Merge Records

Richard Buckner on tour!

May 27, 2010 – 3:48 pm

Richard Buckner is on the road again starting this weekend! Go see him and report back on all the new songs!

If you missed Richard recent Daytrotter session, give it a listen now! Find lots of excellent Richard Buckner titles for preview and purchase in the Merge store.

Richard Buckner on Tour:
05.29 Somerville, MA Johnny D’s
06.04 Hoboken, NJ Maxwell’s w/ Jay Farrar
06.05 New York, NY Bowery Ballroomw/ Jay Farrar
06.12 Arlington, VA Iota Club & Cafe
06.18 Northampton, MA Iron Horse w/ Tift Merritt
09.09 Columbia, SC Columbia Museum of Art
09.10 Raleigh, NC Hopscotch Music Festival
09.23 Cincinnati, OH Midpoint Music Festival

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The Rosebuds, Richard Buckner & The Love Language join Raleigh’s inaugural Hopscotch Festival!

April 1, 2010 – 1:37 pm

Merge artists The Rosebuds, The Love Language & Richard Buckner will perform as part of the first-ever Hopscotch Music Festival held in downtown Raleigh, NC from September 9-11.

Presented by The Independent Weekly, the Hopscotch Music Festival is the Triangle’s biggest music festival yet and a strong addition to the country’s festival circuit. Scheduled for Sept. 9-11, 2010, in downtown Raleigh, with 120 bands in 10 venues over three days, Hopscotch offers fans high-quality local, national and international options in just about every genre imaginable — rock, hip-hop, alt-country, heavy metal, dance, punk, classical, noise, drone, folk and more.

More than 110 bands will be spread between ten venues located entirely in downtown Raleigh throughout the festival’s three days. For more information and to buy your festival pass, visit hopscotchmusicfest.com.

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Richard Buckner visits Daytrotter

March 31, 2010 – 5:47 pm

Richard visited Daytrotter the last time he toured, and the session is finally online for your enjoyment. Give it a listen at daytrotter.com.

Buckner has also just been announced as part of Raleigh’s first Hopscotch Music Festival this summer! Tickets go on sale 4/1 at etix.com.

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XX Merge: Thursday

July 24, 2009 – 4:23 pm

phil_peyton_emcee bwest1 bwest2 buckner guvner versus1 versus2 3ds2 chunk1 3ds

All photos by Brian Vetter

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Richard Buckner tells us a Story!

February 6, 2009 – 6:20 pm

Welcome.

I’m pleased to announce a series of performance dates based on Merge’s digital releases of three of my earlier records, “Bloomed”, “The Hill” and “Impasse”.

“Bloomed” was originally (erroneously?) released on an unnamable German label in 1994. I was living in San Francisco at the time, having just moved out of a residential hotel and into the 1906 hilltop prefab that adorns the cover. At the time, I was heading a band called “The Doubters”. We were playing high profile events such as The Covered Wagon Saloon’s Musical Barstools, but weren’t making much headway. We had been turned down consistently every year by SXSW, but I was somehow finagled in as an unannounced guest onto an already unofficial SXSW showcase created by Butch Hancock at his gallery in downtown Austin. There, I met up with Lloyd Maines, who agreed to produce my first record. We met in Lubbo ck, TX a few months later, where we worked in a small recording studio walled in wooden shingles Sharpied with bible passages from various church groups that also enjoyed working there. It was 112 degrees F the morning I arrived under the suspicious (Californians are merely B-grade yankees) gaze of downtown’s Buddy Holly statue. That first night there, it hailed so hard that heaven’s angry pellets were storming in under my hotel door. It only let up for a few moments that first night, allowing me to run across the street to get a butter burger and fries to go. We finished four days later and I flew back to San Francisco, dismembered the band and embarked on a tour that would last about 15 years (or a few days, if you count what I actually remember).

Richard Buckner Speaks

November 3, 2008 – 1:00 pm

To all of you (you know who you are):

There’s a web site, richardbuckner.com, with a ‘be-back-later’ note. Since there’s nothing going on right now, it sits as a future dig, waiting for a body. In the meantime, the iron chefs at Merge have been kind enough to set me up with a kitchen island to use as a rant-site until my cookies are baked. We’ll begin in grand O.C.D. style, with a syllabus:

I. What Happened

II. What’s Happening

III. What Might Happen

Thank You. Please turn off your cell phone and pour a drink. The following may or may not include images of punk-assed music critics (“fast-eating tongue swallowers” -Merck Manual 2008), the world outside of the music industry (from Know Where your Head is Stuck: A Guide), and audience/performer perimeters (“Really? I Don’t remember doing that…”).

Enjoy.

Merge @ CMJ wrap-up!

November 13, 2006 – 3:40 pm

Photo by Doron Gild

Ahh, the post-CMJ sickness. It comes like clockwork. Now that I’ve been given a week to recover, let me tell you how awesome it was to see 5 of the Merge bands rock New York City! The Broken West burst onto the scene via CMJ’s Station of the Year,KEXP!

Thursday was College Day at Lincoln Center, where CMJ set up panels for all the music directors and handed out awards to the best of the biz – and yours truly was given one of the highest honors, Sexiest Phone Voice! Don’t ask me how I did it, but apparently I’m not allowed to send emails anymore.

Friday night at the Knitting Factory was definitely the highlight of the trip! The Broken West, Portastatic, White Whale, and Richard Buckner all represented in usual Merge fashion by blowing everyone away! It was an early night, which was good, since Saturday was full of Brooklyn fun.

The team at Sound Fix Records welcomed the Ladybug Transistor, Portastatic, and White Whale for a packed set of in-store performances! It was a relaxing ending to our CMJ trip, and hopefully some of you were there with us!

Oh CMJ, I’ll never forget you.
Lindsey K.

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RICHARD BUCKNER TOUR DIARY ("Incoherencies") – Entry #6

September 29, 2006 – 9:50 pm

9/19 – Boston, MA

Got up early to get my broken window replaced in Albany before leaving for Boston and an incoming storm.

And Boston…Take a map, rip it up, throw it into the air: where it lands is the street layout of a town that overturns cars whether or not their team wins or loses. Sprinkle with scraps of LL Bean khakis and blue button-ups. Played a small stage in a club steeped in folk traditionalism: i.e., loops and e-bows need not apply. Driving out of Boston, you feel like a cockroach trapped between someone’s giant hands, and every turn you make, the hands move and you’re lost again. You just wanna turn over on your shell and kick your legs up into the clammy air.

9/20 – New York, NY

NYC / Bowery Ballroom-lovely sound and nice professional club and crew. You feel so welcome and secure until you step out on the street watching for gear-rippers, parking meter soldiers, and the grand-theft-auto-style drive to Brooklyn. Load the equipment in at 3am, and load back out at 8am.

9/21 – Washington, DC

Got to DC early for an XM Radio interview with Bob Edwards. He’s quite a presence: sat quietly as Doug and I set up our stuff, then made for an easy, enjoyable talk. Then, to the IOTA in Arlington, VA: I’ve been playing there since my first tour. Usually stay at a strange motel down the street where sometimes there are people in bathrobes in the lobby, but it’s an easy walk to the club and there’s a place next door for ugly, yet satisfying drunky after-hours food(?)-ish.

9/22 – Chapel Hill, NC

Chapel Hill/Local 506: Good rock club – easy hang. Didn’t get my shrimp and grits at Crook’s Corner this time, though.

9/23 – Asheville, NC

Asheville, NC / Grey Eagle: The LSD mountain fog was really rolling down the hills tonight. It’s always a little weird in Asheville, but good. Tonight it was a little stranger, though. Even the pavement felt strange driving around. Saw two different vehicles with either missing or open doors while driving odd patterns. A health food market with an agro-flute blower marking the entrance with some super-loud (louder than I thought a bamboo flute could ever be) hippie/eastern melody. The merch table reported that football-player-ish guy came in looking for gumbo and asking about shotguns.

At the hotel, people milled about without shirts, one guy with just a towel as he dug through his car for something.

9/24 – Atlanta, GA

Atlanta, GA / Variety Playhouse. I was the oldest person on the stage tonight; by even double, I think.

9/25 – Off Day

Day off in the ATL; got my shrimp and grits. Later, for old times sake, a yacht dog, and much later, the Claremont Lounge, just to be complete.

-buckner

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An Evening to Remember

September 22, 2006 – 4:57 pm

Ok. Yes. I should have posted this sooner. But to be honest I’ve been having trouble putting it all into words.

On Tuesday night we, along with 600 hundred or so of our closest friends, were treated to an evening of music that holds no equal in recent memory. The Cat’s Cradle was packed to the gills for a mini-Mergefest: Portastatic; Lambchop and M. Ward. I doubt I could ever muster the words to aptly describe the awe, excitement and pride I felt as I watched these three bands put on performances that simply had my mind, my body, my heart and my soul reeling. It was one of those nights you never forget. One of those nights that helps remind me why I do what I do.

Portastatic kicked things off in high form with Mac and Margaret doing stripped down versions of songs old and new alike. But soon they were joined onstage by a revolving cast of musicians that seemed to turn each successive song into it’s own little universe. M. Ward finished the night off with an incredibly rocking set that had my jaw on the floor. I had the same reaction the first time I saw Matt onstage, alone with his guitar, 4 years ago. This time the tenor and energy was completely different, but no less engaging, as he and his stunning band ripped and roared through a set that seemed to leave the crowd exhausted but elated, wringing every ounce of energy from the room.

Both Portastatic and M. Ward were stunning and either set on their own would have been in the top 5 shows I’ve seen all year. But the main purpose of my post here today is to try to tell you about Lambchop, whose performance on this night was so powerful that I almost found myself moved to tears…

(CONTINUED: Click on jump to permalink below to read more)

You almost never know what you are going to get in a Lambchop performance. How many people are going to be onstage? (I’ve seen performances with anywhere from 5 to 18 band members) Will it swing you like an R&B revival, or sooth you like a lullaby? Will Kurt Wagner actually stand up at some point (I’ve seen this happen exactly twice in 13 years)? The one constant always seems to be the quality of the performance. On this cool September evening in Carrboro, NC they managed to exceed already high expectations.

Tuesday’s performance featured 8 Choppers, with the Tosca String Quartet bringing the total number of musicians on the crowded Cat’s Cradle stage to 12. The thing that always amazes about Lambchop is that all those people can blend so seamlessly together, presenting layer upon layer of sound that draws you in as you try to enjoy every intricate nuance, every flourish. Playing a healthy dose of songs from Damaged, as well as digging into the treasure chest for a few golden nuggets, the band was tight and on point all night long. The Tosca String Quartet added a dimension that we don’t always get here in the States but that European audiences have probably grown spoiled by. I know I could get spoiled by it in a hurry.

All in all I can’t recall a more powerful night of live music in my recent experience.

Lambchop is heading through the northeast this weekend with shows tonight in Boston (Paradise Club), tomorrow night in Montreal (Le National) and Sunday night in Toronto (Mod Club).

Portastatic ends their stint opening for M. Ward with shows tonight in Denton, TX (Haileys) and tomorrow night in Austin (The Parrish), while M. Ward heads westward on the final leg his tour.

Me? I’m off to see Richard Buckner / Eric Bachmann tonight, and will probably get blown away all over again.

If you have the chance to check out any of these shows in the next week or so, I couldn’t recommend them more.

Lambchop tour dates HERE.

M. Ward tour dates HERE.

Portastatic tour dates HERE

Richard Buckner tour dates HERE.

White Whale tour dates HERE.

-martin

(photo courtesy of Enid Valu)

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More Buckner

September 21, 2006 – 3:02 pm

Casey Burns did this poster for the Buckner/Bachmann show at Local 506 on Friday night. Considering the grizzly tales in the tour diary, I thought it was perfect!

Check here to see if Richard Buckner, road warrior, is coming to your town!

Photos from last night’s Bowery show are here, and a great feature in the Riverfront Times is here!

And of course, you can order the oh-so-fantastic new record, Meadow, Here!

Christina

Also posted in Eric Bachmann | Comments (1)

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