So what's up with Buckethead?
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Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Bands, Artists and Genres Appreciation
Forum Description: Discuss specific prog bands and their members or a specific sub-genre
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=104998
Printed Date: March 12 2025 at 11:51
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Topic: So what's up with Buckethead?
Posted By: Dellinger
Subject: So what's up with Buckethead?
Date Posted: November 28 2015 at 22:33
| I have just seen for a while now that there's been lot's of new reviews of this artist, Buckethead. To my surprise, at some moments I could se 3 or 4 different albums being reviewed recently, and I noticed that they were all from this year, which would be strange for an artist to have so many new albums in one year... but then I check out his page in PA, and he's released more than a hundred albums in the year. I mean, how is that possible? How could anyone keep a minimum of quality on his output releasing such a colosal amount of music. To be perfectley fair, I haven't heard anything from him, nor would I know were to start with such an amount of albums... just because of the numbers I'm intimidated, and I feel it would be too much effort to try and look for anything good he may have. So, mainly, do you think that even releasing so many albums in a year, an artist can maitain an acceptable quality of music? Have you known of anyone else doing such a crazy thing? |
Replies:
Posted By: TheLionOfPrague
Date Posted: November 28 2015 at 23:02
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I like several of his songs, but I have no interest in listening to him more given he releases a few albums per week. I can't think of anyone that comes close to that. Zappa did release very often albums, and personally they did have a lot of filler on many occasions, but it still was nowhere near Buckethead. ------------- I shook my head and smiled a whisper knowing all about the place |
Posted By: zravkapt
Date Posted: November 28 2015 at 23:07
I like how he released an album a day as a countdown to Halloween. Who the hell does that? Buckethead, that's who. ------------- Magma America Great Make Again |
Posted By: zachfive
Date Posted: November 28 2015 at 23:33
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I listen to a lot of Buckethead. Here's the thing, I listen to it while I'm in the shop tinkering on computers and such and I find it holds true what Brain Eno said about ambient music, "It has to be as ignorbale as it is interesting.". What I mean by that is there are times where I am so concentrated in what I'm doing that the music blends together into one big song and kinda fades into the background; but there are other times where I can't continue doing anything cause I'm in awe of whats being played. Many a times I have relisted to albums because I knew the first listen I was not paying it the attention it deserves. I think now I am on Pike 55 and just use YT played through my media center which has a decent sound setup.He has devolped a sound for sure, and some people criticize his albums sound to similar, but I find there are always fresh moments that keep me looking forward to when I have free time to tinker. Before I start anything in the shop, I make sure I gots me some Buckethead a playin. Edit : Also I really enjoyed C2B3, Praxis, and Cornbugs |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: December 01 2015 at 11:52
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I got my first album back in 2005 and even then he had an enormous discography if you count all the albums he appeared on even though the solo discography was only up to 16 albums that year. But yeah the amount he puts out is insane. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Posted By: verslibre
Date Posted: December 01 2015 at 14:21
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The Buckethead albums I like best are Giant Robot and Chicken Noodles 2 (a duo album with keyboardist Travis Dickerson on Fender Rhodes), and the Praxis albums with B'head, Bill Laswell, Brain and Bernie Worrell. Kaleidoscalp and Thanatopsis are good, too. ------------- https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_ipg=50&_sop=1&_rdc=1&_ssn=musicosm" rel="nofollow - eBay |
Posted By: lazland
Date Posted: December 01 2015 at 15:28
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I have read, with some fascination, but without ever really being tempted to listen to any of them, Mr Silly Puppy's reviews of the hundreds of "Pike" albums released by Mr KFC Head. An incredible output. But are they any good? I listened to an interview with David Gilmour today, in which he said he continually wrote down and recorded ditties that came into his head. When he comes to making an album of music, he said that the vast majority of these notes and songs were discarded, as not being worth very much. Those that were good, of course, formed the basis of the work of art that followed. It strikes me that Chicken Meal Deal Bucket Bonce simply records, and releases, every single thought that comes into his head immediately, which does not strike me as being the best quality control in the recording world. As an ignorant of his work, is my impression a fair one? ------------- Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
Posted By: AEProgman
Date Posted: December 01 2015 at 15:38
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^ Seems fair to me, but I am also ignorant of his work. ), it has some moments here and there. But I cannot give much of an opinion based on one album, and not really looking for others at the moment.Wonder what started the KFC bucket on the head gimmick? ------------- 
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Posted By: LearsFool
Date Posted: December 01 2015 at 15:45
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^ He got the idea for his mask first, from one of the Halloween movies. He bought the mask, and happened to also get a bucket of KFC. That night, once he finished the chicken, he happened to put on the bucket after he put on the mask, and when he looked in the mirror he knew that's how he wanted to present himself to the music world. -------------  
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Posted By: AEProgman
Date Posted: December 01 2015 at 15:51
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^Crazy! Hope it was after KFC stopped using trans fat oil -------------
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Posted By: lazland
Date Posted: December 01 2015 at 16:00
The mind doth truly boggle!!  ------------- Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
AEProgman wrote:Posted By: Xonty
Date Posted: December 01 2015 at 16:14
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It's definitely gone over the top since he was doing an album a day, but they're all pretty consistent given the circumstances. There is a little bit of experimentation in each record, but not as much as his earlier stuff, and the song writing isn't technically as good. Still he hits upon some really nice stuff almost by accident (30 Days to Halloween: Blurmwood, being his most recent that I know of). I guess it's just about how important quality is over quantity, but to answer your question, I prefer to listen to his records more than a huge number of artists that spend longer on their music. If you want to know somewhere to start with, it depends what you want to hear from him. "Colma" is probably his highest-acclaimed, but it falls flat a lot for me. "Population Override" is a nice take on jazz fusion, and "Electric Tears" for some ambient guitar music. "Look Up There"'s my favourite at the moment, and has some seriously smooth and intimate jams.
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Posted By: timothy leary
Date Posted: December 01 2015 at 17:25
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This is a decent album. Dragons of Eden is good too. |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: December 01 2015 at 17:45
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A very good guitarist who has over-saturated webdom with practice releases. And that whole "buckethead" thing is as old as listening to a 90s Korn album. ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: December 01 2015 at 18:49
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BTW my favorites are: Arcana - Arc Of The Testimony Hellborg + Buckethead + Shrieve - Octave Of The Holy Innocents Les Claypool's Bucket Of Bernie Brains Self titled albums - Giant Robot, Colma, Monsters And Robots, Bucketheadland 2, Electric Tears, Bermuda Triangle, population override. The one from his slew of downloadable albums I have tried is Listen for the Whisper, and it's good. But after going on a binge of sorts in 2005 I had to back off. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: Dellinger
Date Posted: December 01 2015 at 21:19
That's exactly my impression, without knowing anything from him, and that's why I wanted to know what other people might think about him. I feel he should release a sort of "best of" album from each years releases, just for those who are interested in knowing his music, but don't want to buy over a hundred albums in one year (or even just listen to them) trying to find the moments that are worth listening... of course, he may be too busy releasing albums as for taking the time to choose his best songs of the year. |
Posted By: zachfive
Date Posted: December 02 2015 at 00:10
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I don't want to be a wet blanket here, but to both Dellinger and lazland - why are we scoffing someone for being creative? He is creating music, and if he wants to record and release it why should it deserve your disrespect? I am not telling you not have an opinion on the man, by all means that is your right; but to me, mocking someone for doing something that you deem is not of quality, well I do not agree with that. Especially when neither has listened to any of his music, only read about his extensive discography. Also, one could argue he is being very progressive, for who in recorded music history has put out that many records in that span of a time? Doing sh*t nobody has currently done in rock is what progrock is about. Whether you have or have not listened to his music, he should at the very least be commended for his commitment, no matter how much "quality" he puts in. I do realize you were interested in, and were reaching out to find more about this aberrant individual, and I may be taking this too seriously, so sorry to call you guys out on what may be a non issue. I'm not even a Buckethead fanboy by any means.... |
Posted By: zravkapt
Date Posted: December 02 2015 at 06:25
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Yeah, I admire the guy for his creativity. His stuff is diverse and as such hit-or-miss but the stuff that 'hits' is great IMO. ------------- Magma America Great Make Again |
Posted By: timothy leary
Date Posted: December 02 2015 at 09:27
| His dedication is admirable. |
Posted By: Dellinger
Date Posted: December 02 2015 at 22:05
I'm not bashing him, I'm only discussing... or more like "talking", given my mostly ignorance of the artist. I never said he was bad... that would be totally inacurate not having heard him. It's just that I find it difficult to believe he could release much quality with that kind of amount of albums released... I would think it's actually impossible. Surely there is something of quality among so much music relased, but I don't think I would be willing to dedicate so much time listening to his music in order to find those wortwhile pieces. And if all his over 100 albums were really great... well perhaps even then I would be at a loss... imagine to consider buying 100 album in a year from just one artist just because it's all great, that would be some serious buck and time to spend on only one artist. That's why I thought it would be great if he would release a best of year 2015. |
Posted By: zachfive
Date Posted: December 03 2015 at 01:02
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Well this word quality you are throwing around so much, it is subjective, which means you determine what is and is not of quality as to your own standards. One would have to listen to his music in order to determine this though. I had stated in my earlier post that I listen to his music through Youtube, not my preferred way of listening to music but I'm right there with you in that I don't have the money to spend on every release. For suggestions as to where to start, after reading about him, I thought I started with the Pike series, which currently in its 215th installment. Pike 1 is his 31st studio album, and so before I started the Pike journey I listened to his debut album, Bucketheadland, his 9th album, Electric Tears, 10th album, Buckheadland 2, and finally his 15th album Kaleidoscalp. Those albums I determined, by review research, to be good places to start. I am only on pike 50 something, as I do not listen to him on a daily/weekly basis, more occasionally but in big chunks. I have never not been able to find a Pike album on YT... I suggested to a friend of mine that he type in youtube; Buckethead Pike -insert random number- |
Posted By: zravkapt
Date Posted: December 03 2015 at 06:53
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For the curious, here's three different sounding Pikes: Sometimes I listen to some Pikes on Youtube as background music when I'm cleaning, getting ready for work, etc. ------------- Magma America Great Make Again |
Posted By: siLLy puPPy
Date Posted: December 03 2015 at 23:21
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I guess i should get in on this one since i am the puppy in the coal mine who volunteered to check out his albums and reviewing them. Am i mad you ask? Well, yes but that's a different matter altogether. I'm also on the Errors & Omissions teams at MMA our sister site and was asked by the admins if i would spruce up the Buckethead page since i posted a few reviews and no one else was as familiar with his works. Well, i sorted out all 200 plus albums on the page so they are all laid out all prettily in order and then i found that just tagging everything non-metal was insufficient. Thanks zravkapt here who posted one of countdown to Halloween Pikes, i checked it out in the forum and actually loved it. Hmmm. I was a big Buckethead fan until about 2007 when i just kinda lost interest and moved on to other things and that's about when he started to go nuts releasing more and more albums every year. Yadda yadda. Long story short, i have scoured the internet and there is no info on what type of music each release is for most anyway and no reviews for most of the Pikes, so i decided the only way to find out is to listen and to my surprise some of them are actually pretty good. Yes there is a consistency issue. Some are awful and some are brilliant but BH has certainly kept me interested enough to continue this endless journey! I'm reviewing all these so everyone can read about them and only check out the ones that sound interesting. Not too many i'll be checking out again but this is a good list just for my own self reference. I mean this is an encyclopedia of music now! Dellinger, if iit blows your mind that this guy is releasing this much keep in mind he always has only it usually has been with other groups and collaborations. This guy is clearly a musical genius and it's true that he seems to record everything taht he can think of, but when you are this gifted then a lot of that spontaneous stuff is pretty freekin good. Keep in mind that someone like Mozart who only had a short life produced an equivalent of about 180 CDs worth of music in his short adult life. Some of these guys simply think in music and can create things spontaneously in their heads. A unique talent but one that is apparantly real |
Posted By: Lewian
Date Posted: December 04 2015 at 06:54
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I checked out a few ones yesterday (all 2014/15). I tried some that should be fairly different from each other from descriptions I read (siLLy puPPy and comments on youtube), but my personal impression was not one of inconsistency. True some are more some are less experimental, some faster and some slower, some noisy some calm, but for me they all had a fairly similar feel to it, a musical stream of consciousness of which it doesn't surprise me one bit that this is all the same person. This is how moods change and music can express it. The whole approach what kind of thing this guy thinks makes a "song", the guitar playing and how it contributed to express different emotions, the use of rhythm and licks etc. seems pretty recognizable to me. Perhaps not recognizable enough to achieve 100% in an "is this Buckethead or not" quiz, but enough to give me the feeling that it's the same person, the shape my impression of his personality, but also to think at a certain point that it's all "more of the same" even when I go to a pike that is supposedly very different. When I started to make my own music at the age of 15 or so I was very fast but bad. I have big appreciation for Buckethead for how good this stuff is given that often he does 30 minutes in a single day. I'd be mightily proud of myself had I been able to do 30 minutes of this quality in a day. On the other hand, the lack of elaboration of the compositions seems fairly obvious to me at any moment. OK, in my fairly random exploration (although I went into a few that got 4 stars by siLLy on purpose) I may have missed things that are different but still. I haven't come across parts/songs where I clearly felt that I want to listen to this again. (Probably I should peek into his earlier stuff when he took more time.) I just saw that siLLy has come up with a one star review today. This was probably the first oen, but I'm not sure. I wonder whether this pike is really particularly bad or whether siLLy just gets bored more easily the more of this he does. We'll see. Obviously having listened to Buckethead now on only two days in my entire life, I can't claim that my opinion is very qualified, not only may I have missed great stuff, also the stuff I listened to may grow if I'd give it more time. Still, my listening gave me a pretty solid feeling of what to expect, that I can occasionally have fun listening to some of this, I respect it for the productivity and for being an original thing to do and credit goes to him for doing it first, but also that I don't expect anything from this guy that can really draw me in, at least not in this 2014/15 phase; of course he may change direction at some point and he apparently has done this before. |
Posted By: siLLy puPPy
Date Posted: December 04 2015 at 08:32
| Lewian, I'm trying to be explicit in my reviews all the whys. I have given a few 1 stars for pikes. The reason is usually that it is nothing new and yes boring. Compare albums I gave 4 stars to those I gave one. I've now listened to close to 70 pikes and my standards get higher as I proceed. Everything is played well but in my subjective opinion I just don't find all of equal quality. Same with other artists with large outputs like zappa. |
Posted By: Lewian
Date Posted: December 04 2015 at 09:25
Yes, I admire your reviews, you make them very informative which is quite an achievement given how many you write in short time (I can see a connection there), and I agree that the pikes are not all the same quality. Musical taste and even perception is of course subjective but still to me the impression of consistency (although perhaps not at the most obvious level) trumps diversity in what I have heard. |
Posted By: siLLy puPPy
Date Posted: December 04 2015 at 19:56
Well like him or not you can only respect an artist who can pump it out faster than we can listen to it! Even the ones i hate are performed and recorded well. I assume he releases everything for financial reasons. He sells the first copies signed for like $35 and the downloads are like $2 so i know there are loyal fans lapping all this up! I'm sure he couldn't care less what us proggers and reviewers think but i really wanted to just let the world know what to expect since it is an understatement to say that his discography is friggin' overwhelming 
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Posted By: Tapfret
Date Posted: December 08 2015 at 05:24
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what's up with Buckethead? Well, the only real answer is... "Buckethead's this guy who was raised by chickens in a chicken coup. And without the bucket on his head, he's helpless" ------------- https://www.last.fm/user/Tapfret" rel="nofollow">  https://bandcamp.com/tapfret" rel="nofollow - Bandcamp |
Posted By: Smurph
Date Posted: December 08 2015 at 08:19
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No matter how he's doing it... I find it quite impressive. It can take me 12-15 hours to record a solid 4 minutes of music that I'm proud of. ------------- http://pseudosentai.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow - http://pseudosentai.bandcamp.com/ wtf |
Posted By: timothy leary
Date Posted: December 08 2015 at 09:51