MattA75's Full Review: Hellos & Goodbyes by Buck-O-Nine
Buck-O-Nine was one of those bands that garnered a huge following thanks to the mid 1990s revival of ska music. To be more precise, Buck-O-Nine was part of the third wave, which also gave birth to such luminaries as the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Less Than Jake and Catch 22. While Buck-O-Nine never got as big as any of those bands, they had a pretty good sized underground following that devoured almost any new material the band put out.
To wit, discs like Barfly, 28 Teeth and Pass the Dutchie all posted respectable sales figures, and the band soon were gaining more and more attention for their energetic and sometimes even chaotic live shows.
With the release of 1999's Libido, the band had seemingly recorded the best album of their career. They went on the 1999 Warped Tour, and they had momentum on their side. They headed into the studio to record the follow up to Libido, laying down 12 tracks in just one day, an amazing feat for any band. But just as things seemed to be looking sky-high for the band, their label, TVT Records, dropped them.
The band soldiered on, playing shows when they could. One of these ended up on a mini disc player, and it was done simply for the band's own pleasure. It became the meat of this disc, titled Hellos and Goodbyes: Live and Unreleased, which also features five of the songs they recorded in that one day session.
While the band claims that no studio magic was done to the minidisc recording, that's obviously not true. They cleaned it up a bit and made it a full stereo recording. There aren't any overdubs or anything though, which is very important with a live album; after all, a live album loses some of it's luster when it's not really live.
To be sure, the band sounds to be in good spirits (well, except maybe their sick drummer) and full of energy. The only time I saw them live, they did put on a good show. They mix up the set with songs from just about all of their discs, although for some reason, the Libido material sounds the freshest. Songs like Who Are They?, Falling Back to Sleep and Here We Go Again aren't lacking the luster that some of the older songs, such as Calling in Sick, are.
The band doesn't sound like the most cohesive or tight unit either. A couple of these live songs are just downright sloppy: to be sure there's room for some live improvisation, but don't do it if you can't do it well. Leave the improvising to bands like Phish. Besides, you're a ska band, just shut up and play the songs.
Besides that, the songs the band picked just aren't very interesting. While on their albums they have shown they can mix things up quite a bit, they get lazy in this particular performance; everything sounds the same outside of 3 or 4 songs, and the live portion of the album fails to keep my interest for much time at all. It's the same three chords over and over again. Sure, that's an argument used for punk all the time, but with these guys and on this disc, it holds true.
Having said that, at least the new studio tracks are a bit different. Lost and Down is funky and even kind of soft compared to most of Buck-O-Nine's previous material. The quiet restraint is a welcome break from the punk bombast the band throws into most of their songs.
Besides that though, the new studio material fails to captivate this listener either. It ranges from really bad reggae music (I've Got to Go and Third Floor) to terrible pop punk (Something to Find).
The last number, Hellos and Goodbyes, is a simple and soft ukelele number that let's the listener's headache from the previous 55 minutes subside a little bit.
I like Buck-O-Nine, I think they're a good live band. But I can only question the decision to release this live recording. They seem to think it represents them well as a band and who they are as performers. Personally, it just gave me a headache, which is not easy to do. Stick to your Libido or Barfly discs, there's nothing on this one that deserves your hard earned money.
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