Customer Reviews

Tim Buckley: My Fleeting House

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Having been a Tim Buckley fan for a long time, it is satisfying to know this DVD will soon be available. Here is a list of the full song performances:

1. Inside Pop - "No Man Can Find the War"
2. Late Night Line Up - "Happy Time"
3. Late Night Line Up - "Morning Glory"
4. Old Grey Whistle Test - "Dolphins"
5. The Monkees Show - "Song to the Siren"
6. Greenwich Village - "Who Do You Love"
7. Dutch TV - "Happy Time"
8. Dutch TV - "Sing a Song for You"
9. Music Video Live - "Sally Go Round the Roses"
10. Boboquivari - "Blue Melody"
11. Boboquivari - "Venice Beach (Music Boats by the Bay)"
12. The Show - "I Woke Up"
13. The Show - "Come Here Woman"
14. The Christian Licorice Store - "Pleasant Street"

Collecting together all known film recordings of Tim Buckley over the 7 years from 1967 on the Monkees show (an excellent acoustic version of "Song to the Siren") through to 1974 on the Old Grey Whistle Test (backed by members of Family, performing a very heartfelt version of Fred Neil's "The Dolphins") just before his death the following year, this is a compilation which was clearly put together with a lot of love and devotion to the man's memory.

Choose to either just listen to the amazing variety of video performances alone or instead add the three interview commentaries before each song performance of his long serving guitarist (Lee Underwood); his lyricist (Larry Beckett)and his biographer(David Browne) and you get everything put beautifully into historical context.

The man may have been dead for over 30 years before this compilation was put together but this DVD shows very well what a unique but undervalued talent he was - the US answer to Nick Drake.

I was just beginning my life long passion with music in '67 when I ran across Buckley. His early albums mesmerized me and I've never been without some incarnation of the first three since, either LP or CD. When LORCA came out I went with it up to a point, but admit I totally lost the thread of where Buckley was going by STARSAILOR. This DVD, which presents a very nice span of clips from throughout his career gives a new appreciation to all phases of an artist who pushed the creative envelope hard (achieving damn near commercial suicide in the attempt). When I watched the later era performances I felt guilty for abandoning Buckley in his later phases, but it takes a maturity to appreciate this material I didn't have at the time. Now I find it inspiring, magical, transcendent.

The DVD is a "must have" for anyone with an interest in this amazing talent, and it's great to finally see these performances in high quality.

I have been into Tim Buckley since the summer of 1985, and it's nice that this DVD may be the first in a series of new things (e.g., the TB estate is working on a "rare and unreleased" CD collection). I have a VHS copy of many of these performances, so the video quality is a big improvement.

After reading the David Browne double-bio of Tim and Jeff Buckley, and Lee Underwood's memoir of his time working with TB, it was interesting to see them both "host" this DVD with Larry Beckett, TB's writing partner.

A few constructive comments:

1.) It would have been preferable to have other performances in the DVD instead of the "Rock Revolution" segment, since it's not the entire run-through of "No Man...", even though the context is important, since it was a prestigious program. "Happy Time" is a great tune, but the Dutch performance alone would have been fine. The 1980s MTV-style "Who Do You Love" that tries to synch unrelated film to the audio is pretty bad in comparison to the rest of the performances (think the "Gloria" video from the Doors). The unrelated film looks great, so let's hear the audio to that! Also, we see TB interact post-performance with Steve Allen and his wife...can we see his performance? If you can license the Monkees clip, Steve-a-reeno's estate will probably make it happen. My VHS has more of the Boboquivari show, and a performance of "Honey Man" (a tune which Underwood discusses) from the Whistle Test, either of which would have been welcome on this DVD.

An interesting story in TB's career is his run-in on the Tonight Show with Alan King mocking his appearance. The way TB handled the incident versus how he later said he did is an insight to his personality, and this would have been a good change from the relatively similar takes from Underwood, Beckett and Browne. Carson's estate is putting out retrospective DVDs...can this clip be found?

2.) As good as it was to watch Browne, Underwood and Beckett, it would have been nice to have included Judy Buckley, Taylor Buckley, Herb Cohen, Carter Collins, or others from TB's life and career. This is a legit DVD release from the TB estate and Third Story Music, so involvement from a more diverse set of people would have been possible and made it more interesting.

3.) A little editorial control would have been helpful. A few times Beckett says the same thing two or three times in the course of an answer, and Underwood gives five or six examples of how one person can like some kinds of music and not others. Also, after the Monkees performance, Browne describes in detail what we just watched. Browne also describes TB's sex appeal three different ways in succession. These aren't the worst things in the world, but since we have only three people on screen, it's a noticeable meandering.

4.) There are a few talking portions of TB on TV shows with Joseph Heller, the Allens (mentioned above), and people in his audience. Browne mentions TB's film acting in "Why?", and a clip would have been a good illustration. TB was a very naturalistic actor (you can find his scenes from "Why?" on the Internet), and watching him discuss issues of the day from 1970 you get a sense of his manner and style.

Great work otherwise, and I look forward to future releases.

For those of us hungering for more intimacy with Tim Buckey, "My Fleeting House" more than satisfies. At first I hungered for the performances to speak for themselves uninterrupted by the interviews, but overall it is a very satisfying experience. The "Extras" are especially helpful as Larry Beckett and Lee Underwood provide more background on Tim's life and music.

I am proud to say that I purchased "Starsailor" when it very first came out and never saw a copy of it in any collection that I encountered. Now it goes for over two hundred dollars on Ebay.

I've been a fan of the amazing Tim Buckley since 1974 and have only ever seen two clips of performances, and both of those quite recent. It's almost spooky to finally get a generous serving of (just about) every TV performance Buckley made in his short life.
I won't rave about Tim Buckley, because if you're reading this you're probably already a fan. As for the DVD, just a couple of things:
It's great value for money, with lots of songs and between-song bio banter from Tim's lyricist Larry Beckett, guitarist Lee Underwood and the author of a book about Tim and Jeff Buckley, David Browne, PLUS Beckett and Underwood 'review' the albums.
It looks like a lot of love went into the project, with its booklet of pics, decent transfers and even the sound rendered in fair 5.1 surround.
The one downside is not having a more extensive set of interviewees; as interesting and articulate as the three mentioned participants are, it can get a bit wearying seeing them blather on (sorry guys).
Still, overall, this is just amazing: finally, the best vocalist to ever come out of popular music (and one of the best songwriters) captured properly on DVD. Phew.
Gary Steel

When I read the previous Amazon reviews of Buckley's "My Fleeting House," I thought that perhaps the writers were judging the DVD based on their nostalgic feelings. However, I must admit having purchased and watched it this weekend that they are correct. The DVD, which weaves together about a dozen televised performances by Buckley with interviews with collaborators Larry Beckett and Lee Underwood, as well as a writer named David Browne, presents a compelling argument why this singer-songwriter still deserves our attention. The DVD does a good job of presenting a range of Buckley's work, from the introspective and still popular "Song to the Siren" to his more experimental, less accessible tunes such as "I Woke Up." As several of the interviews indicate, Buckley almost seemed at times to sabotage his commercial appeal and fan base in pursuit of his muse. For those who remember Buckley's work, as well as for those who only now are discovering his talents, this DVD may be worthwhile. Hopefully other filmed performances may surface.

This DVD includes uninterrupted performances, rare footage and interviews by Tim's co-writer Larry Beckett, guitarist Lee Underwood and author David Browne of "Dream Brother" . The most interesting interviews were of course w/ Beckett and Underwood the men who actually knew & played w/ Tim. These guys give more insight to Tim's career. Beckett who wrote "Song To The Siren" gives his most poetic comments about Tim. There was kindred spirit as Beckett comments the first time they collaborated saying his lyrics and Tim's music just fit together.
Lee Underwood gives us the insight to Tim's musical direction as starting out more folk then later going into more Jazz and Avant-Garde sound. Also if you're a musician you would appreciate Lee's notes of some chords played on a number of songs. Then of course you have the reason of purchasing this DVD is the footage of Tim performing. Since the only footage I ever seen Tim on was The Monkees performing acoustically "Song To The Siren". One of my favorite is "Blue Melody" performed on Bobquivari in '70. There are about 11 in all performances by Tim ranging from '67 to '74. Only thing I would of liked to see is a full performance of "Pleasant Street" and on The Steve Allen Show Tim is talking to Steve Allen but I wonder what song he performed that wasn't included in this DVD.
Extras include album by album review by Beckett & Underwood. Interesting insight as they go through Tim's 9 albums. Beckett also comments on Dream Letter Live in London 1968 that came out in 1990. On the song "The Earth Is Broken" in which part of the song Tim wrote about is Larry being drafted and Beckett never heard of this song until this CD came out. Beckett reading of an unedited "Song To The Siren" poem and "On The Hook" a song he was working on w/ Tim prior to his demise. Also interesting to hear Tim was asked to write a song for the movie Midnight Cowboy but decline because co-writer Larry Beckett was in the service. "Talking About" was later written by one of Tim's favorite musician Fred Neil who wrote "The Dolphin" that Tim covers. The good thing about this DVD is you can play the whole music w/ comments or you can just play the music w/out any interruptions. There isn't much video of Tim Buckley around so this DVD has rare collection of Tim's performances. I doubt we'll see anything else about Tim w/ such passion.

Though Tim Buckley's career was mostly spent in obscurity, with his talent not really apparent to the whole world until about a decade after his death from a drug overdose in 1975, there's a surprising amount of high-quality live recordings. The Tim Buckley estate has unearthed quite a bit of audio material already, but with MY FLEETING HOUSE we finally get his television and film appearances which have been long bootlegged.

This material ranges from nearly his entire creative activity, from the folk troubadour stylings of the late 1960s to his overtures to funk towards the end of his life. Only the "Greetings from L.A." period is unrepresented, which is unsurprising since that album's overt sexuality made it impossible to promote in the early 1970s. Artistically, I'd say the most valuable material here are the two songs from his masterpiece album STARSAILOR, which are a valuable document of how his avant-garde interests produced soaring improvisations in a live context. Other footage is less interesting musically, although it will provide helpful biographical details to fans of the composer, and show how he was treated by the media (praised by Leonard Bernstein, while having his chain jerked by Steve Allen). The Live in London 1968 release has long been one of my favourite Tim Buckley records, and I'm happy to finally see faces to accompany that music, as his band with Lee Underwood on guitar and Carter C. C. Collins on conga is given much attention. There is a handful of footage where Buckley speaks conversationally, and although he doesn't show any particular insights (clearly awkward on camera), it is spooky how similar his mannerisms are to those of his estranged son Jeff Buckley.

The DVD also has a documentary, where the course of Buckley's life is charted by journalist David Browne, guitarist Lee Underwood, and Buckley's close friend and songwriter Larry Beckett. Fans of the composer, the sort who would probably seek out this CD, have probably already read Browne's biography DREAM BROTHER and perhaps Underwood's biography BLUE MELODY, so the lack of detail here can be frustrating. Beckett's participation, however, is to be welcomed, as I don't think he has told his story before.

Whether you're a longtime devotee, or are coming to Buckley through his late son, Jeff, or are curious after all the hype, this DVD will enlighten and entertain you.