Buckethead

Buckethead is a controversial artist. Not because of his lyrical content, as most of his songs are instrumentals, but because of the way he looks. Sad right? I thought we all learned not to judge a book by its cover back when we were children. It seems this is not the case for many music fans out there.

First let me give you a bit of background on this character named Buckethead.

Legend has it that Buckethead was raised in a chicken coop by chickens. He considers the chickens his family. Though its said that early in his life, the chickens scratched his face so badly that he had to start wearing a mask to hide the damage done.

At the beginning of his guitar career, he started to wear a Chicken bucket on his head. (Originally it was not a KFC bucket, but Buckethead soon moved to the KFC buckets)

Buckethead has gone through many incarnations of his "look"....currently, Buckethead wears a slim one-piece coverall with his signature white mask and blank white bucket.

As you can likely tell, his "look" might put a few people off before even hearing a note of his music.

Here's where it gets fun....Buckethead is a classically trained guitar player that can and does play in MANY styles. No matter what kind of music you listen to, with a catalog of over 27 Solo CD's and countless other collaboration projects, there's a good chance that Buckethead has an album that you might like.

He is a YouTube phenomenon. If you search for "Buckethead" on YouTube, today, you will get 41, 700 hits to enjoy. MOST of which are recordings from his live shows. This is where MANY newer Buckethead fans discover their hero. There are of course those who upload copywritten material from his albums but the army of Buckethead fans that are there to report the abuse is enormous.

I've never seen an artist with such a rabid group of devoted fans before. Many would say that Buckethead fans tend to be obsessed with the man, and they would be somewhat right. Being one of those rabid fans, I feel like most of us are obsessed with the music first and foremost and support Buckethead's wish to remain anonymous.

While his real name is out there more and more, you'll never hear a true Buckethead fan use it.

Buckethead hit a surge of popularity back in 2006 when Guitar Hero II was released and one of his songs was made available as downloadable content on the Xbox 360. As many fans as this song created, it created even more haters.

The most common complaint you hear about Buckethead from the uninitiated is:

"He plays with no emotion...its just all shredding"

Usually this is coming from someone who has ONLY heard the song Jordan. I have just over 1000 unique songs by this artist and I could easily name 100's of songs where he plays with plenty of emotion. My favourite example being a song called Mrs Beasley, off his 1996 release on NTT Records called "Giant Robot" (This album is now out of print and quite rare)

This is a clip of Buckethead playing Mrs Beasley live in 1998 in Portland, OR:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vms-rblPcwc (Thanks to the taper of this show - Zintar)

The other main complaint you often hear from non-fans is:

"Get rid of the Bucket and mask - it's just a gimmick!"

The costume is not a gimmick, I assure you. It is his character. It is a crucial part of what is Buckethead. The music and the costume go hand in hand. In an early interview, Buckethead says:

"I thought it made sense with the way I play", he explains. "I play all this weird stuff, but if I just look like me, it isn't going to work. But, if I'm like this weird freak..."

One only needs to look at those who Buckethead chooses to collaborate with to know he is legit. He has cut songs and albums with Bootsy Collins, Bill Laswell, Les Claypool, Brain, Bernie Worrell, Serj Tankian etc etc.








































I encourage you to check out Buckethead for yourself. Remember, Jordan is a great song, but there is a LOT more to Buckethead than Guitar Hero and that song. If you find yourself wanting to dive in, find a Buckethead fan on Facebook, or at http://bucketheadland.proboards.com AKA Buckethead.TK, a message board where Buckethead fans can get together to chat about their hero and many other topics. Someone there will help you find some Buckethead that you like!

The best way to acquire Buckethead cd's is at http://www.tdrsmusic.com/ - This is Travis Dickerson's Recording Studio. You can purchase over 40 Buckethead albums from this site and you are buying direct from the artist. Please do not buy albums on eBay unless they are not available at TDRSmusic.com. (People like to sell stuff as Rare and Out of Print when it is simply not the case)

If you check his music out and still don't like it, that's cool because his music is certainly not for everyone...but if you do fall down the rabbit hole, you better start saving your money as you have over 100 albums to buy!

*If I have used any pictures that are copywritten, please contact me and I will remove them immediately.