buckethead

[tc4b]

Watching a video of Les Claypool, I came across this guitarist Buckethead. I was blown away and looked him up on amazon to make a purchase, but it turns out he's got about a hundred records out. I guess I'm a little late to the Buckethead party. Can anyone here recommend a good starting point for this guy's work (besides the disc he made with Claypool, which I already snapped up)?

[GuitarDemon666]

The only Buckethead album I own is called Colma.

It is very mellow and beautiful. Not a 'shredder' album at all. I don't know if this is typical for him or not. But I love this album.

[mblindsey]

He seems to be taper friendly, so you should be able to find some audience recordings out there too. Search etree.

[jonnyc]

Buckethead was supposed to be in the new GnR lineup. I guess he quickly figured out Axel was a major douche and split. And yeah you're a tad late to the party, he's been around for a while now.

[GuitarDemon666]

Yeah, Buckethead was in GnR for a few years. But he left cuz things were taking too long. But his playing on the Chinese Democracy songs was amazing. Hopefully they leave his stuff on a couple of those songs when the album comes out.

[Guitarer]

If you like Buckethead's stuff, check out John 5, I like him a lot more. People seem to compare the two a lot for whatever reason.

[tc4b]

Originally Posted by jonnyc

Buckethead was supposed to be in the new GnR lineup. I guess he quickly figured out Axel was a major douche and split. And yeah you're a tad late to the party, he's been around for a while now.

Any recommendations, though?

I haven't heard a lot of him myself but his song Binge And Grab is awesome. I think his most popular album is Giant Robot. My friend is a Buckethead fanatic and he loves that album.

But listen to the solo on Binge And Grab.

[ewegogetemtiger]

I used to be a major Bhead fan from 1991 to maybe 2000 but grew weary of his many crappy to mediocre albums

The few that are essential are:

The original Bucketheadland (some of the earlier demos floating around are fun too but not that amazing)
Praxis Transmutation (probably the best)
usually his work with Praxis is good...
the NTT release of Giant Robot
Colma is nice but atypical of his kind of music
The original Cobra Strike was good -- CS II was pure shit in my opinion

I sold about 50 bhead albums on ebay some years ago...not much worth keeping I'm afraid

[GuitarDemon666]

Here's a pic in case you haven't seen him.



In addition to his guitar playing skills he stores chicken under his hat.

[Fusioninspace]

I think it's important to reflect on his humble, chicken raised background. Yes, it's even been reported that he can carry 50 chickens at a time...

A young man at church turned me on to Bhead a couple of weeks ago, so I checked him out on Youtube. Interesting, some good stuff, but the robot moves and standard shred stuff got old pretty quickly. From what I saw, he has some extremely nice sounds, but then a lot of generic stuff that any teenage shredder can pull off. Jordan was a nice one, as was some other rather melodic piece.

My take: Check him out. The bucket and Mike Meyer mask gets old REAL quick, the robot moves are lame, but he does have a few nice things to listen to. I'd put him in the 10,000 interesting/note-worthy people I've ever heard of list. But not in the top 1,000.

In case those who don't know, Brian Carrol is his real name and there is an old picture on the net that shows his face. Most people have probably seen this by now though.

[olfunk]

in anthony kiedis's autobiography he says that a guy came to audition for the band in about 1994 with a bucket on his head, and he wouldn't take it off

couldnt really not have been buckethead could it

i cant make my mind up about him myself

on the one hand, hes an insanely talented guitarist, and opinions on his work aside, theres no denying that fact. i just cant really get excited about anything he plays. and i wouldnt say im particularly anti virtuoso you know, i love vai and satch, and tommy emmanuel, who by the way i saw the other week and my god i dont think there is a better guitarist alive, if you never heard of him check out mombasa on youtube.

anyway, yes, cant make my mind about buckethead yet.

[mikemorgan]

Originally Posted by olfunk

i love vai and satch, and tommy emmanuel, who by the way i saw the other week and my god i dont think there is a better guitarist alive, if you never heard of him check out mombasa on youtube.

.

I don't even know why I was reading a thread about buckethead. Then someone up and mentions Tommy Emmanuel.

Buy his records, make him rich, this guy deserves some accolades.

[Superhuman]

Only one I own is Cuckoos from Hell... not very impressed, unique enough sound but just not very musical or listenable, I've heard great things about the guy and assume that all of his cd's are completely different. The Cuckoo's cd is more background noise for an action film than something you would actually listen too IMO... kind of turned me off buying anything else by him... didn't strike me as a virtuoso on that cd at all, just a few studio produced licks and runs with rapid cuts and unexpected silences

Tommy Emmanuel is my favorite guitarist/musician, has been for a long time. I thought I was good when I first learned his song "Angelina" then I tried learning some of his other songs...