BIOG - DAVE BUCKLEY

Dave’s long musical trip through five decades began in 1971 as a member of the legendary Warrington band Free Flight, psychedelic voyagers who took their musical cues from early Pink Floyd and the Soft Machine. On the demise of Free Flight Dave joined heavy gigging glam rock stalwarts Moonshine with whom he recorded a very rare EP.

As the New Wave and punk era dawned Dave (along with fellow Reybridge Records artist Ray Humphries) was a founding member of the Jeff Hill Band with whom he recorded a single and album, both now hard to get hold of and very collectable.

Following a particularly gruelling German tour with Manchester funk pop band Midnight, Dave quit playing music for a living, but continued gigging, writing and recording up to the present day, initially with the Pink Pumps then with numerous other bands. Along the way he wrote and recorded with Rick Astley, gigged with John Cooper Clarke and underground folk god Pete Coe and broke 3,712 38 gauge strings on his Rickenbacker after switching from drums to guitar in the early 1990’s.

For nearly twenty years Dave was a member of Drive North West whose three albums from the 1990’s are part of the Reybridge Records re release programme.

Currently Dave is playing with the Pink Pumps, the post punk power pop band he reformed in 2012 with fellow founder member Ken Bennett and whose debut single, Every Night is available on Reybridge Records.

“Genghis Khan’t” is Dave’s intimate solo album, recorded simply with acoustic guitar and voice, originally for promotional purposes following a gig at the Cambridge Folk festival in 2007 when he played support to the very wonderful Karine Polwart.

Dave cites his influences as being very much literate and humorous, from Richard Thompson to Ray Davies via Glen Tilbrook and Robyn Hitchcock. A review of a Drive North West gig at the Great British Blues festival at Colne described his song writing as “Quintessentially English” which would seem to sum things up nicely and made him very happy when he read it!

The big news for Dave is that Reybridge Records is delighted to release the new single from Dave Buckley and the Watchwood, “Town Hall Gates”.

“Town Hall Gates” is a classic protest song written as a response to the destruction of the Green Belt round Dave’s home town of Warrington. The plans to develop large tracts of land with unsustainable amounts of houses and industry as a consequence of pressure from big business are clearly against the wishes of local people due to the extent of the damage to the environment and potential increases in pollution. The high level of feelings about these events are reflected in the song’s lyrics and the traditional feel of the composition as a whole.

Dave plays acoustic guitar and sings and enlisted the help of some superb musicians and friends fulfilling the role of The Watchwood to contribute to the recording. And yes, The Watchwood is indeed a Tolkein reference!

Andy Prince ex of Rikki and the Last Days of Earth and Sham 69 who has also recorded and toured with Toyah plays bass. He was also a member of Love Revolution along with Dave who played drums on their album.  

PJ Frampton of local legends Poacher, Escape Committee and The Bogtrotters sang and arranged the remarkable harmonies.
Trish Watt of George Borowski’s band, The Purpletones and too many other excellent bands to mention plays lead guitar.
The recording was produced by Ray Humphries (whose current album is also available on Reybridge) with assistance from Mike Evans.
Artwork is by the amazing Brendan Ashbrook.