Jeff Buckley - Velvet Jungle Concert

Triple threat today with back-to-back-to-back awesome performances of Dream Brother, So Real and Last Goodbye for the tv show Velvet Jungle (1995).

Rapplestar Galactica

Only 3 months to wait until Battlestar Galactica: Razor the tv movie coming out this November both on Sci-Fi Channel and on dvd...

Tim Buckley - Song To The Siren

Like son, like father. A great DVD of live performances by Jeff's father was released a few weeks ago. There's also a pretty good compilation of both his folk songs from the end of the 60s and his more experimental work at the beginnin of the 70s.

Jeff Buckley - Forget Her

How cool to find Jeff Buckley AND Paris in the same video? Forget Her is an amazing Buckley song that was supposed to be on Grace. It was replaced at the last minute by Dream Brother which Jeff thought was a better fit with the rest of the album. The studio track was later released on Grace (Legacy Edition) (2004) and So Real (2007) (there is a rare live audio performance of the song floating around the interweb) (lyrics in the comments as usual)

Rufus Wainwright - Memphis Skyline

A great tribute song to the memory of Jeff Buckley by Rufus Waingright. (lyrics in the comments section)

10 years ago...

Jeff Buckley (November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997). Light a candle for Jeff. And here are all the previous clips I posted on this blog.

Satisfied Mind (live @ The Knitting Factory)
How many times have you heard someone say,
"If I had money, I would do things my way."
But little they know, that it's so hard to find
one rich man in ten, with a satisfied mind.

Money can't buy back all your youth when you're old,
a friend when you're lonely, or peace to your soul.
The wealthiest person, is a pauper at times
compared to the man with a satisfied mind.

When my life is over and my time has run out,
my friends and my loved ones, I will leave there's no doubt.
But one thing's for certain, when it comes my time,
I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind.
But one thing's for certain, when it comes my time,
I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind mind mind, mind mind,
satisfied mind.

Jeff Buckley - Forget Her

This song was supposed to be on the first version of Grace. It was later replaced by Dream Brother as Jeff thought it was a better fit with the rest of the album. It's nonetheless a frakking great song. Forget Her was later released on the second cd of the Legacy Edition. (lyrics as usual in the comments section)

Jeff Buckley - Grace (bis)

Another amazing live version of "Grace" recorded on MTV (1995).

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah

Recorded live on Nulle Part Ailleurs, Canal + (1995). And this short but touching interview following the release of his first E.P.:

"... And what do I want people to get from the music? Whatever they want, you know... Whatever you like."

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Songs That We Sing

Charlotte Gainsbourg's (daughter of legendary french singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin) new album 5:55 was co-written by Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) and Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) for the lyrics and Air for the music and produced by Nigel Godrich (producer of Radiohead). That's some nice people gathered here and the resulting mix is working quite well with Charlotte's personality and voice.

Noir Désir - Le Vent l'Emportera

A bit of french rock for tonight. One of my favorite song from french rock band Noir Désir recorded live in Evry (2002).

Cat Power - The Greatest

Cat Power (stage name for singer Charlyn "Chan" Marshall) is a strange little lady. I saw her recently live in NYC and she seems really shy and to have her own world (which is a good thing) but she's a real artist with a warm, original and evocative voice. She just released a new album (The Greatest).

Nina Simone - For A While

Effortlessly beautiful.

Jeff Buckley - What Will You Say

A great song, What Will You Say was never released in studio version. Jeff's father, Tim Buckley was a famous folk singer/songwriter at the end of the 60s and early 70s. He died at 28 of a drug overdose. Jeff, who never got to really know him, still clearly had issues with his dead father as evidenced in this song:

"...Father do you hear me?
Do you know me?
Do you even care?..."

Although I prefer Jeff's voice, you should definitely try some of his father's works. There is a great anthology available released a few years ago. UPDATE: here's a link to a Tim Buckley's video. Try also here and here.

This clip was filmed during the Glastonbury Festival in 1995 (rest of the lyrics in the comments).

Jeff Buckley - Grace

Amazing (live version of) Grace on NPA, Canal+ (1995).

Jeff Buckley - Lover you should've come over

My favorite Jeff Buckley song. Effortlessly beautiful. Recorded live in Chicago (1995)

"...Sometimes a man gets carried away,
When he feels like he should be having his fun
Much too blind to see the damage he's done
Sometimes a man must awake to find that, really,
He has no-one..."

My summer '06 soundtrack

Mmmh... two of the best albums created these past few years released on the samed day (in the US), a coincidence? Probably, but a good one as I was desperately looking for my summer '06 soundtrack. Two great albums to listen to at different times of the day ("The Eraser" works better in the middle of the night when I can't seem to find sleep).

"The Eraser" is the first "solo" project from Radiohead leader Thom Yorke. "Solo" because most of the sample sounds and bits of electronic he used on it come from the Radiohead library that his regular bandmates created during the "Kid A" and "Amnesiac" sessions, kind of "Kid B" when you come to think of it. For once, Thom's voice is at the foreground, pure and beautiful as usual and sings of his usual demons and fears: "the fences that you cannot climb/the sentences that do not rhyme/in all that you can ever change/the one you're looking for/it gets you down" (Analyse). Harrowdown Hill in Oxfordshire is notable for being the place where the body of Dr David Kelly, a british weapon expert who opposed the Iraq war, was found in 2003. Apparently a suicide. Apparently. Yorke said that Harrowdown Hill is "the most angry song I've ever written in my life. [it] was kicking around during Hail to the Thief, but there was no way that was going to work with the band." Those expecting a Radiohead album might be disappointed. Instead, Thom invites us inside his personal bubble, a sometime nice, sometime scarry place.
Favorite tracks: Analyse, The Clock, Black Swan, Harrodown Hill and Cymbal Rush

"Black Holes & Revelations" is Muse's fourth album. Where the first three album were "pure" rock, Muse succesfully incorporates some electronic bits here and there, kind of their own "Kid B" in fact ;-p So, passed the first surprise, from the very political opening song Take a bow ("Corrupt, You're corrupt, Bring corruption to all that you touch/Hold, You behold, And beholden for all that you've done/And spin, Cast a spell, Cast a spell on the country you run/And risk, You will risk, You will risk all their lives and their souls" hmmm, I'm wondering who he's talking about... S or G?) to the very Prince-like Supermassive Blackhole, the inspiring Invicible, the western-like Knights of Cydonia and the radio-friendly Starlight, Matthew Bellamy (please stop the comparisons with Thom Yorke or Jeff Buckley, Muse's leader has definitely earned the right to not being compared to other people) covers a lot of different musical styles with his sometime powerful sometime touching voice and weaves once again a very epic in scope tapestry, an heroic rock album (heroic rock? heroick? I have to copyright that!). It's refreshing to see a band evolve as they do. I saw them live for their first concert in Paris back in 99 (they were really young and totally unknown at the time) but they totally rocked da house. Fast forward 7 years and four albums later on the other side of the Atlantic: last week in Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, a little bit less young, more experienced but still the same amazing energy on both old and new material (Butterfly and Hurricane is still one of the best piece of opera rock ever written and watching it live is a pure joy).
Favorite tracks: all!! (with a special mention for Map of the Problematique and Invincible)

Both albums need to be played a few times. After that, it gets really difficult to listen to something else... (hopefully not until my Summer '07 Soundtrack).

Jeff Buckley - Dido's Lament

I thought I knew and had every Jeff Buckley songs and live perfomances but I just discovered this amazing cover 2 weeks ago!!!

This is a piece, for a soprano voice, from "Dido and Aeneas", an opera composed by Henry Purcell in 1681. Jeff performed it live at Meltdown festival, London, on july 1, 1995.

Dido's lament
Thy hand, belinda, darkness shades me.
On thy bosom let me rest.
More I would, but death invades me.
Death is now a welcome guest.

When I am laid in earth, may my wrongs create
No trouble in thy breast.
Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.

Jeff had the voice of an angel. Hopefully, he's singing for them now.