Welcome back to Snobby Sundays! Today we continue gallivanting around the world, this time heading out to Australia for today’s band – Buckbeak’s Flight. You’ll notice that I haven’t yet indulged in my habit of binge-linking to things, because unfortunately, while a page on MySpace still exists for this band, all content was taken down at least two years ago. Fortunately, some of Jimbo’s music still floats around the internet, and the increased difficulty of even hearing this band’s songs make it a perfect fit for today’s exploration of little-known wizard rock.

The tale of how Buckbeaks’ Flight even came into being is one of my favorites – the story goes that Jimbo (the one man in this one-man-band) was assigned an essay for English class. So there he was, sitting at his computer the night before it was due, and he suddenly stopped and said to himself, “Wait, I don’t want to write an essay – I want to write a song about Buckbeak!”

So he did.

He ended up getting a B on the paper.

But what about that song he wrote? It’s called “The Wings of Me“, and it is excellent. It’s not just a song about Buckbeak, but from the point of view of the “great ugly brute” himself. While the relationship between Sirius and Buckbeak has been explored before, it’s still a largely untouched subject in wizard rock, for a relationship that lasted through three books (possibly making Sirius/Buckbeak more canon than Harry/Ginny), and it is territory that is ably explored here. Over a fun mix of acoustic guitar and chimey keyboard, Buckbeak’s Flight explores themes of trust, freedom, and the power of flight.

Somewhat unfortunately, the PoV of Buckbeak is never returned to, but Buckbeak’s Flight pursued other interesting musical avenues, all of which can be found on the Wrockin’ Down Under compilations. Like songs with awesome choruses about Neville? Check. Like really uplifting and empowering anthems to the very idea of wizard rock? Gotcha covered. Like songs on the naughtier side of the line? Why, but of course.

Unfortunately, after only a couple months, Jimbo stopped producing music, and about a month after that, all content mysteriously vanished from his MySpace page. It really is too bad, because we had the start of what could have been a really excellent wizard rock career on our hands. I’d like to end by going back to the previously linked song, “Rock With a W”. Though the song is somewhat bittersweet listening it today, given that it is such a powerful ode to the magic of wizard rock, by someone who left the scene after only two months, it’s still one of the great under-appreciated classics of the meta-wrock sub-genre:

Cuz under this name I can be who I want to be

And under this name I can sing what I want to sing

To all of those people who think they’re above you

Just smile and tell them – you won’t stop spelling rock with a W!

Wwell, wi wdon’t wknow wabout wyou, wbut wi’m wcertainly wtaking whis wadvice.