Buck 65 is a horribly handsome geek, dressed like a fucked off Dixons employee with a Tom Waits voice; microphone and turntable(s), rapping over odd redneck leftfield hip hop and bluegrass mountain music about asparagus and cleaning his shoes. Rubbing his stomach - burning cigarette in ear - and patting his head.
It was a long set for just a guy and a box of anecdotes, but Buck 65 carried it off with abundant charm and a sense of humor intrinsic with other screwballs like Pigeon John and Del The Funky Homosapien. He has a permanent, circumcised boner with a capital O.
Jerking around like a nerd on a wire, handed down trousers and cross-eyed, its conceivable that you wouldn't take him seriously, if his skills weren't upfront at all times. His backing tracks are on vinyl, giving him the chance to mess up his own stuff whenever he feels like it, and he feels like it a lot. Amazingly able, too. For a man who is reading the autobiography of Dave Lee Roth.
The backwoods inbreeding that bleeds into his sound could locate Buck 65 as the hip-hop equivalent of Primus or something but - and its a vile, vile cliche - there are more strings to his bow than beagles shitting in his kitchen...
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His tunes are eclectic: big meat-head powerchord rock, IDM, bip-hop, tinges of reggae, symphonic grandness at times, all loosely under the hip-hop umbrella and with enough hooks to keep it interesting. At one point he croons about his massive penis with just a pretty, fragile guitar refrain, probably picked out by the blind kid from deliverance. Lyrically, Buck 65 was frequently grotesquely funny, but almost always aligned with a world weary decay, be it of civilization or the individual (poor and bullied, with a broken car; dead flies in the light fixtures), that somehow never jarred with his goofy persona.
Which is partly why Buck 65 was such a weird breath of fresh air. Apparently Sarah McLachlan called him 'intriguing', which is true enough. Anyone who scratches over Woody Guthrie has got to be worth £6 on the door.
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