, twenty-eight-year-old Jeff Buckley is a late starter. His début album, "Grace" didn't appear until last year, but it's been garnering praise ever since. As Buckley's European tour makes its way towards London, Laura Lee Davies travels to Italy to coax him out of his big brown tour bus.

  "It doesn't matter to me if people who come to my shows like the way I smell, it's all about the music." Jeff Buckley is rather concerned about his press. It's not that he's been getting bad write-ups; it's just that he doesn't have much of an appetite for being flavor of the month. Well, months actually. Even before his début album "Grace" was released last summer, there Was an almighty buzz about Buckley. Playing the London live circuit he saw word-of-mouth turn into column inches of glowing praise. By the end of 1994 "Grace" was prominent on every albums honours list. An assured and imaginative piece of unfettered rock, heartbreaking folk balladry and stunning vocal beauty, the album easily deserved it's recognition. Hopefully the reception he'll get when he plays London this week will reassure him that, for once, the critics were simply displaying extreme good taste.
  Despite his Hollywood looks and wickedly flirtatious nature, Buckley isn't very good at taking compliments. "I showed up in an English daily whose readers probably wouldn't buy me a drink if they knew me. It was like, 'It's a bit loud, but a jolly good crack and you may enjoy it.' " Buckley's delicate American twang becomes a voice from the BBC World Service for a moment. He likes doing impressions, especially English accents and "quaint" vocabulary. When he talks normally his words meander around his ideas. Maybe it's tour fatigue; the croaky voices have set in, but Buckley and his band manage genuine, if knackered good spirits.
  Having wowed Milan last September, their second grueling European tour in six months has brought them to a more intimate club date on the east Italian coast. To escape the clank and boom of the roadies, we sit outside soaking up the pleasantly warm Mediterranean winter. There are fears that Buckley's voice might not see them through to the last gig. Buckley nibbles a piece of cheese guiltily; it'll make him too phlegmy later. Still "Grace" is an album that demands to be taken on the road. Along with Buckley originals of screaming retro rock, it features a surprisingly uplifting cover of "Lilac Wine", a stirring version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and a performance of "Corpus Christi Carol" that would shame Aled Jones in his choir boy prime. While last year's trends threw up lad-pop, trip hop and jungle, few artists produced an album so rich and varied.
  To Buckley, raised by his music-fan mother on "real post-Dylan, hippie acoustic music that's still fucking great", and the José Feliciano Christmas album (great for doing housework to, apparently), the mix of styles seems perfectly natural. "It's my way of DJ-ing, it's just the way I see all music. CDs are great for that. If there's an artist I'm totally shy of getting into but I like one aspect of what they do, I'll just programme that track, hit the 'repeat' button and listen all day. It's part of my daily maintenance-obsessive-compulsive listening. If you want to link up with your memories it's really, really important to surround yourself with all the music you knew as a child even the crappy hits. I was watching that Melanie Griffith film 'Working Girl' just now and it really took me back to when I first lived in New York with my friend, Brook. It was the best smelling place, dried flowers everywhere, her stuff all over the apartment. It brings you home, somehow, into a place where you can feel replenished instead of this...capsule." He waves his hand towards the tour bus they're sleeping in again tonight. "It's very brown inside, I assure you."
  You might think a decent hotel bed and and en-suite bathroom might be more appropriate for one of the most exciting American songwriters to emerge this decade, but scuzziness and a traveling the toilet are as much a part of the rock 'n' roll experience as teen screams and 10-minute guitar trips. "It's humble yet romantic," he smiles, about to launch into another bout of caricatured impressions in a wild variety of accents. "A bit of lower-middle-class glamour: 'I loved your show!' 'Fuck you, you suck!' It's like 'Er, bouncer, could you throw a little dirt on that, there's something smelling over there. Thank you, good night!' Some nights, when the sound's right and the energy's right, you've got four people working together as one unit. It's true there are people smoking everywhere, there are tons of distractions-'Mmm, look at that bird over there'-but the song really gets to you. It's hard, man, but it's a total blast. Anyway, I'm used to this kind of transient life. You know, it's all there in the biog."
  The biog also tells you that when Jeff's mother divorced, Scott Moorhead took his father's name on his birth certificate: Jeffrey Scott Buckley. His father, one Tim Buckley, left his mother when he was a baby, snd apart from a surname and the fact that Buckley senior was also a celebrated avant-rock icon the two have little in common. Anyone who knows who Tim Buckley was will already be familiar with this poetic fact. It makes no odds to Junior if the rest of you have never heard of him; he spent nine days with him once when he was a child, and at 28 (Jeff's age now), Tim died of a drug overdose. After the sound-check, Jeff gives the gathered Italian hacks a quick press conference. The only question raised about his father is dealt with swiftly: Jeff could give the guy the phone numbers of some people who might know the answer.
  Tonight the gathered throng couldn't give a toss for generations past. The rather wild and traditionally elongated rock show Jeff Buckley and his band were doing last year has been pruned to about one-and-a-half hours. With the crowd behind them and then the sound just right, there's nothing to stop the witty, charismatic Buckley from having one of those rare "good nights". As a few young toughs squabble over a gig poster Buckley defaced earlier, touching up his photo with a beard and swastika, he takes the audience through the highs and lows of "Grace" with mesmerizing conviction and energy.
  Perhaps it's because Buckley waited until he was 27 to release his first album that "Grace" is such a remarkable and affecting début. Its intimacy translates into something even more moving live, Buckley drawing you in as if, at any moment, you might hear his own heart breaking over the sound of the PA. "What happens to me  informs and inspires me, but the songs are deliberately universal so that they have a life of their own."
  The prospect of recording a follow-up album holds no fear for Buckley and watching him on stage, I can't help wishing I'd swiped that poster myself. "I'm going to be old; I'm already older than most people in the charts. No, I'll be doing this until I'm dead...and hopefully I'll get a little grey before that happens." But even if Buckley doesn't mind becoming a rock wrinkly, is it a worry that the ideas might run dry?
  "Oh daily. But that's because I have this judge sitting in the back of my mind saying, 'It sucks, do you really think that verse works?' And the fact of the matter is that the judge has never written a song in his life. It's the other people inside me who get shit done. I have this basic distrust of the way the music machine chews artists up and spits them out; especially the eccentric ones who have something almost exclusive to say, something so strange and beautiful that it has to be protected. Every time I brought The Smiths up with my friends I had to defend them. It was like, 'Pah! There's your boy!' Sometimes in order to love something you have to be able to defend it. That's hard for a lot of people, they just delve into things that demand less, like, 'Let the beat control your body.' PJ Harvey went away and got her head sorted out. Sometimes you need to do that. We're like any poor sod in the street. We know we don't want to be fry-cooks, but you know, after a while, that's beginning to look kind of good."
Jeff Buckley plays Shepherd's Bush Empire Sat. "Grace" is out on Columbia.

Rock Offspring

Q Magazine, July, 1994
Contributed by Sai

THE SIN-E CAFÉ, NEW YORK'S LOWER EAST SIDE.

October 1992. There's no room at the back so you squeeze past to a chair at the front, right under the singer's nose, close enough to look up it, not that he notices. His eyes are clenched tight, his body edgy and straining.

The singer in question looks of the folky-troubadour variety, but he's wielding an electric guitar and scrubs at it quite maniacally. At one point he's impersonating Elvis, at another whipping off his shirt before gabbling the chorus of I Against I by reggaecore fusioneers Bad Brains, then heading off in the direction of Van Morrison's free-flowing Sweet Thing. His voice, raw and rich, stretches high and low, curling around the notes like smoke, as if unwilling to let the sound go.

This singer has the most uniquely swoonsome tonsils but an uncannily reminiscent pair all the same. Who else has sung this way? Tim Buckley,  that's who, the man who took folk-rock on a jazz odyssey in the late '60s and about whom American critic Lillian Roxon once said, "There is no name yet for the places he and his voice go". Tim Buckley died at 28 after ingesting a heroin/morphine mix he mistook for cocaine, inspiring a ravenous cult of appreciation that grows to this day.

To hear the same cosmic talent, alive and kicking, in the shape of Jeff Buckley, son of Tim, is an experience few-Buckleyites or not-are likeky to forget.

FAST FORWARD 18 MONTHS TO LONDON'S Borderline club. There is more room to move this time but people still clearly crowd the stage: the transatlantic Grapevine has been wrestling and proof is sought. The same pattern emerges: stark solo figure,  surfeit of kooky charisma, inspired torch songs, wounded-angel voice, gobsmacked audience reaction.

Curly-mopped, spangle-eyed Jeff is the first "Son Of" to generate superlatives close to those that greeted his father: dad in this case being a near diety in rock historical termd. Aware he would be accused of trading on the family name, Buckley has refused to take handouts. Since shifting to New York from his native California in 1991 (his twentieth city in as many years due to his mother's gypsy lifestyle), he's avoided support slots and a record deal, even chosen to abandon Gods 'n' Monsters, the left field "supergroup" he formed with ex-Captain Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas and Bob Mould's old rhythm section, to stick it out alone, like a hobo, on the underground/cafe circuit.

"In a cafe," Buckley ventures, "people are free to come and go, free to talk, and free to ignore me, but it's impossibly intimate even for those at the back. I want to feel that room and be good enough, and in love enough, to move them right where they stand."

After a set at Bunjies Folk Cellar-a brick oven of a London venue that holds 50 chairs and a plug socket-he does an impomtu gig down the road that lasts another 2 hours. The night before flying to Amsterdam, he slots in Stevenage. "I was made for the road," he volunteers, lying on the floor of the tour van. "It's partly to do with always feeling a stranger but also to do with whittling down what you are. And I have a love of misadventure."

 Buckley eventually signed a deal with Columbia which allowed him to stay away from the studio for at least a year. His cautionary approach, he admits, is also the product of "a heavy mistrust of the music business. I was brought up around it: my mom's friends were partly failed musicians, and every time someone saw me with a guitar or starting to sing, they'd pull me into another room and I'd get the talk, about how it's a big jungle out there, how nobody cares about you."

For anyone bold enough to accuse him of echoing his father, Jeff's response is simple: "I say fuck you, see you later, because I'm on my own. Any influences I sought out were on my own. My mom would sing along to the radio as we'd drive to school-Joni Mitchell, Crosby Stills and Nash, James Brown. My step dad couldn't carry a tune but had amazing taste-Booker T., Willie Nelson-and he bought me my first record, Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti."

Jeff's uncomfortably fierce reaction to mention of Pa Buckley is more understandable when you uncover the past. Brought up by his mother and stepdad after Tim left the family fold when he was six months old, he saw his father again eight years later, one Easter. His dad died two months after that. "So I knew him for a total of nine days. The people that did know him apparently have magic memories of him, but it's been a claustrophobic thing all my life.

" I guess my dad and I were born with the same parts, like some people are born with the same bone structure, but it's not his voice...it's not even my voice, it's the voice that has been passed on through the male Buckley family. His father sang, my grandmother sang too. My uncle could sing his ass off."

Ironically, Jeff's first break was indirectly down to Tim. Hal Willner, the brains behind the Kurt Weill and Walt Disney tribute projects, was organizing a Tim Buckley tribute show at Brooklyn's St Anne's Church in 1991 when he discovered Tim had a son that sung and flew him over.

" I went to the show because I didn't get to his funeral, which bugged me. At the time, I was meeting stranger after stranger who knew my father better than I did, and whatever feelings I had about him and toward him, I hadn't gotten over. But I wanted to pay my respects, which is what the tribute was about. I just didn't want to be billed or even announced."

He sang I Never Wanted To Be Your Mountain-"a song about him having to take the gypsy life over a regular one. It mentions both me and my mom"-encoding with one of Tim's tenderest ballads, Once I Was: "The first song my mother ever played me by him. When she left my stepdad, I guess she wanted me to get into who my dad was. So I learned it but it was hard. I couldn't really do a full version of it at home without crying."

Before and after Buckley plays his Borderline set, the DJ spins Counting Crows, the latest American sensations. If the Crows' Adam Duritz, another dreamer, a true believer, can be embraced, so can Buckley. If you're good enough, then people won't care who your father is.

Work Is Love In Action

  So it was the early 1990s and I lived in Newtown Sydney with a bunch of interesting characters, although one of the girls was very prim and proper. Her father worked as a journalist for one the top, well respected newspapers. She asked me if I would like to see a secret performance Buckley was having in the city. I was like Yessssssssss!!!!!!!!! By that stage I was madly in love with his music and he was very easy on the eyes too! She seemed a bit surprised my reaction.

  We went to the performance with our secret passes. There weren't too many people there-maybe 50?? I bought my mini tape recorder with me and secretly taped the performance. I still have it somewhere...

  So he came out looking so beautiful. He sang so beautifully. He joked around a bit in between songs. I was on cloud 9. My friend had no expression on her face (usual for her). Afterwards, we were told that if we wanted to meet him, to bring our cd and he would sign it. I lined up eagerly but my friend went home because she wanted to watch Melrose Place!!?!? I thought she was insane!

  So we all lined up. mostly girls but some guys. I had forgotten to bring my cd. All I had was a notebook. I noticed the people in front of me got their cd signed, a quick word or two and off they went. When I met him (I was in complete awe of course!) He was quite delicate looking but so handsome. I asked if he could sign my notebook. He asked for my name, wrote it down, spelt it correctly-which is amazing (dee laurel is not my real name), wrote a quote and signed it. I said "It's so great to meet you". When I told him, he took my hand in his, looked into my eyes and told me how great it was to meet me!! The girls were burning all around me and called me a b*&%#h. I made friends with the girl behind me and she said that he only had that interaction with me and no one else!! I guess I must have looked ok that day! lol I didn't wash my hand for a week!

  This all happened the first time he toured Australia. I went to his concert by myself. I was right up the front. He sang every song so incredibly!!! Perfect!! Anyway, he dived into the audience and all the girls stupidly (including myself) moved out of his way and he hit the ground!!! I said to the girls around me, "Quick! Pick him up!!" So we did and put him back on stage!!!

  So that was all incredible. My musician brother told all of his friends and when they saw me it was like "Respect."

  The second time Buckley came out...was a disaster. He was playing close to a venue to where I lived so I walked up there. Of course I was at the front. It was so disappointing and so awful that I actually left early and walked home really sad. He seemed to be off his face and sang and played guitar really badly. He was off somewhere else. The audience were shocked and disappointed. The other members of his back up band looked at each other and didn't know what to do. It was horrendous.

  To be honest, when I met him I knew something would happen to him so I wasn't too surprised when I heard that he had drowned. I was incredibly, incredibly sad though. I couldn't handle hearing his music for years and years. Only now can I bear it. When I met him, he just seemed to glow...I have the autograph framed with the secret pass and some pictures of him. I didn't get a photo with him when I met him because they didn't let us take pictures.-@dee_laurel on IG

Bluebird Theater

Today's gig is from the Bluebird Theater on May 10, 1995. This show is most known for the second, and last, time Jeff sang one of his father's songs after being heckled from an audience member. You can definitely imagine, and hear, he was not very pleased...still, as ever, he does a wonderful job of it, and the rest of the show is good too...enjoy! ☺ (website)

Setlist:
1. Dream Brother 2. So Real 3. Lover, You Should've Come Over 4. Eternal Life 5. Kick Out the Jams 6. That's All I Ask 7. Mojo Pin 8. Once I Was (Tim Buckley cover) 9. Grace 10. What Will You Say 11. Lilac Wine 12. Last Goodbye 13. If You See Her, Say Hello

Courtesy of @milalove_la on IG

Signed Shirt and Poster

Some autographed items soon to be up for sale...I so wish I could buy one but it's highly unlikely affordable for me. But how great is that poster?!