The Jeff Buckley International Newsletter
The Only Official Fan Club & Newsletter
(Authorized & guided by the family of Jeff Buckley)
*All rights reserved*
Vol. 13:01 06/22/10
OFFICIAL JEFF BUCKLEY FORUM
– Brand New JB Forum !
– Join Us Online
– Hosted By Jax & Leslie!
ARTISTS INSPIRED BY JEFF BUCKLEY
– Interview with Poet John McNeeley
– Poetry Compilation: “39”
MATT JOHNSON
– Jeff Buckley Band Member
– NYC: Sat June 26
– The Living Room
JEFF BUCKLEY – SCENE & HEARD
– ABC TV-Jeff Beck
– New York Times
– iCarly’s Miranda Cosgrove
– Book: The Story of Shannon Hoon
– UK: NME interviews Anton Corbijn
CONNECT WITH US ONLINE
– Twitter, You Tube, FB & MySpace
– The Official Jeff Buckley Forum
MARY’S MAILBAG (With Love from MG)
– Will “All Flowers in Time” ever be released?
– Necklace Jeff wears on Grace Cover?
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Tickets On Sale Now !!
The Last Goodbye
Williamstown Theater Festival
Summer 2010
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Jeff Buckley Music is joining Michael Kimmel and Lauren Fitzgerald on the road to Williamstown, MA for the official opening of their rock-musical adaptation of Romeo & Juliet. Slated to hit the stage at this summer’s Williamstown Theater Festival, “The Last Goodbye” gracefully layers
Jeff’s powerful music within Shakespeare’s heartbreaking tale.Previously seen only as stand up readings before tiny audiences in New York City, we are thrilled to invite you to experience the first fully staged production for yourself. They shall sing, they shall dance,
THOU SHALL BE ROCKED!
Please, come join us!
Preview performances are Thursday, August 5 and Friday, August 6 and the matinee on Saturday, August 7th. (very limited availability)
Opening performance is Saturday night, August 7th at 8:30 pm. (SOLD OUT)
[Tickets are selling very quickly. Most nights are “limited” to “very limited” as of this moment.]
Online ticket sales at the Williamstown Theater Festival website:
http://wtfestival.org /413.597.3400
Find out more about the project below:
Variety
Playbill
Broadway World
Broadway.Com
Rolling Stone
Playbill
Variety
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A JEFF BUCKLEY ADULATION:
Pittsburgh’s finest — and some notable out-of-towners
offer “An Adulation”
May 15th at the Rex Theater-Pittsburgh, PA
By Aaron Jentzen
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With All-Stars-only musical tributes, it can seem like only those in an exclusive club are allowed to demonstrate their appreciation. And with local-band tributes, held in smoky rock bars all over, passion for the music doesn’t always translate into polished performances. Pittsburgh’s “Jeff Buckley: An Adulation” struck a fine, democratic balance between the two, with both Pittsburgh-based musicians (myself included) and out-of-town special guests, allowing the event to serve as both tribute to Jeff as a person and musician, and to his music’s range of influence.
The concert took place Sat., May 15 at the Rex Theater, a former movie theater converted to a capacious music venue, in Pittsburgh’s South Side. The night before the concert, Mary Guibert, Alison Raykovich of Jeff Buckley Music, organizers and many of the musicians involved met for gathering that set a tone of both reflection and camaraderie for the night of the show.
The night began with introductions by Master of Ceremonies Jason Kirin and organizers Brad Hlavach and Amy Staggs, followed by some moving words from Mary Guibert. The music then began with the simple solo acoustic guitar and vocal of Mikey Yurick (“I’m Calling You”) and built throughout the evening until the performances by Tommy Brunett (of Modern English) and his band, and David J (of Bauhaus, Love & Rockets) with Damien Youth.
Some of the night’s many fine performances hewed to Jeff’s originals, while others took the songs into new musical territory. Perhaps the most extreme was the spoken-word piece delivered by Jason Kirin, a celebration of Jeff’s life and music that included references and snatches of his lyrics and titles, which backing ensemble “The Abraxian Harmony” incorporated and stitched together.
The night ended on a darker note, with David J.’s eerie psychodramatic eulogy, just before a final all-out version of “I Shall Be Released.”
Or rather, that was the planned ending: An enthusiastic young guy wearing a Jeff Buckley T-shirt and his girlfriend had been hanging around since the second doors opened, and he somehow ended up onstage with an acoustic guitar, offering his own, spontaneous tribute as the audience dispersed into the night. Which is perhaps just as it should be.
Performances:
Mikey Yurick “I’m Calling You”
Aaron Jentzen with Brian Sproul “Nightmares By The Sea,” “The Sky is a Landfill”
Bob Melvin with Mike Gaydos “Opened Once,” “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” “Dream Brother”
Sarah Siplak “Hallelujah”
Scotts Roger “Lilac Wine”
Brett Staggs with Reid Wellock “Be Your Husband,” “Kick Out the Jams”
Jason Kirin and the Abraxian Harmony
Ben Hardt “Last Goodbye,” “Everybody Here Wants You”
Justin Andrew and Jim Doutrich “Morning Theft,” “I Woke Up In A Strange Place,” “So Real”
Tommy Brunett “Yard of Blond Girls”
David J with Damien Youth “New Year’s Prayer,” “Eulogy,” “I Shall Be Released”
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JEFF BUCKLEY.COM
OFFICIAL MEMBERS FORUM-JOIN US !
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Join us in the Official Jeff Buckley Forum. The site is available in over 50 language translations so you can join world-wide and share your thoughts, inspirations and art with us. Meet new friends who share your same interest in Jeff’s music. !
Join the conversation with others from all over the world who share your respect for Jeff Buckley, the man, and his music. The forum is hosted by Jaclyn Stewart who brought you The Jeff Buckley Community for many years, with Leslie Spencer.
Join us at The Official Jeff Buckley Forum !
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ARTIST INSPIRED BY JEFF BUCKLEY SCENE & HEARD
INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR OF “39”
POET JOHN MCNEELEY
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“39” is a collection of poems and lyrics that encompass thirteen years of writing and thirty-nine years of living. This is the author approaching forty, looking back on his past and sharing some insight and experiences. This self published book of lyrics and poems has several selections about Jeff Buckley, the piece entitled “Butterfly Exhibit (for Jeff)”, and “Jeff Buckley”.
Author John McNeeley recently spent some time with JBIN and shared his inspiration behind the poems in “39” and remembering his discovery of Jeff Buckley’s music. John is also the frontman and lyricist for the band The Suburban Exiles For questions, comments or more info, you can email John McNeeley at [email protected]
JBIN: How Did Jeff Buckley’s music inspire you?
McNeeley: So I was working at a very cool second-hand record store in Davis Sq, Somerville in 1995 called Disc Diggers. Now it’s gone 🙁 just like all great old music venues and old record stores in Boston. But while I was there, I got to know this guy who was a local studio engineer and someone got him this copy of Jeff doing Dylan’s If You See Her… You know how cassettes of obscure stuff used to get around in those days, well anyway, I brought it home and listened to it and I got goose bumps and my eyes filled with tears.
I had never in my life had that reaction to music before. I found out Grace existed and bought it on CD, pissed at myself that it took me a year or so to even know Jeff existed. I got very into him and into Grace. But then at a dark time in my own life, only a few months after Jeff died, I almost wore the CD out, as I spun it over and over and over again, taking comfort in my own loneliness, as Jeff’s ghost sang me lullabies. I scooped up Sketches and every CD and DVD that followed. I met Jeff’s mom on her film tour in 1999 and again a few years later, and saw Black Beetle play in Boston. My big regret is that I never got to see Jeff play live. There are many imitators, but no one like him. He made his way into my writing, like anyone or anything that affects me deeply in some way.
JBIN: Tell us a litle about the inspiration behind the book “39”
McNeeley: “39” is very personal poetry, lyrics, and memoirs. It’s me at 39, looking back at my life, and cleaning the slate of ghosts, anger, regrets, and getting ready to face my 40s, now that I am a husband and father, with responsibilities and more focused, more happy and at peace with life. No longer angry, no longer lonely or sad. The 13 years of journal entries that make up “39” helped give birth to the writer in me and there is a lot more writing to come. Also, I am in the band, The Suburban Exiles.
“39” is available at Amazon.com, More here
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MATT JOHNSON at
THE LIVING ROOM
NYC-SAT JUNE 26, 2010
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Matt Johnson at
The Living Room
154 Ludlow (@ Stanton), NYC
www.livingroomny.com
on
Saturday, June 26, 2010
at 8:00 PM
Ages:21 & Over, Tickets: $8.00
By Fun Palace Entertainment
Jeff Buckley’s drummer from the Grace album and tour, Matt Johnson, will perform selections from his solo release Cagefighter in his Manhattan debut at The Living Room, 154 Ludlow, NYC on Saturday, June 26, 2010. Tickets are $8.00 and venue entry is 21 & over. Johnson wants to share Cagefighter with his fans and peers to showcase his songwriting and multi-instrumental performance talents. The release is not intended as a drum record but Johnson does play all drums on the full length recording that was recently noted in Modern Drummer magazine (February 2010).
Recently coming off a 3-month European and US tour with Angus & Julia Stone, Johnson explains: “singing and guitar playing were my focus during production. I wrote the record and then picked an incredible cast of characters to play it”. The record features performances by: Joan as Police Woman, Catherine Popper of Ryan Adams band, Thomas Bartlett of Antony and the Johnsons, Gerry Leonard of the David Bowie band, Cameron Greider of the Martha Wainwright band, Jeff Hill of the Rufus Wainwright band, Oren Bloedow of Elysian Fields and Meshell Ndegeocello’s band. www.drumsmattjohnson.com
Modern Drummer recently wrote: After arriving on the New York City music scene from his native [Houston] Texas in the early ‘90s, Johnson hooked up with Jeff Buckley and was a member of the revered singer’s band on the Grace album and tour. The years since Buckley’s untimely 1997 death have found Johnson backing John Mayer, Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, Duncan Sheik, Beth Orton, and others in the studio and on stage, as well as moving forward with his own projects, like his new solo album Cagefighter. -Patrick Berkery (Feb. 2010)
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SCENE & HEARD
JEFF BUCKLEY NEWS
FROM AROUND THE WORLD !
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Jeff Beck’s new release features a recording of “Corpus Christi Carol”. Michigan’s ABC12 News featured a story referencing Jeff Buckley and Beck’s new release stating that “Beck flawlessly mirrors Buckley’s falsetto vocals with his trademark tremolo heavy Fender Strat tone.” Irish opera singer Imelda May also adds her voice to another Jeff Buckley cover “Lilac Wine.” Read More Here
The New York Times reports, in new release reviews, that“ Sparks Fly”(Columbia), the debut CD by “iCarly” star, Miranda Cosgrove, has a Jeff mention in lyrics: on the song, “Shakespeare” , Cosgrove “seeks out a thinking boy who might not be expecting a serenade from a Nickelodeon star: “Do you like Shakespeare? / Jeff Buckley? / Watching movies on Sunday?”
Jeff is mentioned in the book “A Devil on One Shoulder and an Angel on the Other: The Story of Shannon Hoon and Blind Melon” by Greg Prato. In page 194, talking about the recording of their 2nd album “Soup.” Quote by Miles Tackett (guitarist/cellist, who played on “Soup”): “I remember playing the Jeff Buckley album (Grace) on our way to Woodstock, if I’m not mistaken. We were all in a van together, and I played it for them. I was a big fan of Jeff Buckley’s and was playing it for everyone I could. That might have been part of their introduction to working or talking with Andy Wallace.”
-Andy Wallace is featured on the cover of “Soup,” eating, as it were, soup. Also, Jeff is mentioned again in p. 277 when Susan Silver discusses Shannon, Chris Cornell and Jeff Buckley.
The UK’s NME Magazine recently featured an interview with Anton Corbijn (photographer and Control film director, etc.) in which he says: “Jeff Buckley was the best singer there ever was. I saw him once in Woodstock in 1994 just before ‘Grace’ came out, in front of about 20 people. I was having a drink somewhere nearby and he actually called me to say he was going to start and that I should come over. I didn’t know what to expect but it was just amazing. He was so charismatic and his voice was unlike anything you’ve ever heard. He showed me that the human voice is more powerful than doing something great on the guitar. I remember leaving the next day to meet up with Depeche Mode and thinking I should turn around and spend a month with this guy… I didn’t.”
For the most up to date Jeff Buckley news, connect with us online at Twitter, Facebook, The Official Jeff Buckley You Tube Channel and Jeff Buckley My Space.
The Official Jeff Buckley Forum
Thanks To: Bert & Adam Bretherton, Leslie Spencer, Jack Bookbinder
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MARY’S MAILBAG
…with love from M. G.
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If you have a question for Mary, please tell us what City/Country you are writing from and send them to: [email protected] Letters reprinted by permission
Dear Mary,
You may already know that someone has leaked “All Flowers In Time Bend Towards The Sun” on YouTube. Is there any possibility of giving it an approved of release, maybe as a charity single? It’s too good to go unheard.
I’m a massive JB fan, I saw him play six times, and met him three times. My encounters with him were unforgettable, and so is his music. I was at the last show in Australia where he played “All Flowers In Time Bend Towards The Sun” as one of the encore songs and people I know who were there really loved it.
Please think seriously about releasing it. It will be loved.
Regards,
Michael Olliffe
Australia
Dear Michael:
I agree with all of you that “All Flowers In Time” is a lovely song, but we never had a proper studio recording of it, and the demo recordings we had were too personal and not suited to past projects. However, I knew that there would come a time to give another artist the opportunity to give the song to the world.
Just as an aside, and taking another chance to educate you songwriters out there, one of the rights the author of a song has is “first use rights”. That means that until a songwriter releases their own recording or publishes the song in some official way, no-one can publish or record it without the author’s permission.
Such is the case with “All Flowers In Time”. However, I can announce that I have given permission for Michael Kimmel, creator of “The Last Goodbye” the musical, to use that song in his adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet”, which is about to premier at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, in August. When we release the cast recording of that musical, in a year or so, it will be when the “first use rights” will have been exercised. After that, what is known as a “compulsory license” will come into play, which allows anyone to record and perform the song as long as they pay royalties for the use of the song in a commercial venture.
I know there are a lot of bootlegs of unpublished songs and personal demo tapes that belonged to Jeff. After a decade of swapping on the Internet, they’re everywhere. We’ve become inured to the injustice of it because “we want what we want when we want it, and if we can get it for free, then how could it be wrong?”
I still think that there will be a time and place for me to open up my archives of demos and recordings with experimental versions of now-familiar songs. I think they are lovely in their own way, and extremely revealing of Jeff’s creative diversity and his diligence in pursuit of what so many assume was effortless for him. I’ve always said that the best way for me to procede in this work was to take one good project at a time and do it really, really well. With God’s grace, I’ll live long enough to see that all of what he left behind is dealt with with utmost dignity and respect for Jeff and for all of you out there who are his students and stewards.
Respectfully yours,
Mary
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Dear Mary,
I have been looking everywhere for a necklace like the one Jeff wore for his cover of the album of Grace. It is really beautiful and I would love to know exactly what it is an where I could get one.
All my love
Sophie xxxxxxx
My Dear Sophie:
I’m not quite sure how you know what the necklace(s) look like, since they don’t really show up on the cover photo of the “Grace” album. They only way you can see them is if you are looking at a wider angle photo from the same session, which I have searched out. It’s clearly two necklaces, one on a black cloth strap and one on a “dog-tag-type” chain. One appears to be a cross of some kind, and the other looks like a small medallion. They’re caught up on each other, so it’s hard to tell which is strung on the chain and which on the strap. My best guess would be that they were purchased in the early nineties at a flea market in the East Village. I doubt that you could locate the exact same items, today. Jeff often wore a small, silver Pakistani coin made into a medallion, strung on a thin leather cord. That might be easier to duplicate.
Good luck and best regards,
Mary