Richard Buckner playing Mercury Lounge, working on a new album, driving a forklift

October 26, 2009

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Richard Buckner – “Gauzy Dress in the Sun” (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Richard Buckner – “Emily Sparks” (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Richard Buckner – “Born in to Giving It Up” (MP3)

Earlier this year, Merge released three of Buckner’s out-of-print recordings, “Bloomed,” “The Hill,” and “Impasse” as digital downloads, and he went out on a tour in April. But before that, he’d been on hiatus, mostly because he was getting “freaked-out about by crowds,” he says.

A couple of years ago, he moved from an apartment in the tough Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn to a house in Kingston, N.Y., a small town on the Hudson River, where he lives with his girlfriend, Jill, a textile artist.

Lately, he’s been working day jobs to make ends meet, including a stint on a road crew, which he hated. “When I got home at night, all I wanted to do was drink vodka and go to bed and cry.”

He liked driving a forklift much better. “It’s a fun job. You’re driving backwards and lifting things.

Still, last year, Buckner completed a solo score for the film “Dream Boy,” based on the 1995 novel by Atlanta writer and Emory professor Jim Grimsley.

“It was really a cool, new way to do music,” Buckner says. “It set me off in another direction, once I got back to my own stuff. I’m catching up on a couple of years of ideas and getting them together for the next record.” [Access Atlanta]

That article appeared in advance of the Altanta stop on Richard Buckner‘s tour earlier this fall. One track from each of the three reissues mentioned above are reposted.

Buckner will play a late show at NYC’s Mercury Lounge on Saturday, December 5th. Tickets are on sale. One night before he’s scheduled for Arlington, and those are his only dates as of now. Buckner’s next album, a followup to 2006’s Meadow, is scheduled to come out on Merge in 2010.

All tour dates and live clips from his recent fall dates (including top numbers “Ed’s Song” and “A Chance Council”) are below…

Richard Buckner “Amanda Barker” + “Ed’s Song” – 10.2.09