“Folk songs from a whole different direction . It’s as if you're sitting
around in his living room on homemade furniture and Dave's trying
out his fully formed, way-out ideas on you…the thoughts and
images flit around and land right in the place where you do your thinking.
Dersham doesn’t sound like Andrew Bird or Richard Thompson,
but he sure sounds like they hang out together. ”
– Marilyn Rea Beyer, The Midnight Special, WMFT, Chicago.
Over the past 25 years, Dave has played across 2 dozen states, sharing the stage with Buck Meek, Kris Delmhorst, Vance Gilbert, Mary Gauthier, Clif Eberhardt, Darlingside, Heather Maloney, and Adrianne Lenker. His music has been described as exquisite, off-beat, distinctive, melancholy, and marine. Dave first CD, The Burn of Summer, gained popularity on Folk Radio, WUMB (UMASS/Boston), WERS (Emerson College), and earned distinction as a New Artist Finalist for Mountain Stage – a nationally syndicated, live radio production.
“Dersham is with unique vision, musically focused but
thematically broad. It's well worth rolling out your blanket
for seaward sounds and thought provoking words”
–Northeast Performer
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It's the last autumn of the big 80s, and Dave's enjoying the Stone Environmental School’s Friday night potluck at the director’s cabin. The week was typically compressed: tree-hugging with 5th graders, projecting the mighty copepod into the bioscope, and gazing at constellations while hoping for signs of nocturnal creatures. As the evening progresses, someone places Greg Brown’s In the Dark with You on the turn table.
He’s really good,” says Dale.
Dave agrees, particularly when hearing Brown’s impish, deliberate mangling of a particular vowel within the title track. Fast-forward to mid-January – a new decade – and Dave’s with his usual cohorts at the New Moon Coffee House, witnessing Greg Brown in the flesh, singing of vulnerable women walking alone, men walking by themselves without familiar fears, and an impeccable recitation of the 18 opening lines of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Such a tour-de-force illuminated a flame that Dave slowly crystalized, venturing from Northampton, MA to the Boston folk circuit by the mid-90s.
Dersham continues to carve his own path while remaining true to the lyricism of the Iowa troubadour, offering similar themes of domesticity, melancholia, and occasional eco-tragedy. Dave plays solo, with sideplayers, or with his own band: the “Daphne Nasturtium” trio.
His 4th CD, Farce, will drop in 2027.