WARREN BUCKLER at EMPTY BOTTLE
11:55 AM 
photography by Tim McAndrew
This season’s open mic night commenced with an ecclectic mix of local talent at the Elbo Room on Lincoln Avenue. Surrounded by aspiring artists, I had the pleasure of meeting with one of the best in show that night, Warren Buckler. The self-taught musician has a respectable background in music theory having studied music production at Ohio University. While at Ohio U, he was part of the African Drum Ensemble, which exposed the young talent to a number of rhythmic variations layered with a purposefully controlled chaos that is guided by precise timing. At the dawn of his musical awareness and education, Buckler nurtured an affinity for “intelligent music”, or that which requires a trained appreciation and aptitude for recognizing how diverse sounds can be fused to produce something refreshingly new in the world of music.
After he graduated college, he spent a year learning about the music industry in L.A., where Buckler, a native of Dayton, OH, began frequenting the open-mic venues to promote his individual effort. Following his western hiatus, he moved back to the Midwest and settled in Chicago. Since then, he’s been honing his guitar skills while adding a touch of technology to his reporitoire by manufacting his own accompanying instrumentation and percussion with a synthetic sophistication. He is honest when telling you his musical influences of Portishead, Fourtet, and Jose Gonzalez to name a few, are paramount to his musical inspiration and stylistic experimentation.
The open-mic format only allowed Buckler to play three songs, two of them being originals, “Like That of the Coral” and “Look Again, It’s Magnificent”, finishing with one cover, Radiohead’s “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushed Tin Box”, resurrected anew in Buckler’s rendition on the Radiohead tune. Self-taught on the guitar, one can appreciate the skills he manifests with his instrument. His classical guitar picking style with Spanish flaminco undertones silenced the crowd into reverent awe. His vast knowledge of music was on showcase, and his solo effort captivated the audience with a simple construction, yet complicated performance of percussive bass lines giving way delicately to soft melodic phrases. His talent on the guitar is only strengthened in performance by his softly toned vocals, which bring an ethereal feeling to the venue that he has just dominated on his own accord. The neon signs behind him seem to surround the artist in a halo, mysteriously reshaping in the brain to form a precedent saying, “the writing is on the wall”…your undivided attention is due, true talent is performing here.
After his work is done, fellow artists break their silence with a healthy applause. One of his peers even comes up to further offer his appreciation of Buckler’s talent, saying that the mastering of his craft has given him inspiration.
by Tim McAndrew
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