Going through phases of Tim Buckley appreciation is a natural thing. You start with the folk-rock stuff, which immediately pleases the ear. It has all the traits you’d expect from an album from the Greenwich-is-god era: sparkly post-Byrds guitars, sincere vocals, and lyrics you can take or leave. Yet there’s something missing; despite the quick immersion, you’re ready to move on after a brief tryst. Then comes the Starsailor/Lorca period; HOLY FUCK! This is either the greatest music ever created or a violent clash of styles that will, should, and could never work together. Jazz? Soul? Psych? Avant-garde? Sneering, often-corked trumpets? Hand drums? Sax streamers? Unbelievably bulbous stand-up bass? Nutso...
And that voice; you won’t find a creepier accompaniment anywhere, especially on “Starsailor,” a haunting hymn sung from a long-buried-away grave, with multi-tracked vocals and litle else holding it together. It’s insane; it’s nearly impossible to believe the same singer responsible for tunes like “Aren’t You the Girl” put this together. Whatever possessed Buckley during this period was powerful and all-encompassing, to the point where it killed his career for all intents and purposes. This downturn led the way to Buckley’s next, and least-successful, musical phase: White-guy funk. (To be honest I haven’t even had the guts to go there yet, save a listen or two.)
So what’s a Buckley fan to do if Greetings From LA appreciation is way, way off? Tompkins Square has a simple answer for that: Live from the Folklore Center, NYC: March 6, 1967. It’s the perfect continuation of the Buckley Addiction for people who already have all the albums, the prescient live document Dream Letter (which covers Buckley’s folk material in a completely different light than Folklore Center), Live at the Troubador 1969 (a roundup of WHACKO live cuts from the jazz period that absolutely blow out Buckley’s voice; a must have), the boring DVDocumentary My Fleeting House, the great book by David Browne about both Buckleys, and The Dream Belongs to Me, a set of rare and unreleased tunes.
And that folk phase I mentioned at the top, the one that grabs your attention but doesn’t hold it? Live from the Folklore Center presents a brand-new way to dig into the selections he and his writing partners conjured during this era (many of them penned in high school). Bare and intimate, this performance strips away the blustery electric guitars, drums, and bass of Tim Buckley and Hello and Goodbye, giving you no excuse not to zone in on Buckley’s silver caw, and it doesn’t disappoint. Remember, all the hype dumped on his music is no mistake; he was a visionary in so many ways in such a short time it’s almost as if he did too much. Perhaps his overextension and popular regression was inevitable.
You can hear his unmistakeable talent reaching out to your ears from the first almost-cartoonish (you can’t deny the guy sounded like Kermit the Frog) notes his vocal chords push out on “Song for Jainie,” a cut that never sounded so alive and vibrant as it does here. The urgency that was somewhat muddled within the confines of the Bigger studio recording of “Jainie” is at the forefront. Rest assured, you’ll never enjoy the studio version quite so much after hearing this coffee-shop take, which isn’t scratchy or scruffy as it is clear and concise and stripped down.
“Jainie” is one of the only songs that is a true revelation in its naked form, but the rest of the songs previously released (I’ll get to the unreleased ones in a bit) benefit from the settings as well. “I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain,” a song about Buckley’s reluctance to become a family man with his music/touring career taking off (though he did get married at age 19, not a good move for a guy who doesn’t want to be someone’s “mountain”), comes across as tender under the dim lights, and songs like “Dolphins” and “Phantasmagoria in Two” also work well.
Others, like “Aren’t You the Girl,” don’t work as well, bringing out the nursery-rhyme aspect of Buckley’s persona (I know, he would have HATED that descriptor) even more than the studio version. Same with “No Man Can Find the War,” a vague war-protest anthem if there ever were one and a confused lyrical statement at best (to his credit Buckley acknowledges his lack of true insight into the nuts and bolts of the matter like I always wished Dylan would have, telling the crowd before the song that, though he doesn’t know all the facts, this is how he feels about the issue; I appreciate that) that would lead many critics to take him less seriously than they perhaps should have.
Which brings us to the unreleased material, another great addition to a catalogue seemingly devoid of new discoveries. One can see why many of these tracks never saw proper release. “Just Please Leave Me,” “Cripples Cry,” and “In the Rain Comes”? Too sad; depressing, even. Others are less dour but obviously not what a label boss would want on a potentially money-making LP. “What Do You Do (He Never Saw You)”? Too autobiographical ("You never knew/ When he would be true"). “Country Boy”? Too... Southern. “I Can’t Leave You Loving Me?” Ummmm, too... falsetto?
In any event, for a listener such as I, aged 30, who never knew the excitement of hearing brand-new Tim Buckley material fresh off the press, these songs are important. None of them are toss-offs, and they represent something most of us are hearing for the first time, from the older jazz dweebs and folk nuts to the younger generation that picked up on Buckley by dint of Candy’s (great flick, btw) soundtrack or random, baffled mentions of Starsailor in mags or his son Jeff’s music.
This alone would make Live at the Folklore Center worth having, but when you factor in the re-contextualized versions of classic songs, it becomes clear this is a document all Buckley fans will want in their collection. As I mentioned, there are rough spots, but for those who have been researching Buckley for years, this will be expected. In this way, Live at the Folklore Center echoes the career of a man who never quite found his audience and suffered for it more than most people know (if you want to hear the results of this suffering, listen to any of his last three albums or read his interviews at the time, wherein he wearily talked of how his work wasn’t “commercial” enough; a goddamn shame, it is).
In any event, Tim Buckley was special for a bevy of reasons and will be remembered long after his better-selling peers fade away (just try and think of a musician of the era who made a more extreme pivot at a successful point in his career; Dylan’s country phase doesn’t even compare). As sad as Buckley’s story is, his legend was boosted by his untimely death but never artificially so (think Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain; I love them but the shit’s gotten out of hand). And, as indie troubador Jeff Hanson’s passing proved a few months ago and Tim’s son Jeff proved a decade ago, some voices are just too good to last; as a listener, it’s important to mine the nooks and crannies of their leavings for all they’re worth.
1. Song For Jainie
2. I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain
3.Wings
4. Phantasmagoria In Two
5. Just Please Leave Me - (previously unreleased)
6. Dolphins
7. I Can't See You
8. Troubador
9. Aren't You the Girl
10. What Do You Do (He Never Saw You) - (previously unreleased)
11. No Man Can Find the War
12. Carnival Song
13. Cripples Cry - (previously unreleased)
14. In the Rain Comes - (previously unreleased)
15. Country Boy - (previously unreleased)
16. I Can't Leave You Loving Me - (previously unreleased)
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