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Since returning from the LA Villa Aurora residency in October 2016 (which culminated in a fantastic west-coast US trip wth Magda Mayas and SPILL), I have been very busy touring with The Necks mostly. The Necks have, in the following 12 months since then, toured Australia twice (once, in January 2017 opening for Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, and again, in June 2017, under our own steam), toured the U.S, Japan, and three extensive tours of Europe.
We also released our double vinyl album “Unfold” on Stephen O’Malley’s label Ideologic Organ.
The other big thing that happened on The Necks front was our 30th anniversary concerts in Amsterdam and New York. In Amsterdam we presented an 8 hour music relay with special guests and friends including bands Contest of Pleasures, Dans les Arbres, and The International Nothing. In New York we played a similar 6 hour concert with guests including Andrea Parkins, Ned Rothenberg, Nate Woolley, David Watson, Ira Kaplan, Kato Hideki, Shelley Hirsch and Joshua Abrams. Both concerts were a real blast!
The big news outside of all that is the release of my first, fully fledged solo recording for sometime. Unearth, just out in September 2017 on the Room40 label. It is early days but seems to be garnering some nice reviews and interest! I have also been working on ways in which to present this music in a live solo setting which I started developing during the Villa Aurora residency. At present it look like it will incorporate many aspects of my work including sound-sculpture, video and performance using percussion, guitar and electronics. More on that to come. Already a few solo gigs booked for later this year.
Transmit managed to have one concert in November 2016, that was fun and felt very successful after such a long break.
Trophies released another recording called Family of Three (Band Photo) on Andy Moor’s Unsound label.
I found time to collaborate with some fine musicians on their projects including new recordings by Kim Myhr and by Lawrence English and Massimo Pupil.
Some festival highlights included another chance to put the orchestral graphic score ideas to the test, again with Ilan Volkov, this time with the Scottish BBC Symphony Orchestra during the Glasgow Tectonics festival 2017.
The rest of 2017 into 2018 looks to be quite busy with tours and concerts all over the place. Looking forward to SPILL in Helsinki and Moscow in the coming months, The Necks across Europe again and the solo concerts all leading towards more activities in Australia in January and February.
….and hey.. I embraced Facebook, to a certain degree.!  (facebook.com/tonybucksolo). HA !

So, again years between updates. Oh well…

News from the last little while.
At present  I find myself in Los Angeles with Magda (SPILL). Having recently completed a most enjoyable tour with David Brown we now have a 3 month residency taking in the whole summer at the beautiful Villa Aurora in sunny Pacific Palisades. Good to be doing more stuff with SPILL at last. We’ve been here two weeks and after some initial skepticism regarding what to do here, I have found myself more personally productive than in the last few years.
After the first two weeks I’ve started work on 3 video pieces, collaborated with Magda on a surround sound installation / performance piece, made some advances on new automatic music machines, done a coupe of gigs and read a bunch of stuff I’ve been meaning to get around to for ages. Looking forward to what the next months will bring.!
The Necks busier than ever. This year alone, a tour of Australia, The USA and Europe. More to come later in the year. Europe again, Japan and more Australian and US dates early 2017.
Highlights this last little while would have to include getting to play with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (with Ilan Volkov ). I got to write some graphic scores that were realised in the performance. Was inspiring. Also great to play the US again especially the two great nights at that Whitney and a fantastic performance at Big Ears festival in Knoxville.
Plans afoot for a spacial 30th birthday bash with friends and colleagues at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam in November which is something to look out for and really looking forward to playing in Japan with the group for the first time which looks very much like it’ll happen at last.
Other projects have taken a bit of a back seat… Transmit haven’t played for a while, even though our last small tour of Eastern Europe was a really good one. The band moving into areas I’ve looked forward to exploring for some time. We have one concert coming up at The Splitter Orchestra festival in Berlin in November… will try and do some more around that time. Let’s see…
Started a relatively new group with Kim Mehr, David Stackenäs and Joe Williamson called Circadia.
New album out now on SOFA records. We did a short tour earlier in the year. Was a pleasure playing music with those gentleman.
Musical adventures with Hailu Mergia are continuing. Played some very nice shows in Australia earlier in the year and there’s plans for another Europe tour in Fall. There’s also a record in the works.
Also coming up another short tour with Trophies. Definitely been too long between drinks for this group.
After our stint in LA I will spend a few days in New York where Glacial (Lee Renaldo, David Watson and myself) will get the chance to play again. Another thing to look forward to.
All in all I can’t complain too much. So far the year has been good and looks like continuing in that vein for a little while to come at least.

So, finally after more than a year, I’m trying to get my website up to date.

Haven’t managed to get any gig listings up to date but will do all that soon enough.. I hope.

News is that there is finally the new TRANSMIT record coming out on Monotype records; The Necks just finished a very successful tour of Europe, including collaborations with RADIAN and EVEN PARKER, which went really well; SPILL have a new release with DAMON SMITH coming out on nuscope records; I have a new project called CIRCADIA with David Stackenäs and Kim Myhr, bassist Joe Williamson with whom I hope to tour and record in the new year; I’m about to embark on a tour with HAILU MERGIA again, which i am really looking forward to…. all good things and things to look forward to.

Now lets see if I can keep this page a little more current… perhaps and regular things to do list… that’ll never work.!