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Because he's a generous dude who likes giving away things.

Bizarre is what ol' Buckyboy strives for. The toys usually are reflections of his own personal enthusiasms--horror and sci-fi films and comix. For the curious, check out the various treasures found at www.bucketheadland.com.

  Great show, and with any luck the venues will start to fill up as word of this wonderful spectacle gets out.

  You'd have to call me an Axl convert. I went to the show out of curiousity as a Buckethead fan of 10 years' standing. Given Axl's somewhat-less-than-reliable rep and the tech problems that have cropped up on the tour to date, I didn't know what to expect.

   But everything clicked at the Albany gig. Stunning visuals and audio (for an arena), and the band was running on ROCKET FUEL. It's now, what, three weeks into the tour, and the bugs are all ironed out, this potentially unwieldly band is meshing into one tight unit and Axl was in fine voice--pray it holds out.

  And you've got to give Axl credit for pulling this unit together--he does have cojones, if nothing else. Having Buckethead as a featured soloist is not an intuitive choice (ol' Buckyboy himself didn't really understand why Axl pursued him)--especially when you've got the ghost of Slash hovering over your every move--but I think crafty ol' Axl wanted to blow any memory of Slash out of people's brains, and Buckethead is a HUGE success in this regard, and not just because of his pseudo-psycho theatrics. His chops are just about untouchable, as I'm sure Slash would be the first to admit. Seeing Buckethead tower above the proceedings in an arena spotlight, driving the band through "Freight Train" with one of the most intense solos ever laid down live, made converts of most of the crowd. Axl is doing the public a favor bringing the masked marvel to a broader audience.

  This old fart was also a big Replacements fan who last saw Tommy Stimson 18 years ago at the old Ritz in New York, and it was great to see him quite happy and healthy.

  Some of you may have read the Albany Times Union review by Greg Somebody ???, who apparently belongs to that fetid pack of media rats who has some preconceived notion of how an artist should perform and behave, a bad case of rock 'n roll myopia that blinds him to whatever wonderfulness is happening before his eyes and ears right here, right now. As a journalist myself, I'm ashamed of this cynical, derivative hack, and all those like him.

  Thanks for letting me ramble on, kids. If you can catch this tour, by all means do so.