Interview with Tim Buckley

I don't know how much it costs, but I bet you'll find out when you get to the door. It's $3.00 and don't get white. $3.00 and $3.50 in the weekend. $3.50 in the weekend. Two shows a night, you get the whole thing. Package deal. Package deal. Hermetically sealed. I hope not. It's hot in there already. We're not going to be hot. Yeah. Your band with you now? Yeah. Yes. How many pieces? Five of us. Piano, bass, guitar, drums. Are you doing mostly the stuff off of the greetings from LA? No, we do. Pretty much a lot of stuff. Everything. Yeah. I remember the last time I saw you was in Baltimore, Maryland. At a college.

At county college or community college. Baltimore. And you played with a jazz group. Three guys. It seemed like you probably met them that night and you were making up songs. You look like a very intelligent surfer. Body surfer only. Never been on a board yet. My balance isn't good enough. Well, the untrained ear of the music always says that about jazz. No, no, because you were making up lyrics. It was really fun. That was what I was going to say. What else? Round two. Round two. Oh, come on. You have a cynical edge. No, I'm not done. Well, I was just saying that that's the last time that I saw Tim Buck. That was a pretty good concert, actually. It was fun. It was really fun. Because you sat down and kind of messed around with some really funny lyrics I remembered. And everybody was getting there. I mean, it was pretty, it was far. It was like a small nightclub thing.

It only had 1,500 people or 2,000 people in the gymnasium there. It can work with a lot of people. Yeah, it did. That was it. I mean, have you done that a lot? Well, we've played to more than 2,000 people. No, exactly what I meant, but what it was. Okay, let's start over. Yeah, it can work in a big room. It just depends on how much humanity you have to offer. If you're a showcase group and you just put out a stock type of music, it's going to look like that no matter where you play it. But if you play the moment, if you play for the people, if you play what they want to hear at the moment they want to hear it, it's going to come off with a looseness and a humanity to it. It's going to work anywhere, I don't care where it is. So your show now, the show that you'll be doing in Pasitis for instance, that won't be the same show every night, for instance? No, why should it be? Well, that's what I'm trying to get at. I can't, you know. I mean, that's pretty much what you used to doing with most of the, quote, people that have recorded or big acts or whatever that come into town.

Well, I mean, they've got an hour and a half set and then they take their half an hour break and then they do their hour and a half set or hour set or whatever it is. Yeah. Well, that's because they've learned so many songs and they're very young and they haven't played much, and they've learned an hour and a half of the material and that's it. That's it. You know, and they played over again. How are you doing, Gladhand? And see you. But you like to mess around with your audience more. It seems. I like playing. It's from that experience I had back then and involved more. I like to play music. And I'm capable of playing music and so I do. You know, on an extended basis, I don't. You know, you don't, in other words, you don't come out there and you have 10 songs that you're going to play. You come out there and play. Maybe you know what your first song is going to be. And then you're second. Yeah, when I get stuck for something, I just ask the audience what they want to hear. And they'll say, Louis-Louis. So we'll play it. You know. That's easy to make up lyrics for it, too. I help record that. Really with the Kingsman?

Yeah. No, kid. What did you do for that? That was that second all. It was basically what they did. You did the song. You did the song down to the drugstore and got the second all. There was no good enough. No. At Manuel, the guy who stole transmissions and bought second all. And kept the guys supplied with guitar strings and new lyrics for the song because it was pretty Louis. Yeah. It varied from high school to high school. That's true. I remember I was in a band. It was a territorial tune that broke. And did you go from there to start writing your own and... From El Juan Eles and Stadium in deep into... Fuck music. As we know it today. And you started with... It folks know it's even went through a lot of changes before you ended up with your most recent album, which is all we know you buy. Yeah. That's... That's why it's hard to talk about the past, isn't it? Right. You don't know me. Well, it seems you don't tell. It's a lot different stuff than the last album. This is a lot more rocker going on.

Well, the 60s were a lot different. There was a lot more chance for music. You people were on better drugs or something, I guess. Your ears were open more open. You had cleaner acid, I guess. I don't know what it was. Now it's Kuelud, Sad Us, and Beer. Well, now it's all this... Hi. Hit me. Sock it towards me. Roll me in the dirt. Make me human. It's depressing. In a lot of ways. You're getting over bodies to the stage. It's weird, especially in your town Milwaukee. The inner city, what I'm trying to say, is dying. And it's moving to places like this. Here we are. Yeah. At the college. It's a music studio because your audience isn't as open-minded. Well, we just had a lull. Everything's kind of boring. We're in limbo. We're ruining a whole political system and that takes time. And baseball is, I mean, that's boring. And when that gets popular, you know something is wrong in the taste, you know. But all the new groups are very sensational now.

Like, they may not be regular on an album, but in person with flaming rockets and all this stuff. Sure. I call them portable closet fangs, where they can go anywhere and do it, you know. They're all married and they're not really gay. But they're going, they're writing that little thing. Yeah, I know what you mean. What do you think of gay rock and roll? I don't think it's gay. You don't think it's gay. I think Lou Reed's the closest. What about David Bowie? Do you see him? It's just, you know, cocktail music. It's just all for relying it for the money. Well, you know, I know they're sincere. It's just isn't saying anything for the gay people, you know, which is a very valid and hard thing to live. Don't take my word for it. Well, we got it done. But there's a lot of them on my block. And I would raise it and send it to you. No. No, I mean, you know, it's hard to come out with something that personal.

That's a whole society of people. And then program it commercially for people who buy Campbell suit, you know, and say, this is what gay is. You know, and only project the queen part. Have you seen him in perform? Yeah. Yeah, I never have. I mean, I'm just assuming maybe that the performance is what brings that kind of rock. You know, loud rip off the American audience. Yeah. Loud American audience likes loud screaming yelling. Oh, the 13 year olds do. Yeah, that's true. I remember it. There's a lot of people. There's about three weeks ago and the average age was probably 14. Yeah, we're also in our country now. We're into like segregation between the ages. Like, people who are 13, 14, 15 don't go to things that people who are 18, 19, up to 25 go to and vice versa. It's not only segregation between black and white, but we have segregation now between little age groups.

You know, over 30, it's, you know, I don't know what they're doing. They're programming libraries somewhere, you know. They're trying to make a thing out of it, I guess, whatever they're doing. You mean the record companies are trying to appeal to a certain age group? Down to about eight. Yeah, they would like everybody to play. They divide, they are dividing the people. Yeah, they divide it. Yeah, and the following public is 13, 14 monkeys, the monkeys. In other words, the 13 and 14 year olds are going out to see their kids. Doesn't give you a lot to work with. So, so what's your audience? It's your audience. That was the focusing, right? Yeah. So was that where some of your audience was buying that because of the folk? Yeah, and the folk thing in the early 60s, what we'll talk from there, was much more susceptible to jazz because basically came out of New York City. So they were used to black people. And so hence, like when the blues things started coming into folk music, immediately moved into folk rock.

It was health-moved. You know, Bobby Dillon, Jesse Cullen Young, everybody played it. And then through the 60s, I remember being on the bill of the Fillmore and Frisco with Charles Lloyd, Jefferson Airplane, myself, and Cecil Taylor on the same bill. Maybe Claire Award. I mean, a wild, a great show. What did you play with it? The Fillmore. Yeah. And the same thing like in New York. He could put together great shows, not charge a lot and make everybody, everybody would make money. But now, it's like, well, it's basically who's packaged better. That's what I meant by hermetically sealed and here one time only, you know. That's a drag. There's not a constant flow of good music through America, like it was in the 60s. It'll probably pick up in the end of the 70s. You know, or something new. There aren't enough places to play that are good or? There's too much show. The society is moving towards, well, TV dinners started it.

And canned martinis. And canned dacaries and all that. Stay at home stuff. You know, watch TV. And you're really dying when you only have three channels and you have game shows and news during the day. I mean, what does it go? You know, so the only TV that's really happening is New York and LA. Where they have extended talk shows, community affairs programs, good movies, plus the game shows. Yeah, full cable. And cable. Aside from talking about that here. But of course, that would be good though if everybody sat and watched more TV. No, I'm saying that the quality, you know, you're ruled basically by the media. I mean, before the telephone, you were shooting. A lot of gun fights, you know. And you would come to see a hanging. That was the basic motivation out here. Now that you have radios and telephones and things like that, you've cooled out much, except for Friday and Saturday. You know, if the media was better as far as the level of appreciation would come up, you know.

It helps. It just goes hand in hand. The more a private performer can put into a society more, he can put into a... He can incorporate more different styles into an act rather than just programming it for 13-year-old people. Not that I'm against 13-year-old people, they're fine. I don't think they should be talked to until they're 25 though. I'd better leave. What do you call home after you finish this tour? A trailer and a promotion beach. I could sit back and blogging. And what's TV, man? You know, you don't know what TV is until you've been out of it. It's different, much different. So you grew up there? Yeah, I know, really. But I choose to live in New Mexico. It's a little slower pace. People have chance to be friendly. Yeah, that's true. Are you planning for Mexico? No, never.

Have you been out to to see this yet? Yeah, we want to set up. You like that. It's a nice place with crazy people, of course. Yeah. Nice people, right? Yeah. Now, that was an old funky bar that for years was just going broken. It occasionally would have a memorable evening when everybody would go out and just timing. And more people and advertising. And the people that have it now are just really good people. Yeah, they're good people. They give it a shot in the arm and it's just doing great. It's not doing a lot of great. They're taking a big chance by, you know, trying to bring in people, name groups or whatever you call them. I mean, every time I... It's hard to get the people out of their huggins here, I guess. Right. You know, it's 20 miles away or whatever it is. It's not in the heart of town. Yeah. Do you think people would rather go out there where it's cool? Well, I don't know. See, I don't... I haven't studied the retreating hippie to the wilderness. You know, I'm not... Lots of hippies out there. Well, you know what I mean?

That whole thing that happened in the 60s of retreat from the cities into the rocks. I'm a farmer. Yeah, right, back to the farm. I'm one-handed, sort of, scares me. You know, because it's a total withdrawal from sewers and subways and things like that. I understand that, you know what I mean? Well, in those sewers and subways and the high-rise apartment, there's a high risk of crime. Everything's going up, and so a lot of people are split in the city. Paranoid. Yeah. What's missing there is the American spirit to stand there and fight for it. Right. You know. Little macho. We have a lot of that in New Mexico. Yeah, well, it's easier to get away with. It's easier to get away with that here than it is in a city. Yeah. I really don't know that much about the retreating hippie. Well, do you think that maybe people are going to start going back? I mean, you said that maybe they're- Go back to the city? Yeah.

Yeah, I think the inner city is probably the new frontier in another 10 years, because there's- from what we've seen, from what I've seen in the last two years, on all cities, the inner city is pretty much bare. Nothing. A lot of empty space. And all the people are moving out to the suburbs, you know. And to the plazas, you know, the malls and stuff like that. You know, that kind of living. Yeah, that's a lot more attractive, you know. And you said that that sort of reflects the bog down of musical. Yeah, because you're dealing now, you're back to the thing of the old days, where media doesn't mean that much. You know, you being in the city after six o'clock playing a concert, it makes a great demand on somebody just to come in to see it. I mean, it doesn't even matter. Like Isaac Hayes is playing Kansas City this week, and he's only playing a 3500 seat auditorium, because nobody goes there. I mean, he usually fills 10,000, easily. But so it's hard now for like promoters and people in music to know where the most,

you know, sections of people are. You think that radio stations like K-1M have affected that too, the fact that we're bringing people- Throughout the country, I don't know what your format is. I don't know what your format is, upfront. But throughout the country, FM is basically B-Team AM. Yeah, definitely. You know. And most of the FMs are going AM. Right, it's getting worse. And so anything for any chance of change has to happen within two and a half minutes of music. And it's pretty much middle of the road stuff happening now. You feel that some of the music is kind of dead also? Yeah, I guess there's a lot of restrictions. I mean, just to get recorded now, and it will get worse. Besides the expense, what are the restrictions? The expense and the taste of the people. And what your radio stations are going to play? What does the taste of the people mean? I don't understand that. Well, I mean, it's very...

Oh, I see. Well, let's take an example. 1966, the hit tune of the whole year was Bala the Green Beret. And at that period of time, there was a lot of music happening. Yeah. Sure. You know. So no matter what underground movement is happening, basically the Beatles were an underground movement compared to John Wayne and the Green Beret. So no matter how big you think you are, there's tons more than you that are buying Andy Williams. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? So then when you start talking about media, the people who own TV stations usually have a lot of money into radio stations. You know, not to mention them off, yeah. You know, and Ego would whatever is going to make the quick dollar. So there aren't any real good progressive stations in L.A. anymore than is what it sounds like. Anyway, I'm talking about the country. Really? Yeah. There are only 13 classical stations in the whole United States. Yeah.

Yeah. So when I'm talking about, when I talk about TV, right, you're talking about media. I'm talking about all media. You know, forget theater. There's no theater through the Midwest, unless it's in the round and it's Bert Reynolds doing... You've seen the Santa Fe opera. Yeah, it's good. That's good. But that's, you know, one little bit here, a little bit there, you know. When you don't have theater in town, you don't have a culture of the people in the community coming out. You don't have a culture. So you think maybe people are going to get burned out on the... No, I think... The bad media that they're being handed to the suburbs. I think by the end of the 70s, if we ever get an administration that isn't so restrictive, basically Nixon's thing is very repressive. You know, it's been stated by Sam Irwin, the most repressive president ever. And that's a huge statement, you know. When that is finally over either at the end of the four years, you know, or if he is impeached, which is... The odds for that is pretty ridiculous.

It may open up to where people are not afraid to be in groups again. Basically, we're in a withdrawal society watching the news. Everyone's paranoid. It's not true, Sam. No, it's waiting to see how far it goes. It's not paranoid. It's just see how clean it's really going to get. That's the basic... I think that's the basic motive for all the laid backness, as it were, you know, or non-committal to any art or theater or, you know, anything. Is to watch how far this thing is going to go, the Watergate thing. It's going to take a long time to withdraw from it, you know, to recover in a state a whole new way of living. It's basically, we're really on the line. We take it in stride, you know, because we're so far away from it. It really doesn't matter to anybody in Albuquerque, what happened in a hotel in Watergate, but the whole system matters. Right.

I've often thought, gee, how ridiculous. A couple of guys walked into an office. What's changing is does politics move from making business bigger, or does it move to making people more healthy and better places to live in? You know, does it? We're on that line. The best line we've ever had. And everybody's on it. Yeah. Because, especially through the South there, and here, political moguls were in interest of oil companies, of contractors for housing, war, and basically an interest of business, to build up towns and things like that. Not really any interest for people. You know, usually build up a town, people will come and live there. Right. So business is going to have to have to be the thing decks, but I'd move back into the cities. And also the arts. When somebody like Firestone brings in things to LA from Russia, Van Goghs and Gogans that have never been seen before,

and show them in a museum, that's something that's never happened from a businessman other than Carnegie. And the great rich man of our time, that we're concerned in the finer things, at not just making money. There's a limit to making money. It has to go back in to something. Well, maybe when we run out of gasoline, that'll bring it all back to business. We haven't even hit that realization. American people haven't come off of Baco's seasoning, and you know, where do we hit the food crisis, which is next year? Yeah. That's true. We were planning on driving back from Iowa Creek to LA, and I don't want to take the chance, because I don't think there's any gas stations. You know. Walk. Sorry, Mon. I know where you can get a good cover wagon for back to $500. Well, how does this whole idea compare to your music? Well, anytime a society is in any sort of trouble, and also an entire industry such as music,

which is in trouble. The person who is an innovator usually suffers from that, because there's not an overflow. There's not a backwash of interest. So it's harder to come out as an innovator and make a living. So basically, you have to take what I'm now doing, as re-rooting through the country. Almost like a political movement. You know. Are you still writing? I mean, it sounds as though things have come to a standstill, but they haven't. No, I'm saying the world has. Yeah. And you're writing things that you think will are different from this greetings from LA, Illinois. Yeah. Or what kinds of things? Are you going to do some of the mountain placidas? Yeah. You know, nothing's economic or political. You know.

Basically, what's happening with people who are starting to live now in their 20s and 30s is the one-to-one communication between man and woman and their children, right? And the futility of the loose type of thing of having three women and 14 kids in a house, you know, it doesn't work. For a period of time, it does. Howly weird at its best. Well, hey, it was communal out here in the TPs. Yeah. You know, it's everywhere. So getting down to the thing of one-to-one, it's basically all I've ever talked about. And it's what I'm talking about now, and it's getting to where it's more hard to anchor in on. Because it's very touchy. Because nobody wants to be with one person and have that person represent them. And also them. Usually...

Because you're entrusting yourself. Sure. Usually, men treat women as head ornaments on catalax. You know, look what I got. That type of thing. Are you curious? Yeah. Once it gets beyond that, you start getting into commitment. What are you talking about? More of a universal thought. More of a personal thought. And more of a frightening thought. Because then you're cutting right to the bone. One of what life is. It's not warring Vietnam, it's not a political, it's not... Anything, it's like what you have to deal with every day. You know, basically the news is a show. You know, I don't think anybody really worries about it. Yeah. Well, if they really did then it probably wouldn't be good news. When exactly is it? Right. Even after this commitment, a lot of couples with children are choosing to live with other couples in communal living and all sharing the responsibility, where the children have multi-parents, they still know their parents. There's no such thing as an orphan. Yeah. Except in LA as well. Left kids.

So your music is going to be more personal if you can bring it up. If I can get my way in the industry, it will, yeah. What kind of other, do you have producers or people like that that are telling you that, no, this isn't. It won't sell, so you can't do it. Oh, there's always been a problem. There's that with everybody. I mean, there's hardly anything. There's hardly a word that you say on record that isn't mulled over by a committee meeting anymore. It's great. It's like Putty Swilp. Did you ever see the movie? Yeah. It's worse when it gets down to like, you know, where it is now. It used to be, they give a lot of money to a new group and they just put them in a studio for months. Right. And they come out with chicken fat, you know. And they write it off. Now it's like, you know, either you have singles to put out to your stations that will appeal to you to play them. There's just less money being thrown around in general. And of course, then there's to your own little water gate with Clive.

Yeah. You know. And we should have hit here. I'm going to use some of that. Yeah. Oh, it's, yeah. That's, uh, a lot's going to happen with that because they're all subpoenaed. You mean you can't do what you'd like to do in your record? Oh, I do do a certain degree. Sure. But that's more because you've been in the business for a while rather than letting you do it. Yeah. I mean, if, and somebody knew or something, they probably haven't. Oh, I haven't forbid. They're not as picked by the producers. Oh, if I came up now later, if I was just starting now, it would be, you know, really frustrating. I wouldn't be recorded. If I really don't think I would be. What does it take to, uh, to writing songs and you want to get yourself recorded? Well, uh, I think I did it right when I did it eight and nine years ago. I didn't worry about percentage, you know, or the amount of money I was going to get.

I was just into it to put it down and wax. Because when you're not a lesson, you think you're going to die any minute, you know? And, uh, but that worked out better, you know, because, uh, I started seeing, as soon as I saw it, I started seeing people quibble over percentages on money, you know. And really, it's better to have the publishing company committed to putting out your material and giving you money to live than to worry about the big splash if you're going to write music. So, therefore, you have them in an opposite corner. If your music comes first, then it's all itself. You may have to work for it harder. You're very purest about your music, then. It's good. Uh, no, I was just a better business move than to quibble about percentages and then just get lost in the stockpile. So now, like, one product I'll last a year and a half, which is a ridiculous road. It's a ridiculous, uh, running for any piece of music today.

A piece of music meaning an album, or, uh, yeah, well, basically an album. So, you're about to do for one in six months or so? No, September. September. Three months. Yeah. And it's finished. It's pretty much finished. No kidding. Yeah. We recorded it and it'll, you know, the right time to put it out when everybody's back in school and all the daddy's bucks. Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. Spring, Christmas, fall. And they're back in the major parts of the city. You die every summer. Nothing coming in. Yeah. It was, yeah, that was one thing about, you know, the early beach boys made the summer make it. You know, they sold a lot during the summer. Did you feel so right? Oh, they're good. They're good. They're still writing good songs. Yeah. The last album, Holland was just really fine. Yeah. They're good. How much they spent on that? Two hours, what? No. About three million? It wasn't quite a million, I think. It was about a million dollars. You don't want to help them?

Why? Well, I bought the studio. I wanted to take it. Oh, they had bought the studio. And their sign was right to be in Holland, of course. You know, their sign. And they had to buy the right studio. They spent, you know, 14 days on one thing. It's a little booklet that came, I think, with the album. Explained on the expenses. Through their whole studio in the old bought homes. The wiring wasn't right today. It seemed quite critical of that. Oh, when you got it, flaunt it. You know, go the whole way. It sounds like fun. Sure, what the heck? That's by this one. Just, I mean, all that money for an album, you can begin to heatey. Drinking with Brando. Right? Sure. You know, the song recorded in Jamaica. The song's a song, a town's a town. Why spend millions on it, you know? It's still sang about California, though. There's a sign, many. St. Lawrence, St. Lawrence. Have we bored the university enough?

Did you get off? Oh, I don't think so. That's why. The intellectual macho's out there. Well, I've already turned up, I'm out. And we'll have the whole state this time when we got the city. Anyway, everybody should go and see for themselves. There's a day through Sunday nights on a procedures. Be prepared to dance. Oh, everybody's prepared to dance. Take off your skibos in this state. That's... It's a good floor. Yeah, people boogie around here. People even boogie at there. What is boogie? Boogie? Yeah. Dance and have a good time. Dance and have a good time. It's a general word for moving your feet and taking whatever seems to be handy and putting it into your mouth. Heavens. And on that note, we'll end here. And on that number, we'll thank Tim Buckley and Buddy and Richard and Wife of Tim Buckley and Woh. And Woh. Woh. Woh. Woh. Woh. And we'll go back up to Bruce, I guess. Take it away, bros.

Jesse Brucey.