Guybrush

Back at Disneyland, the Rolling Thunder roller coaster is suddenly pitched into
darkness as it flies through a miniature mountain range, and its occupants -
mostly teenage girls - let out a communal shriek that subsides for a moment
when the car re-emerges into daylight. Relief turns to horror, however, when
they notice that Buckethead, seated in the front car, has zipped his jacket up
over his head and is waving his arms in the air as if the tunnel has just
decapitated him. Reunited with terra firma moments later, Buckethead draws a
parallel between high speed roller coasters and his own careening 32nd note
phrases. It's an apt analogy. Buck's peaks and troughs come from his weirdo
scale forms and note choices, including minor 9th intervals, whole tones and
stacked minor seconds. Surely Leatherface didn't teach him that. "I got a lot of
mileage from Slonimsky's "Melodic Patterns", he says of the late musicologist's
classic text. "There's a lot of really disjointed stuff in there, like far-apart
intervals and octave displacement [the transposition of certain notes in a phrase
or chromatic line an octave above or below their normal scale position]. There's
also a section on quadratonal arpeggios - that sounded crazy." In addition to
Slonimsky, lessons with Mr. Bug's Paul Gilbert and classical guitar studies
sharpened Buckethead's technique, right-hand/left-hand independence and
theory chops. He's also picked up a thing or two from books by G.I.T.'s Steve
Trovato, and he's plundered Danny Gatton and Albert Lee videos to learn, uh,
chicken picking. These days, though, he says he's more inclined to leave the
books at home and trust his ears. "I just love the sound the hammering stuff
makes", he insists. "It isn't about using four fingers on both hands. That's just
the technique I use to get there. It's not even that tough to do technically , but
the way it sounds is so bizarre. When Shawn Lane plays fast, it's like a swarm
of notes; it really creates a texture." Suddenly, Buckethead face drops and goes
quiet. "Captain Eo", he gasps, as we approach Disneyland's 3-D theater, "Huge
influence." He's not kidding. Two thirds of the way through the film for which
the audience views stunning effects through 3D glasses, Michael Jackson's
singing and dancing - the biggest influence on Buckethead's stage moves - has
turned all but a handful of the bad space guys into orange-clad love-happy
dance fiends. Only the Medusa-meets-Siouxsie Sioux evil queen, played by
Anjelica Huston remains to be converted to the light. "This is the best part", he
whispers as the theme music goes into a robotic drum-machine and bass
breakdown that Jackson moonwalks to with killer finesse. The groove uses
exactly the kid of heavily syncopated breakbeat and funky bass line that
Buckehead exploited on his early Japanese releases, and the outer-space funk
vibe is straight-up Bootsy Collins (the legendary P-Funk bassist and
Buckethead's frequent collaborator and inter-galactic mentor.) After getting a
copy of one of Buckethead's homemade videos, Bootsy with fellow P-Funk vet
Bernie Worrell on keys, became part of the first Praxis ensemble, which
included Brain and DJ Afrika Baby Bam. The group debuted with the Laswell-
produced Axiom album, 1992's "Transmutation", Later, Bootsy produced
Buckethead's first solo album.

In '94 Buckethead recorded Dreamatorium [Subharmonic, 180 Varick St., New
York, NY 10014] under the name Death Cube K (an anagram for
"Buckethead" coined by Keyboard magazine editor Tom "Doc" Darter). The
album was a dark, quasi-ambient duet with Laswell that highlighted his
cinematic flair, clean-toned melancholy and improvisational sensitivity. "I
practice a lot, but when I'm improvising I don't think about any of that',
Buckethead explains. "In basketball you shoot 50 baskets in practice so that in
the game, it's instant. As long as you have the control, you can just do it -
BAM!". Before Dreamatorium, he appeared on 1993's "Octave of the Holy
Innocents" [Day Eight US, 532 LaGuardia Place #421, New York, NY 10003]
with jazz bassist Jonas Hellborg and drummer Michael Shrieve. There his clean
tone has a plucky quality that fits in nicely with the album's dry, crisp grooves.
He's also appeared on Henry Kaiser's "Hope you like our new direction"
[Reckless], Anton Fier's "Dreamspeed [Avant], Bootsy's "Zillatron", Will
Ackerman's "The Opening of Doors [Windham Hill], Derek Bailey and John
Zorn's "Company 91" [Incus], the Axiom Funkcronomicon collection, Jon
Hassell's "Dressing for Pleasure" [Warner Bros.] and the soundtrack to "The
Last Action Hero". "I listen more and hear things a lot better because of being
around all these incredible people," Buckethead nods. "That education is the
best. It's insane, really."

When it comes to piloting a rocket ship or roller coaster, Buckethead is
untouchable, but admittedly he's no expert on gear and his take on guitar stores
is succinct: "It's like a slaughterhouse in there, with all those guitar carcasses
hanging around. You could do a jig in there." If pressed, he'll 'fess up to prizing
an '80s Ibanez X-series Flying V style ax with a Schaller-floating tremelo and
custom egg-yolk colored double coils (one white, one yellow) designed by Steve
Blucher at DiMarzio. He often plays a blue ESP M2 strat-shaped custom with a
Floyd Rose but he complains that the guitar is too small for his tall frame (at a
recent show in San Francisco with Mike Keneally, he accidentally snapped the
headstock off the ESP after dropping it in frustration). On several Laswell
projects, he experimented with a '59 Les Paul Custom. He generally uses .009
D'Addario nickel-wrap strings.

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