Buckethead - Pike 016 - The Boiling Pond [Metal Instrumental]
Probably the absolute heaviest of all the pikes, though not as good musically as some of his other metal offerings. This is an angry and stern pike. It goes great with the first beer after a rough day at work.
Music aside, this is also my favorite pike by name. The Boiling Pond. I just love it.
Brian Patrick Carroll is an absolute legend and possibly the greatest living guitar player. That he’s somehow relatively unknown to “mainstream” audiences is mostly due to his own shunning of the spotlight and avant garde style.
30+ studio album, 600+ pikes, and 300 live recordings, hundreds of hours of original material. He genuinely seems more interested in his craft than in commercial success, though he’s definitely achieved that even if people don’t know his name. If you ever get the chance to see a live show it’s worth whatever the price is, he’s actually touring right now.
This isn’t some weird marketing I’ve just seen him perform and am aware of his body of work and think he’s one of the greatest guitar players of all time.
Yeah, I really agree. As I finish my first run through his pikes, I realize that I’ve not listened to barely anything else since October. Absolutely, positively impressive work across multiple genres. Sounds that I’ve never heard represented in music. Chaos for sure, but it leaves you smiling from ear to ear.
Additionally, he plays with emotion. It’s very evident in his tribute works. Soothsayer (Aunt Suzie), Colma (Dad), Hold Me Forever (Mom). Those are some of his best pikes even if they are not wild and thrashy. It’s the emotion in the music coming through. I like that.
On a personal level, I was amazed at how thoughtful he is. He is an odd one, but in a good way. When you actually do get him out of his stage persona, he’s very well spoken and emits a positivity rarely seen in metal, or music at all anymore. His parents would be so very proud of him, and that’s likely all he ever wanted. <obvious> besides his own theme park with a designated place to dispose of aborted cow fetus’s </obvious> ).
I misjudged Bucket 30 years ago. It was a huge error on my part that cost me so much great music over the years. I sit here right now listening to the third part of Drift (Pike 231), and it’s just a w e s o m e! Think I might rewind it even. I wish I hadn’t missed out on this for decades. I would not wish that upon anyone else.
If only they had sayings about not prejudging people and things, maybe I would not have been such an asshole. Maybe I would have done myself a solid by just listening to his music. That he makes available for free. It’s not like he even gets preachy in the lyrics.