The cover you seen above is the cover of an album named Colma, by Buckethead.
For this post to make sense, for any of the words I’m about to write to make sense. I have to give you some context of why it exists, first and foremost.
Buckethead, real name Brian Patrick Carroll, is a guitarist born in California. He is an oddball to most people, even among his friends and family. He has a strange obsession for horrors, he loves watching horrors movie, he loves wearing masks and costume. Despite that, he is by heart, a shy, reserved person who just want to express himself. And despite his oddity, he still growing up with loves and support from his friends, from his family.
His mom used to take him to Paul Gilbert, who at the time was a teenager in his… 18? (don’t quote me on this lol) to receive a guitar lesson from him. Paul describes Buckethead, in many years after, as a guy who already figured out most stuff unlike most of his students. But nevertheless, that lesson was like an eye opening experience for him. From a rare podcast episode with his therapist, Buckethead said that seeing him (Paul Gilbert) playing is like:
Quote
“The best way to plant a seed or inspire somebody is by flowing in front of them and I think that’s what that was - he was just doing it and it was… to this day, it’s still the most intense memory I have of anyone playing that makes me want to rip.” Source: https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/buckethead_remembers_taking_lessons_from_paul_gilbert_he_made_me_believe_in_myself.html
His playing style, too, was inspired by that. The extends of his technical ability as a guitarist leaves no room for any doubt, he is one of the fastest shredder of all times while ALSO retains his melodic structure of the song. Just go on Youtube and search for Buckethead alone and select any video, ANY, you’d definitely see what I mean.
All that does is to give you a background of this character, who he is, his playing style, his dressing style. A really tall, elusive guy that ripping a guitar from strings to strings, he is a monster of technique among his peer.
So… what does all of this mean?
This album, Colma, is the opposite of anything about the stuff above.
In an interview with Buckethead, when asked what is this album is about. “Herbie”, Buckethead’s puppet speaking on his behalf, said that Colma is about his mom, who was at the time has colon cancer, and Buckethead wanted to make something for her to listening to while recovering.
Colma is the name of a city in California, it has another name: “the City of the Silent”. Most of Colma’s land dedicated to cemeteries. As the result, the number of the dead outnumber the number of the living by roughly 1:10000.
At first, one would have thought that this was such a grim name for an album that dedicated to your mother to wish her good health. But when I listened to the album itself, I can see why.
Whitewash
Right at the start, Buckethead wasted no time to establish the what this album is about. A drum pattern in dry neutral tone. A Bm chord picking string by string individually. Each notes ringing, echoing each other down to the listener’s spine, one triplet at a time. The snare hammers dryly on the atmosphere, occasionally makes a long strong, echoing hit, creating a contrast on the previously flatness, burning dust in the air.
Buckethead likes to play with how he name his song, especially when it comes to naming something important. And Whitewash isn’t a name chosen by random. The tone, the melody washes over my ear, the feeling coming in waves. As I listening on, the vision becomes more clear.
I hope you can hear what I hear too.
I hear a hospital room. I hear a hospital corridor. I hear someone waiting at the bench, waiting for their turn. I hear someone sitting by said person sides. I hear the smell of disinfectant mixing in the thick air. I hear the silence in between the wheeling and the rushed talks between the nurses, the rushed walked, the wheels of the hospital stretcher spinning.
Most of how I describe what I hear are parts of from what I remember as a child. Part of my childhood spent between hospitals, I had lung infection as a child. Most of the memories aren’t as vivid anymore. But one thing I remember is that no matter how many time I spend in and out of it, I never get used to the feeling. It’s always making me uneasy.
I can hear how uneasy that feeling must have been spending time in a hospital not because you’re ill yourself, but because your mother is sick and there’s a chance that she might not recover.
Buckethead once said in an out-of-character interview, he said that he was a shy kid that has a lot of anxiety issue, despite having so much support from his friends and family. The mask helped him release who he truly is out. Ironically enough, a man wearing a mask his whole life to show his true self, speaks more eloquently than anyone without uttering a single word.
In an occasion like this I kept wondering if this album was made by Brian Patrick Carroll, or Buckethead…
For Mom / Ghost (Pt.2)
Intro
I must confess that writing this takes much more time than I originally anticipated. Not because it’s a hard topic to write about. Quite the contrary, I will never shut up about him once you get to know me. But that’s the thing about it, you would have to know me in order to hear me talking about something as trivial as my feelings toward an artist’s works.
This, my dear readers, it’s honestly the most scary part: letting you, the people who I probably never gonna met, reading about the very thing that mean so much to me, and leave those intimate thoughts for your amusement, event some cases judgement.
But.
It is quite strange that it is the same case here with Buckethead, with me and Buckethead as the relationship of a fan whom he probably never know exists versus a guitarist, an artist. Here in the previous post, I’ve tried to point out how contradictory it was for an artist in order to express himself in his fullest, he has to wear a mask almost always. One could argue that it is a bit ironic compares to so many of his that wear a face throughout our days yet not always speak truthfully. I could argue that the mask is not always the mask, the mask is more or less wears us, becomes part of us.
I just want to say that, the mortified feeling of being known, of being psychologically naked in the perception of millions is one of the feelings most of us, especially artists always struggles about. Thus, from my perspective as far as I can tell, when you talk about Buckethead you really don’t have to include a talk about a “Brian Carroll”. I’m not saying that “Brian Carroll” doesn’t exist or invalid as a human being, or that I’m trying dissociated the real person with a persona.
Strangely enough, it is because the face behind the mask and the mask he wears are one to me. Brian Carroll is Buckethead, and Buckethead is Brian Carroll.
Now you might be saying “Duh! You talk that much words just to come to a conclusion that everyone already knows?“. Well, all I can say is, that mask is his real face to me, and whatever we call him, we are calling the same person.
This is important preface to make before I get further, because we can’t talk about Buckethead without hearing him talk about his parents, through music. Always.
For mom
(to be written)