Buckethead is more than i thought...
 

I have always known that Buckethead was around and made some good stuff, and that he was a member of Guns and Roses for a while, but never really listened to him in depth.

Recently i have gotten about 10-15 of his solo albums which i find absolutely incredible. Despite being rated the 8th fastest shredder by Rolling Stone, the majority of his music is not at all shredding or about speed. Many albums such as The Elephant Mans Alarm Clock have very ambient elements to them.

My Personal favorite so far of his (i havnt heard them all since hes got over 30 solo albums) is Crime Slunk Scene, which has incredible soloing and riffs throughout it. The bass and drums that accompany it also fit his playing style extremely well.

The point of this being, do not judge him based off his obsession with chickens, the kfc bucket, or the mask. Give his music a chance and i have a feeling you will be pleasantly surprised.

Songs to look for:

King James, Soothsayer, Final Wars, In Search of Inbread Mountain, Too Many Humans, Population Override, Lurker at the Threshold Parts 1-4

/\ Those are probably the most accessible (read: not schizophrenic) and are probably some of his most potent work because their more gut wrenching and less Artsy.

In his early days he comes off the guitar-virtuoso bastard child of Steve Vai and Rob Zombie but he certainly puts more than godless wankery into his work.

Dig the Ozzy rip in "welcome to buckethead land."

buckethead is beyond amazing. i never really got into him until i heard about it from my friends saying "buckethead has got some of the greatest guitar rifs in the world" so i looked into it and i fell in love. i really dig buckethead and his works of music now. cant wait to get all of his albums because im so like going and just buying ALL of them hahahahaha :D

Yea his first solo album Bucketheadland is fantastic, good concept album.

I just also recently got into buckethead myself. I just randomly picked up the album The Elephant Mans alarm clock. Just because Buckethead was lately coming up in conversations and I was curious. I was clueless of who this guy was but I was pleasantly surprised with the cd. It’s my second favourite instrumental album, currently, I love how its not just outlandish shredding (although shredding can also be wicked) but there are some hip passages. I am definitely looking into investing in some more of his albums


I am glad I learn about the random buckets on his head after I started listening to him. Sometimes I do tend to judge a book by its cover.

amazing guitarist and an amazing song writer.

so far I only have the album he did with Praxis and Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains. But I am checking out his solo album Colma.

Very tasteful/skilled guitarist. I was just listening to Electric Tears yesterday.

:P finally, someone agrees with me in saying there is more to his genius than just shredding.

What record should I listen to first?
I don't care about accessibility.

Population Override is my fav.

d/l population override now, thnx.

butcketheard is crazy... end of story.... i saw a video of him love andhave loved him ever sense...

I think Buckethead's outro to Nightrain (performed live) is one of the greatest solos ever. Here it is from youtube:

EDIT: Ah, I'm too new to post URLs. But, anyway, search "buckethead nightrain solo" on youtube and you will see it.

Lately I have been obsessed with him , when ever one of his songs come on I just have to listen to it at least twice …….

lol yea. And he has so many.

not many bands do that for me. which is why im happy i listen to him because he's like "the band that makes you wanna make love to anything" =/

Your avatar is a total win.

And I really wish Buckethead didn't have such a stupid gimmick. But most def a solid guitarist.

I really dont see why it should matter anyways. Its about what hes playing..isnt it?

One of my favorite guitarists ever, Colma is probably my favorite release of his.

What song was that?

It's incredible

Population Override is highly recommended. Its not metal, and Its got a bit of a Gilmour era Pink Floyd kinda thing going for it. Its not anything like his metal stuff.

Population Override does have some metal-ish moments, however a bit closer to Macalpine's stylings when it happens. Though I'd say the album in general is kind of a jazzy pscyadelic rock sound to it or maybe a psychadeliccy jazz rock. Something like that.

Population override, crime slunk scene, monstera & robots, colma and electric tears are my favorite albums.
Soothsayer being my all time favorite song of his.

EDIT:Also, i just Love his live stuff...I just can't listen to his studio albums alone!
Have to listen to some live stuff, and if there's a video of it, then even better.

Yeah...what was up w/ Buckethead and Axl Rose?

Actually the keyboard on this album by Travis ****erson is just as good if not better than bucketheads playing, theres another reason to listen to it.

i do believe i win

YouTube - Buckethead - Interworld / Animal Behavior Outro

Buckethead has the rare talent and ability to play a loooot of notes and still make it incredibly musical/ original/ interesting!

If you like the more high energy moments of Overdrive, check out Praxis - Transmutation, specifically, "Seven Laws of Woo" , a screaming example of first-class shredding, featuring Buckets trademark robotic sounds.

This is probably my first bump. So... bump!

Somebody forced me to listen to 'Population Override' recently and I love it; completely destroyed my preconceptions of this guy... ambient, very easy on the ear and obscenely accomplished guitar playing (obviously). I like the images that 'Population Override' conjures - mainly jungles swallowing up all traces of human civilization, in the name of ROCK.
It may be slightly cheesy but I want more... any standout recommendations from the oh-so-vast back catalogue?

Electric Tears, Colma, Elephant Man's Alarm Clock and if you're feeling in the mood for some fusion check out his side project called Thanatopsis.

There is nothing that even hints at MacAlpine on Population Override.

cheers Sodacake

No problem.

In Search of The
 

This is by no means new, it came out in early 2007. I felt like any Buckethead listeners would like this. It is called In Search of The, a 13 album box set hand release (covers drawn for each of the 100? copies by Brian Carrol). Each volume is around 30 minutes long, making it all approximately 6.5 hours long.

Some of it is very (yes i wil say it) BAD. It is just him experimenting with different sounds and synths/guitars/basses and whatnot. But i would say almost half has WONDERFUL jams, grooves, and songs. He has multiple tracks of him bass soloing, synth soloing, and just about every other instrument you can think of.

Below is the track listing. Sorry its long, but theirs a lot of material and none have names.

Vol. 1 (I)
# Title Length
1. "Untitled 1" 0:58
2. "Untitled 2" 14:50
3. "Untitled 3" 2:58
4. "Untitled 4" 2:37
5. "Untitled 5" 0:44
6. "Untitled 6" 15:02
7. "Untitled 7" 1:49
8. "Untitled 8" 5:34

Vol. 2 (N)
# Title Length
1. "Untitled 1" 1:31
2. "Untitled 2" 10:51
3. "Untitled 3" 3:02
4. "Untitled 4" 2:12
5. "Untitled 5" 15:50
6. "Untitled 6" 3:18
7. "Untitled 7" 6:04
8. "Untitled 8" 2:16

Vol. 3 (S)
# Title Length
1. "Untitled 1" 14:54
2. "Untitled 2" 2:18
3. "Untitled 3" 3:48
4. "Untitled 4" 7:37
5. "Untitled 5" 4:30
6. "Untitled 6" 10:32

Vol. 4 (E)
# Title Length
1. "Untitled 1" 3:21
2. "Untitled 2" 7:16
3. "Untitled 3" 9:02
4. "Untitled 4" 3:31
5. "Untitled 5" 5:26
6. "Untitled 6" 3:29
7. "Untitled 7" 4:08
8. "Untitled 8" 6:50

Vol. 5 (A)
# Title Length
1. "Untitled 1" 10:35
2. "Untitled 2" 1:18
3. "Untitled 3" 4:56
4. "Untitled 4" 10:12
5. "Untitled 5" 5:04
6. "Untitled 6" 1:42
7. "Untitled 7" 2:02
8. "Untitled 8" 2:56
9. "Untitled 9" 4:03

Vol. 6 (R)
# Title Length
1. "Untitled 1" 19:45
2. "Untitled 2" 3:46
3. "Untitled 3" 4:34
4. "Untitled 4" 1:18
5. "Untitled 5" 15:46


Vol. 7 (C)
# Title Length
1. "Untitled 1" 2:59
2. "Untitled 2" 16:40
3. "Untitled 3" 4:16
4. "Untitled 4" 4:25
5. "Untitled 5" 1:53
6. "Untitled 6" 11:06

Vol. 8 (H)
# Title Length
1. "Untitled 1" 10:19
2. "Untitled 2" 2:31
3. "Untitled 3" 5:34
4. "Untitled 4" 9:55
5. "Untitled 5" 2:38
6. "Untitled 6" 0:41
7. "Untitled 7" 3:33
8. "Untitled 8" 4:40
9. "Untitled 9" 2:16

Vol. 9 (O)
# Title Length
1. "Untitled 1" 9:24
2. "Untitled 2" 4:24
3. "Untitled 3" 5:24
4. "Untitled 4" 16:52
5. "Untitled 5" 6:36

Vol. 10 (F)
# Title Length
1. "Untitled 1" 5:16
2. "Untitled 2" 9:37
3. "Untitled 3" 6:49
4. "Untitled 4" 1:20
5. "Untitled 5" 6:52
6. "Untitled 6" 3:37
7. "Untitled 7" 7:18
8. "Untitled 8" 2:08

Vol. 11 (T)
# Title Length
1. "Untitled 1" 2:57
2. "Untitled 2" 4:25
3. "Untitled 3" 1:16
4. "Untitled 4" 4:06
5. "Untitled 5" 6:18
6. "Untitled 6" 3:14
7. "Untitled 7" 3:25
8. "Untitled 8" 3:55
9. "Untitled 9" 4:05
10. "Untitled 10" 4:26
11. "Untitled 11" 4:50

Vol. 12 (H)
# Title Length
1. "Untitled 1" 3:14
2. "Untitled 2" 10:49
3. "Untitled 3" 2:18
4. "Untitled 4" 10:24
5. "Untitled 5" 3:02
6. "Untitled 6" 3:33
7. "Untitled 7" 1:20
8. "Untitled 8" 15:19

Vol. 13 (E)
# Title Length
1. "Untitled 1" 45:01

I love Buckethead passionately. My fav song by him is between Baptism of Solitude and I Love My Parents.

Its seems like absolutely everybody likes this guy and his music. I just can't get into it. I don't even know what I don't like about it is the weird thing. I just don't.

The guy is really good. I first heard him when searching for some Les Claypool on YouTube. I loved thier work together!

Its tech-wank grower material for the most part. It might take a few listens. Also his stuff is very diverse so I wouldn't discredit him based on a few albums.

^That must be true, about the diversity, because a friend played me a few tracks and I did like it. I found some tracks on my own and didnt.....so I thought I was crazy or she played me something other than buckethead, thinking it was.

I might try to find the stuff that I actually did like.

50% it not "Tech Wank grower material" at all. Most of In Search of The, all of Population Override, Peppers Ghost, and tons of others are minimally edited song/jams.

And 50% is a\lot when your on over 100 albums.

Yeah, I noticed that as well. I expected Buckethead to be overproduced trollop, but I was surprised at how much musical aesthetic he tries to incorporate into his work. To be frank, though, a good bit of it is several shades too inaccessible. I just wish he could deliver another seminal album like Crime Slunk Scene.

What albums would you suggest to listen to, RezZ?