By Spoiks
Jimineee Crickets, a bitch
has to marvel a bit at the guitar shredding, trip hop clonin', chicken
strangling, GIANT
ROBOT lovin' visage of Buckethead, especially with his 1999 Cyberoctave
release Monsters and Robots. As a guitar ripper of the Yngview
Malmsteen school of plectrum swinging, Buckethead effectively sidestepped
the grunge backlash against musical competency by doing two things:
1) Combining his heavy metal shred with emerging musical forms such
as techno and ambient music and 2) Wearing a bucket on his head (possibly
the reason for his nom de guer) and a Mike Meyers mask on his mug (Halloween,
not Austin Powers) keeping his identity a secret. (One is forced to
muse that with his Asian pop culture iconography whether or not Buckethead
is a full fledge japper himself, one of the dirge of metal protegees
the Island nation bred in the late eighties. (Remember LOUDNESS? "Are
wu leady to lock!!!?)
But shred metal had got
boring about two minutes before it was created - Buckethead recognized
that - thus his music: Atonal shriek fests that bring to mind Mr. Bungle
and the bleepin' Star Trek mainframe, are so refreshing. They escape
the mundane masturbation of post Eddie guitar heroes solo albums while
at the same time livening the usually repetitive school of trance electronica
with some testicles. Buckethead may lull you to sleep to sleep, but
when you wake you'll be covered in blood and puss from the wet dream
you had.
And you can't help but love
the Asian pop-culture semantics Buckethead utilizes. A cross between
Godzilla, Giant Robot, Manga and cyber-punk, Buckethead recognizes that's
it's just as important to align yourself with a cutting edge sect of
today's "now" generation as it is to whip out 64th notes on a Flying
V clone. And, as any wise minister of culture can predict, this Asian/American
transmutation thing. it's gonna be big baby. Bigger than Elvis, and
BH is rightly positioned to take advantage of the whole schebang. If
anything, 2000 will be about mixing your abc's with your hiragana and
your Eddie Bauer with your Hello Kitty. 50 years ago, America sent their
youth scene over with the Enola Gay, and since then it's been percolating,
volleying back and forth over the Pacific ocean in a stream of Ultramen,
Shogun Warriors and rayon clothes. Buckethead, who refuses to be bound
by genre (and seems more intent on creating one) nicely encapsulates
this mergence of east and west.
