Buckethead

Sure.

Very good song (4 or 5 stars) on a not that great album imo:

Cabs!!


From the pikes, I still need to hear these from 2015 (and at some later time I also need to hear most 1993-2010 works):
126 Tourist
127 Paint to the Tile
128 Tucked Into Dreams
129 Forever Lake
130 Down in the Bayou Part Two
131 Down the Bayou Part One
132 Chamber of Drawers
133 Embroidery
134 Digging Under the Basement
135 Haunted Roller Coaster Chair
136 Firebolt
137 Hideous Phantasm
138 Giant Claw
139 Observation
140 Hats and Glasses
141 Last Call for the E.P. Ripley
142 Nautical Nightmares
143 Blank Bot
144 Scream Sundae
145 Kareem's Footprint
146 Carrotcature
147 Popcorn Shells
148 Invisable Forest
149 Chickencoopscope
150 Heaven is your Home (For my Father, Thomas Manley Carroll)
151 Fog Gardens
152 Carnival Cutouts
153 Whisper Track
154 The Cellar Yawns
155 Ancient Lens
156 Herbie Climbs a Tree
157 Upside Down Skyway
158 Twisted Branches
159 Half Circle Bridge
160 Land of Miniatures
161 Bats in the Lite Brite
162 Four Forms
163 Blue Tide
164 Ghoul
165 Orange Tree
166 Region
167 Shapeless
168 Ognarader
169 The Windowsill
170 Washed Away
171 A Ghost Took My Homework
172 Crest of the Hill
173 The Blob
174 Last House on Slunk Street
175 Quilted

@CriedWhenBrucieLeft any recommendations?

I have just bought and downloaded these:

Wheel of Ferris #216
Buildor #224
Florrmat #225
Drift #231
Oneiric Pool #235
The Five Blocks #237
 
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Bit harsh, is it not? Cabs is indeed a nice track, but Underneath the Artic is a great track; lovely atmosphere & mood, brooding. I really like it. You ain't a fan I see. The two middle tracks, yip, not much going on there. Wouldn't call them poor though. So overall, I thought it was pretty good. Maybe not Foro purchase material though...

Of the 2015 post-Halloween Pikes I think the following are albums you should buy:

Pike #209 ~ Rooms of Illusions
Pike #210 ~ Sunken Parlour
Pike #211 ~ Screen Door
Pike #212 ~ Hornet
Pike #213 ~ Crumple
Pike #216 ~ Wheels of Ferris
Pike #217 ~ Pike Doors
Pike #218 ~ Old Toys

These albums are all excellent; some are outstanding.
 
Seen my edits (last 11 minutes ago)?

Any recommendations from pike 126-175 ? I guess I'll go through them myself but am always interested in your opinion.
 
Forostar said:
I have just bought and downloaded these:

Wheel of Ferris #216
Buildor #224
Florrmat #225
Drift #231
Oneiric Pool #235
The Five Blocks #237
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Nice, nice picks. Those are all really good picks.
Forostar said:
Any recommendations from pike 126-175 ? I guess I'll go through them myself but am always interested in your opinion.
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That's a big list & I don't think you'll like quite a lot of it. I'm not saying you should buy all these, but I'd recommend you listen to & consider the following to begin with:

Pike #126 ~ Tourist
Pike #127 ~ Paint to the Tile
Pike #128 ~ Tucked Into Dreams
Pike #129 ~ Forever Lake
Pike #148 ~ Invisable Forest
Pike #154 ~ The Cellar Yawns
Pike #158 ~ Twisted Branches
Pike #162 ~ Four Forms
Pike #163 ~ Blue Tide
Pike #164 ~ Ghoul
Pike #175 ~ Quilted

There's another half dozen plus albums that are heavy & gloomy & have really grown on me. I rate them pretty highly, but I don't think they're going to jump out at you after one listen. Therefore I haven't listed them above.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Pike #126 ~ Tourist
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While Glow Worm is tremendous (fantastic!), the rest of the album isn't. Whenever this man combines brilliance with clearly lesser efforts on one album, I won't buy it. By the way, I notice a strong role for the bass guitar! Haven't heard it this clearly yet.
 
No filler, flat out awesome from start-to-finish? That's a pretty tough ask for any artist, never mind Buckethead! :p

Incidentally, how many albums have you now bought? :D

 
All tracks don't have to be awesome all the time. But I don't like clearly worse songs / bad songs. Some are (slightly) annoying even. If he would just release his output less frequent, and combine the best on one record, leave out the nonsense ..... anyway, I've become good at filtering. I know exactly what I like and what not (in order to decide to buy).

I have bought in total: 22 pikes. 16 last April. 6 yesterday. Looks like I find 1 out of 10/11 pikes worth buying.
 
The song from above is from Pike #72 Closed Attractions (2014). You might like all of that album...

And, looking back at that first batch you bought, I see you only bought Pike #38 It Smells Like Frogs and #39 Twisterlend from that #35-40 Pike run. Honestly, you need to go back & revisit all of those. They are phenomenal albums from start-to-finish.
 
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CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
He just needs reined in a little. Honestly, all things considered, I don't think Buckethead's approach has really changed that much. He always fucked about a lot (interesting live, doesn't work so well in the studio), recorded way too much (either solo &/or with other people), and produced stuff that was magical (his best is awesome) down to mind numbingly frustrating crap (e.g. ambient/drone/noise releases). But, if he wants to go and make 30 ambient Halloween albums then who am I to stop him.

He's made his music pretty freely available too; there's just too much of it for most people. I look at people on this forum who listen to, say, Metallica or Megadeth (& would go & see them multiple times too) & who seem quite critical of whole swaths of their careers, whole albums, or who find everything they've produced has "filler" here & there --& honestly I don't see why Buckethead should be judged any differently i.e. take what's good & ignore what you don't like. That's difficult for an artist you really like, but there's no other approach with Buckethead.
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Yea, like I said earlier I had a hard time approaching his music even before the Pikes series. When that started I pretty much gave up. Although I've listened to some of it (mostly stuff you've posted here) and there have been some very cool tracks. Anyway, this discussion has me interested again. I'm going to just take each album in chronological order per this discography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckethead_discography#Solo
Watch this space for my review of Bucketheadland.

Also looks like this album was released on John Zorn's label. Had no idea how much Zorn was involved in his early career.

I do really like highly prolific musicians like Buckethead and Zorn because there's always something new to discover. I've been into Frank Zappa for about 5 years now and I've only heard about 40 albums. That's not even half of his discography. John Zorn also releases music at a rate that I can't keep up with, although every album I've heard from him this year was excellent.
 
Zorn's output is ridiculous. I have a hard enough job keeping up with Buckethead & Mike Patton; I don't think I could handle another super-releaser. Where are you going to post your reviews? In the Buckethead thread I hope? Look forward to it! :ok:

EDIT: Oh wait, I didn't notice we were in the Buckethead thread... :facepalm:
 
Bucketheadland - I think I've heard this one already. Several songs sound familiar. I've definitely heard I Love My Parents before, I remember seeing an old grainy video of him jamming in his backyard playing several different songs including I Love My Parents. I really like the whole amusement park theme. I find that I enjoy Buckethead's work more when there's an obvious theme. Luckily that seems to apply to a lot of his albums.

Production is very raw. The drum machine isn't nearly as convincing as it is now, but that's OK. The low budget drum machine and production gives this the vibe of an audio equivalent to a B movie, which is appropriate for the album theme.

A ton of studio fuckery on this. Some of it is interesting, some of it is annoying. Some cool guitar sound effects throughout at least.

Favorite songs:
Park Theme, Hook and Pole Gang,
Wonka In Slaughter Zone - I really like Buckethead's rearrangements of other music, this is what drew me to his music initially
Computer Master - Awesome slap bass on this. Is that Buckethead or Bootsy Collins? Very cool track. Great guitar playing and I like the shifts in mood/dynamics. Nice combination of weirdness and actual music.
Home Run Derby - Finally another good guitar jam. I actually kinda like the drum machine here too.
I Love My Parents - Like I mentioned earlier, this was one of the first songs I heard from Buckethead. Great tune, love his mellow work.

The verdict
These reviews will also be for my own reference so I can remember which albums were worth going back to. While there were a few songs on here I enjoyed, I don't know if I'd get much out of repeated listens. I prefer more of a balance of real songs and noise tracks, or for it to be completely one or the other. The studio experimentations on this one didn't really interest me and they take up too much album space. The good stuff shows a lot of potential however. I've heard the next album (Giant Robot) before and I remember being very fond of it. Looking forward to revisiting that.

5/10
 
The slap bass work is definitely Buckethead; I don't think anyone else played anything on his debut album. I agree that all-in there isn't actually that much music on this. Still, it heralded the official opening of Bucketheadland, so it's an important record...
 
My favs from Bucketheadland (5 February 1992):
track 01: Park Theme (3:21)
track 28: Computer Master (8:16)
 
Is there a "best of" playlist someone would recommend (lookin' at you Cried)? As the guy can't edit himself for shit, curious if someone has curated his best/most meaningful stuff. I know him from the G'n'R Chinese Democracy, that's pretty much it.
 
Cornfed Hick said:
Is there a "best of" playlist someone would recommend (lookin' at you Cried)? As the guy can't edit himself for shit, curious if someone has curated his best/most meaningful stuff. I know him from the G'n'R Chinese Democracy, that's pretty much it.
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Indeed, as Foro says, it would be quite dependent on the taste(s) of whoever was throwing the playlist(s) together. Plus, I don't think you could possibly do him justice with one playlist. There's a couple of YouTube mix channels up which, obviously, play the good stuff. But unless you know Buckethead you've basically no idea what exactly you're listening to. Still, it's a decent way to hear endless coherent well-regarded tracks rather than having to sift.

e.g.
This guy, who I mentioned in this topic somewhere, has 50 playlists up under "Buckethead Mixed Pikes".
Each mix tells you the track/Pikes, so with this guy's playlists you do actually know what you're listening to.


In fact he seems to have "favourite" lists uploaded too. So a good mix of playlists to put on if you just want to listen to some tracks.
 
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Giant Robot
As I mentioned previously, I'm already pretty familiar with this album. Of all the Buckethead albums I've previously heard, this one I've probably listened to the most. I was initially interested in his cover of Star Wars, which lived up to my expectations. I also really liked the weirdness of these songs. Set it apart from other instrumental guitar driven music I had heard at the time.

Favorite Songs
Welcome To Bucketheadland - It is a redo of Park Theme from the last album, but this version is so much better. The production is better and the arrangement is slightly different. I like the robotic vocal sounds as well. Also real drums!
I Come In Peace - The buildup to this is awesome. The riff is the perfect soundtrack to a giant robot marching through a city. The vocoder vocals are also great.
Buckethead's Toy Store - This was my favorite song on the album back in the day. I really like all the twists and turns this song takes, while still sounding coherent.
Binge & Grab - Supposedly this song once had lyrics? Cool 80's AOR tune. I could imagine Satriani playing something like this.
I Love My Parents - Like Welcome To Bucketheadland, this is a far superior version of the song than what appears on the previous album. Nice little orchestral ending too.
Star Wars - It's Buckethead playing Star Wars. What more do you want?

The Verdict
This is superior to the previous album in every way. The production is better, the songs are better, and the concept is fully realized. This one actually feels like a tour of Bucketheadland, where the last one seemed to meander a bit. It is a bit on the long side, but the more experimental tracks on here are still pretty enjoyable and don't sound just like noise. Still, part of the reason I don't listen to this often is how long it is. A lot of it is filler but the whole flow of the album still works. I could see myself putting many songs from this album (including songs I didn't list as favorites) on a Buckethead playlist. Or a condensed version of this album.

7/10
 
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