Goodbye Brooklyn Dodgers: Buck 65 in Concert

Buck 65 will probably never be a big star. Not even a big star by the standards of underground hip-hop, where guys that the vast majority of Americans will never hear of are considered big stars- Sage Francis or Aesop Rock or Slug from Atmosphere. During his set at the Cat's Cradle on Thursday night, this thought came to me and I haven't been able to mount a rational argument in my head against it. He's too.. too something to make that kind of step, I'm afraid. I hope I'm wrong, because for 90 minutes or so he was the most captivating thing in the world. He didn't have the crowd in his hands in the way that Brother Ali did- the crowd never came close to chanting his name. He didn't win over the unconverted like Mac Lethal did. But while he was on stage, I couldn't take my eyes off of him, even when, during "Rough House Blues" he let the attractive girl that I had seen at the Galactic show, who had earlier asked me to keep an eye on her sweater, dance on stage with her hula hoop. I wonder if anyone else found that they couldn't take their eyes off of our favorite Canadian answer to Tom Waits to watch that alluring sight.

But to begin at the beginning. The first act, added to the bill only a couple of days before the show, was a local rapper who goes by the nom de Rap Crash. And let me tell you something- he might be the most talented local rapper this side of the Justus League. Both his songwriting and his delivery were surprisingly well polished for someone without any merch to sell.

The second act was a spoken word performer called Bernard Dolen, who is signed to Sage Francis' Strange Famous label. And appropriately, both in style and subject matter he reminded me much more of Sage than anyone else (even Buddy Wakefield, the other spoken word performer I've seen at a Buck concert this year). The only part of Dolen's performance that really caused me to pay attention was a "cover" of a poem called "Undertaker" by a poet called Patricia Smith (I think. I should have fucking written it down. I suppose I'll google it later.)

Now, Buck's performance. It was excellent. He played a good mix of songs from his new album, Situation, and older stuff- a couple of songs off of his last album (the aforementioned Rough House Blues and his slight reworking of a Bukowski poem that Buck calls "The Floor"), a handful of songs off of Talkin Honky Blues (a reworking of "Leftfielder", "463", "Roses and Blue Jays" as a request and the mashup of "Wicked and Weird" and the Appalachian folk song "Coo Coo Bird" that appeared on the "Porch" release he sold on his tour with Sage) and even older stuff like "Centaur" and "Bachelor of Science". Bachelor of Science he played after polling the audience. He asked if we would rather hear that or "Heather Nights". I cheered for "Heather Nights", but I was pretty much the only one. He said he would try and play both, and at the end of the show, he kept his promise and did the first verse and chorus of what is one of my two or three favorites of his songs acapella. He looked at me a couple of times while he was playing it, and it was incredibly cool (that sounds way more creepy than I mean it too, I'm afraid). My point is that, this isn't the first interaction I've had with him. Hell, I had an extended conversation wiht him a few months ago. We talked about Arthur Lee, and how great the song "Alone Again Or" is. It's not star-struck, (in part because there are very few definitions of the word "star" that include Buck 65) so much as... something.

Buck 65 will almost certainly never sell out a venue like the Cat's Cradle by himself, not unless he somehow winds up doing something like opening a tour for Tom Waits and rapidly growing his following overnight. (Not that I rule that out completely, but it's unlikely). But for one night, he became the center of my musical universe, overshadowing even the Dylan bootleg I found at the CD Alley (Blood On The Tracks demos recorded during the New York sessions for the album. I could explain the differences between the New York sessions and the Minnesota sessions for the album, but if you cared you would have read up on it by now. And there aren't many good reasons... wait, I'm listening to it right now and the lyrics for Idiot Wind are different. That's so fucking cool. Sorry.)