This note goes out to all of our fans, whosoever and
wheresoever you may be. It is my solemn duty to officially report
that Buckeye Creek has ceased to function as a band, although we now
understand that this sentiment was expressed frequently during our
shows.
The reasons for our defunctness are numerous and complex, but we
owe it to you, our fans, to set the record straight. We’d be
devastated if you fell for the nasty rumors that have been circulating
through the tabloids.
As stated in the Little
Known Facts page on this site, our first CD, entitled God’s
Gift to Bluegrass, was not a success. Vowing to do better with
the next attempt, we produced a new collection, and called it Let’s
Hear It for Bunky. Just so you know, Bunky was the imaginary friend of Tom, our bassist. Not only did Bunky follow Tom everywhere, his frequent visits
to our practice sessions caused the rest of us to take a shine to
him as well, and he went on to become the imaginary friend of all
four of us. He was like our Yoko Ono, except for two things: he
drew us all together, and he could sing. In fact, he played the fiddle
on tracks 2, 6, 9, 56, 71, 93, 112, and 137. Yes, Let’s
Hear It for Bunky was probably the only boxed CD set offered
by an amateur Bluegrass band. At ten disks total, it was something
of a monolith. But Bunky kept writing some very good songs…
good enough that we had to record all of them, and the project just
grew.
We contacted any number of publishers, but none of them would return
our calls. As a result, we had to self-finance the Bunky
album… and therein lay our undoing. We were forced to dig deep
into our own pockets, and it wasn’t until we assembled on stage
for the first gig of the worldwide BunkyTour 2006 that we
found to our horror that we had each sold our instruments to finance
the CDs. In front of an audience of literally dozens, we were forced
to improvise. (That first show is now available on DVD, entitled Buckeye
Creek – Unstrung.) But even though we gave it our best, the
entire audience wandered away to ride the roller coaster, and we had
to admit defeat.
In the meantime, Let’s Hear It for Bunky was enthusiastically
ignored by music lovers worldwide. Needless to say, we were disappointed; but Bunky
was devastated, and took to drinking. Click HERE to see a picture of Bunky after being subdued by the Alton, Illinois, sheriff after yet another drunken barroom brawl.
We wrote a very poignant tune
(acapella, of course) attempting to express the deep sorrow felt by a group
of guys when their mutual imaginary friend surrenders to the bottle,
and we recorded that as a single – only to get a terse letter
from Keith Richards’ attorney, pointing out that Richards had
written a very similar tune already. In fact, he’d written it
three times.
In a last-gasp effort, we made a valiant attempt to get another CD out last December, but try as we might, we couldn't get the case open.
So that was the end. To our many fans, known to us by the collective
term “Our Wives,” we offer our sincere apologies that
the dream had to die like it did. On the other hand, you may be excited
to know that we have no plans to perform together in the foreseeable
future. But you never know. Ill winds have been known to blow.
Enjoy the website; the song may be gone, but the malady lingers on.
Gryf Ketcherside, for Buckeye Creek
