Brian Carroll is more popularly known to the music world as Buckethead, an amazingly talented & varied guitarist & multi-instrumentalist. He has released 18 albums under his name and also performed on an astonishing 33 more. His music spans a wide variety of genres including thrash metal, funk, electronica and avant-garde. Guitar One voted him number 8 on a list of the “Top 10 Greatest Guitar Shredders of All Time”. He has had a wide variety of high profile collaborations with such artists as Les Claypool, Tony Williams, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, System of a Down’s Serj Tankian, Guns N’ Roses, Saul Williams, and with Bill Laswell on Praxis. He is also known for making weird statements like claiming to have been raised by chickens in a coop and drawing stares for his appearance, dressed as he is in a Micheal Myers mask & a KFC bucket on his head (hence the moniker Buckethead).
As a teenager, Brian used to be a huge fan of horror movies, especially the Halloween films, in which Myers wore a white mask and went on killing people. Brian bought a similar mask, donned on the KFC bucket after eating his dinner one night and thus was born Buckethead. As Buckethead, he is known for his on-stage robotic dancing, pop and lock break dance skills and rapid demonstrations with nunchaku, sometimes while continuing to play the guitar. He gives away toys at many of his shows and concertgoers commonly give gifts to him as well.
Despite his weird behaviour and appearance, Buckethead is a truly talented musician & composer with a prolific range of music. According to a 1989 local music magazine he cites Michael Jackson, Yngwie Malmsteen, Louis Jordan, Shawn Lane, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert, Randy Rhoads and Jennifer Batten as his main influences. His talent is apparent by listening to his 2002 album Electric Tears, which I was lucky enough to find on mp3s in a link that offers it for free. I will post a review of the entire album of 13 songs (I have listened to 5 at the moment) as soon as I can.
Song for the day – “The Way To Heaven” – BUCKHEAD
After waking up this morning, I walked zombie like to the wash basin, splashed my face with cold water and brushed my teeth. As coffee was being made, I switched the tv on, flipped channels until I reached HBO and saw that they were showing the 1983 hit horror movie Cujo. How many of you remember this movie, the one that put me off dogs for a couple of years and Saint Bernard’s for several more? Cujo, the titular character of Stephen King’s 1981 best selling novel, is the bitten by a rabies infected bat while he was chasing a rabbit into a cave. The dog becomes infected and, succumbing to the disease, goes on a rampant killing spree. He kills his owner’s neighbour and then his owner. A lady and her son who comes for repairs on their car to Cujo’s owner’s farm, also find themselves being attacked by the dog. Their car breaks down at the farm and over a stretch of three days they fend themselves against the attacks of Cujo, who hits the car doors with his massive head, blood dripping all over him and cracks the windshield and door windows.