Salmon
in a Ring-Shaped River - Part Two
Judy
Buckley
Judy
Buckley was not really obsessed with details when speaking
of her deceased husband. Nevertheless, I had the impression
she really took me to heart during the ten days that I spent
in Los Angeles during July 1991 for research on a planned
Swiss documentary project.
At
her West Hollywood home, Judy showed me pictures of Tim
from her archive, and told me that after sixteen years she
still had regrets that she did not pick him up at the airport
that day as she usually did. She also told me that her hair
literally turned grey overnight.
The
only possibility for her to get the [artist royalties for
the Warner Brother’s] catalog of Tim Buckley’s
music would be to completely pay off all the debts. She
said that there were various stream of consciousness writings
held by Tim’s estate and also a letter of condolence
of from Jacques Brel.
On
Saturday, July 20 1991, Judy invited me for dinner at a
friend’s house in an apartment on the beach of Santa
Monica. While standing on the balcony, I looked out at the
romantic evening sun on the opposite side of the bay. Judy
pointed to the house in which Tim had died on July 29, 1975
by an accidental overdose of heroin and alcohol.
Veit
and Maria Gasche
- 'the woman of my dreams' |
At
the end of the evening, her third husband gave me a lift;
a witty and refreshing Welshman, Llew Llewellyn. I told
him about my parent’s house, and impressed him by mentioning
that my father took LSD in 1970, listened to Captain Beefheart
and founded a liberal art school with my mother.
Judy’s
28-year-old son Taylor had intended to drive me through
Los Angeles and to introduce me to his half-brother Jeff
who was in town at the time, but unfortunately, I did not
succeed in making any real dialog between Taylor and myself.
Although I was conscious of the complexities of a patchwork
family, it did not mean that I didn’t make any mistakes.
I
visited Judy five times that week, and at the end she gave
me a signed Tim Buckley picture - which is printed in this
booklet - and gave me some life counseling. When I complained
about the unsteady character of my ex-wife, who left me
in 1987 for a man in Amsterdam, taking our two-year-old
child Orlando with her, she said - and she was totally right
- that there were some lessons waiting for me and how important
it was to give enough space in a relationship.
Back
in Zurich after a Saturday afternoon in bed with jetlag,
I pulled myself together to go to an art performance at
the Rote Fabrik and I met the woman of my dreams, Maria
Gasche, who had come from Basel. Completely euphoric and
alcoholized I overdid it with the flirt and it took almost
a year until we finally became a couple in July 1992.
Full
of anticipation, I drew up a twenty-page presentation, which
should have helped us to raise the money for the film -
about $150,000. Finally in June 1992, when the money and
time for the practical realization came, my friends Andrea
and Franz Hauser from Catourne TV were too occupied with
their children and business and our communication proved
to been unclear.
Additionally,
I was starting to have a conflict of loyalty, because Judy
distanced herself from Lee, possibly unaware of his superb
obituary in June 1977 in Down Beat - published in
German in Rocksession in November 1985.
In
2002, she did not give him the permission to cite from Tim’s
lyrics in his beautiful book of memories Blue Melody.
It would be easy now to blame the failure of the project
on these two reasons, but 50 % of it was my lack of ambition.
I was working as an express mail carrier, riding my bike
through town no matter what weather was. I was also looking
after of my daughter Raffaela for 35% of the time and was
working on the estate of my father, so I simply did not
have enough energy to commit myself fully to the project.
Fragments
were there. The Hausers had recorded a short interview with
Herb Cohen and had received the permission to film all the
photographic Buckley material from his archive. They also
had an intimate conversation with Taylor during a long car
drive where he affectionately reflected upon his childhood
(1970-75) with his adoptive father Tim.
In
June 1992, we filmed an interview with Eugene Chadbourne,
who saw Buckley live several times and who had cover versions
in his repertoire. In April 1993 came a highlight when Mothers
of Invention drummer Jimmy Carl Black came to Zurich to
perform with Chadbourne as a duo.
Before
the concert started, we filmed an interview with two prominent
quotations. Black is considered the discoverer of Tim Buckley,
the one who connected him with Herb Cohen. In 1965, he worked
in a guitar shop in LA and insulted Buckley who was trying
out different guitars: “Put that damned guitar back,
unless you wanna buy it! “
In
1975, he was on tour with Beefheart when the news of Buckley’s
death arrived. “That was the only time he saw Herb
Cohen crying…”
In July 1993 the Grandmothers played in Berne, I had a thrilling
backstage discussion with Bunk Garner, an original musician
on the Starsailor album, and inventor of the wordplay ‘Bim
Tuckley’ mentioned 1972 on the first Geronimo Black
Album. In June 1994, I took over the Rec Rec Shop after
a five-year break, but that meant that I definitely had
no more time for other projects.
