2011

Q+A The Bohemians and Tim Buckley bassist Jim Fielder

by Luke Torn

How did you hook up with Tim?
Tim’s family moved to Anaheim for his junior year so he was a transfer student at [my high school]. We had a few jam sessions and formed a group with Larry [Beckett] called The Harlequin Three. We would do instrumental backings for Larry’s poetry, songs by Tim and Larry, even skits. Very Beat Generation stuff.

Can you tell us about the Bohemians?
The Bohemians was really just The Harlequin Three with electric instruments. It was a natural extension at that time, right between The Beatles’ Rubber Soul and Dylan’s Highway 61… So we played a few high school sock hops and small clubs and culminated with the making of that demo in a piano showroom at the mall in Anaheim run by a German fellow who had the foresight to set up a quarter-track tape recorder.

How do you remember Tim Buckley?
Tim really hated it when things went exactly according to plan. I remember a time on tour with him in England. We had come back late at night to the hotel, a very proper British hotel in Kensington, all a little drunk and just trying to get to bed, when Tim spotted a fire-alarm pull on the wall. He got this gleam in his eye and we all knew. We were running for the exits when the bell began to ring.

© 2011 Luke Torn/uncut.co.uk