Buckethead Complete Guitar Lessons: Guitar Player Magazine 1991 - 1994 'Psychobuddy' Column
Numb Nubs
July 1994, Guitar Player Magazine, Written by Buckethead
They called me that. My last two nubs have been binged up all numb-like. I've been sent a bit scared. It looks weird just to see two nubs going all around, bouncing and such. Anyway, some fellers talked me about this buddy Jango Rinehead, something like that. I guess he has a couple of nubs flailing too. He's got a lip shadow in his picture. His
hair's all greased back suave. He's a good-looking man. They tell me that his nubs that worked got longer–I can't wait for that to happen.
One with it now. Since my loafs were dangling the first two nubs, well, I worked on 'em. I could not just play the same stuff, I had to come up with new stuff. It was weird–I was laying into some real loaf rides, you know, and it was like "Nubs on fire! Nubs on fire!" But things are getting back to normal now. I think here in my scrap coop my hand is a bit better. One thing I learned was, can't rely on the same knuckles. I had to try some new things. It was good for my scalp.
Here's one thing: memebereesteeveellcurrrrrourr. Fleece some of the triple buddies [bars 1 through 5].
Mix 'em up and shake and bake [bar 3]. Wheee! This is fun. It's like the log ride. You can make the nubs jump around [bars 8 through 12]. Play slow or fast, and then binge with the other nubs–but only two at once.
Revenge Wedge
February 1993, Guitar player Magazine, written by Buckethead
Someday I'm going to make a park, an amusement park like Disneyland but not the same. There is already one it exists it's in Japan no one knows where. Though I-I-I-I aghh uuuhuuugh.
I think when I'm loafing out that I rant. I like to think of rides like a roller rider, I mean roller coaster. When I play, I see one. It's called Revenge Wedge. It will rattle your cage or coop somewhat. I guess we'll see.
It starts slow going up to an 800-ft. drop, then into a shaft loop, then into a cottonmouth sidewinder,then it goes off the tracks and you probably eat it bad. So here's how it sounds if you play it. The way it sounds run together is odd. Think of a roller coaster when playing this.
You can't kill what's already dead.
I-5 Binge
April 1992, Guitar player Magazine, written by Buckethead
I-I-I LIKE TO hang out in them fields aat the Interstate 5 in California. It is a long stretch of freeway, and when folks break down out there, I try to scare 'em. It works best in the dark. When folks let out a scream, I tape on my tape recorder. I like to play it back fast, slow, or normal. I write music to it. It's fun. Aaaggghhh ee hehh frost bite frost bite. I got the chills.
I wrote this dangler in this case. The first membrane is a finger pecking deal, real country-like. You play the bass line with your nub--I mean thumb--and it alternates like so: low-E string, D string, A string, D string, like that there. Ge-ge-get away from me! Your other three nubs (index, middle, and ring) apply to the G, B, and high-E strings. It's real torn up, chopping block-like.
The other shard is picking and grinning (I can't grin, course). It's also country-like--couple notes on a string and then another open. This makes the strings sustain longer. It's raunchy, very raunchy. Remember, there ain't none [illegible]. See yous in the magic shop at Disneyland.
When hinges creak in doorless chambers and strange and fightening sounds echo through the walls--that is the time when ghosts are pressent, practicing their terror with ghoulish delight.
Giant Robot
July 1992, Guitar player Magazine, written by Buckethead
I LIKE JOHNNY SAKO, but I-I-aghh like Giant Robot better. He's neat. He's a big feller. He can shoot rockets from his fingers, he can fly. He's got eye lasers that will make the gargoyle monsters die. He is my favorite. He comes from a Japan show, Voyage Into Space. It's good. You gotta see it if you haven't. Ever since I was a littlin' I've looked up to him. He has helped me with my problems. He has always been there for me.
For each of his powers I came up with a binge splinter. Each of the monsters he fights, I've charred up binge splinters for them too. Whoa! My head almost got chopped off.
The first binge splinter [Ex. 1] is for his atomic punch, fast and powerful. It is a brooming augmented wedge. The next binge [Ex. 2] is for his shooting rockets from his nubs. This is a slapping technique like you would do on the base [sic], except it's guitar. I use my protruding thumb bone side to slap, index stem to pluck. Eye lasers is the next splinter [Ex.3]. You use both hands, but all you need is your 1st finger and pinky on both hands to do this forehead bone protrusion. This as well is augmented. Giant Robot has more powers than this, but I want it to be kind of fair when he fights the monsters. Whoa! My head almost got chopped off again.
The other binges [Ex. 4, 5, and 6] are thee shards that go with the monsters he has to stop. There's Emperor Guillotine, Gargoyle Vine, and Torazon (GR2). What you should do is use the splinters and match them up: eye lasers and Gargoyle Vine, hand rockets and Torazon, like that there.
Someday Giant Robot will come back, I know he will.
Have you seen my dummy, Herbie? Well if you see it tell it to come home I miss it.
Taxidermy Loaf
February 1992, Guitar player Magazine by Buckethead
GREASY OFFERINGS. Shavings all over shavings. You all got nocturnal cousins, dontcha? Me I-I love stuffing dead things and I'm real good at it. My two best friends were chickens, and when they died, I stuffed 'em and I keep 'em around. Some people say I'm a disembodied loaf, so I wrote this piece for 'em. Some big-big stretching shards in the right hand, but mostly basic fingerpicking pattern, so forth, with disembodied chords for spice and seasonin'. Come and get it.
There's a huge wedge of lank dangling. This time you're eating paper, next time it's going to be glass.
Peep Show Binge
October 1991 Guitar player Magazine by Buckethead
MOLOKAI FREEWAY CINder blocks. I'm not very book-read, but I'll give it a whirl. I-I-I want to tell youse that when I growed up there was a drive-in theater behind my dwelling. In fact, there was a hole in the fence behind my chicken coop where I could take in all the shows for eggs. I never could hear the shows so what I did was play my guitar to them and make up music I thought would work more better. Still don't.
Lack lack lack mink. For a while they had one of those two-movie specials, Metropolis and The Golem (Golem the name also of my fake friend I made up). I poked my head out every time it came in. I like Golem, but don't get caught in one. Here's a little something I wrote.
You can do it too with a TV-turn the knob down and play some shards. The bass line is like a generator, constant-like. It's a two-handed tapping binge, like splitting someone's brain. The pick is out in the pasture. Here's the fixins.
There's just some things you have to do--doesn't mean you have to like it. Giant Robot, destroy Drakulon! This is the greatest thing in the world!
Killer Flamin' Buddy
September 1991, Guitar player Magazine, written by Buckethead
WHILE I WAS YOUNGER in the coop some kids thought I was a scarecrow, so they lit me on fire. Burn burn burn. They finally could tell by the smell I wasn't feelin' very well, and they put me out. Ouch feline shad wedge. When I started to move they ran away from me. If I could only talk. I-I-I-ammm didn't mean to scare them. That day I learned an important message: Cattle prods don't hurt that bad.
Later I came up with some playin' shards in memory of the pain and melting cartilage. The first piece of crud is based purely on sound. Theory is out in the pasture. Let the notes bleed. The second part is tap-tap-tap with augmented chords wedging up in tritones. Open your skull plate and have at it.
You heard what Buckethead said: Theory is out in the pasture.
Chicken Feed
July 1991, Guitar Player Magazine, written by Buckethead
GAPING STOMACH PIT, GLIStening body cavity. Oops, wrong column. But since we are on this here subject, let be us talkin' 'bout smells. An F# to me is like a fresh Thuringer, G is like the smell of a spicy Slim Jim, and so forth. So this month here are some wedge-type licks that smell.
The first binge (bars 1 and 2) comes from my recollection of the smell that comes to you when you ride the Pirates Disneyland attraction of the Carribean--there's just something about that smell. The intervals are major and minor sevenths, and it goes down in tritones. I'll call this part dangling buddy.
The next limb with augmented chords (bars 3, 4, and 5) is called severed scraps. I'm like binging with my pinky while I pick the chord, going down in chromatic tones.
The last lick (bars 6 and 7) is like grabbing for something that ain't there. I use my pick and right-hand middle finger to m ake the sound of chickens binging on my feet. It's like when you're trying to eat a Slim Jim, and the chickens are trying to take it from you.
The last chord, E6/9, is the one that makes me go to sleep.
How can you sit there like there's nothing wrong? Everything's wrong! We're coming unglued! Coming unglued!
Scoop From The Coop
June 1991, Guitar Player Magazine, written by Buckethead
BONE MARROW TRANSIENT. Random body scoop. Manbrium streni-scapula. H-h-hi all you disembodied buddies out there in TV land. Me--I'm Buckethead, half man/half chicken (at least that's what I've been told). In these here writings, I'll try to cover some playing deals, what have you. Oh--mental breakdown mental breakdown! Burning lard opus, it' burning lard opus. Gee. That puts it into confetti.
Music to me might not be music to most, but live in a coop for 17 years with a kaleidoscope. Vittles to course.
The first information batch (Ex. 1)--this here note combination is something I picked up on a ride at Disneyland. It's aug-augmented. Siphon the root of the chicken. The root of the chicken, siphon it. Yeah that's right. I call it machete head. I do one of those brooming--no, weapping--things with the pick, and then I tap on with my right index finger and pinky--wheeee!
Being in need of cartilage, I came acros Ex. 2. What it is is a chromatic scale with every other note displaced by an octave--aoww!--and tapped a tritone above with the right hand. Rrraaarrr!
Raised by chickens in a coop, Buckethead doesn't take kindly to people who eat poultry. He works at a delicatessen/slaughterhouse and plays with the band Deli Creeps.
