History Of Boondoggle
THE HISTORY OF BOONDOGGLE
Boondoggle was born in July of 2002 when Brent and Nick started jamming in Nick’s garage. Jim joined in later that month and by September Brent’s friend “Bubba” had signed on as the resident drummer. Brent’s sister Dawn was soon added to give the band some “girly” vocals. With Brent on bass, Nick on lead guitar, Jim on rhythm guitar, Dawn on keyboards and percussion and Bubba on drums, Boondoggle was ready to start gigging. Supported by our day jobs as well as spouses who were glad to get rid of us on Saturday nights, we exposed ourselves (not “exposed” like you think) to small crowds in local establishments. At first we kind of sucked. Then for a while we continued to kind of suck. Then we became decent. Finally, drunken patrons of these local venues began to tell us we were “excellent!” (hic), “awesome” (belch), and “pretty f#%*ing good!” (stammer and fall). By the time they had sobered up, we were long gone, so those opinions remained valid. We knew we had arrived, so to speak.
What followed was hundreds of gigs at bars, outdoor festivals, weddings, charity events and even a “barn dance” or two. Over time, we changed some personnel: drummer Bubba left the band to be replaced by drummer Dave, who was in turn replaced by drummer Anthony, who, after three years of boondoggling and beer goggling, has recently moved on to join Sepia Tone. Nate Dahl (formerly of Billy Ugly) has stepped in to handle the serious business of keeping the beat. Lead guitarist Nick also left the band to pursue his own musical vision with Sepia Tone and has been replaced by John Wolf who brings years of experience and a huge repertoire of riffs and licks to the band. Through it all, Brent, Dawn and Jim have been the constants in the various Boondoggle alignments, but some great local musicians have graciously filled in and guest-starred from time to time, including Butch, Bob, Rollie, Kyle, Barb, Todd, John, George, Phil, Darrell, J-V, and many others. It’s always been tons of fun.
Now, 200 gigs and some 200 different songs later, we’re still up and running. It’s too much fun not to do it, so we plan to keep going for as long as possible. Thanks to everyone who has supported and helped us, especially Matt at L & M’s, Nate, Don, and Connie at The Sidetrack, the Roberts’ Lions, the Hammond Lions, and many others. Thanks also to our “groupies” — many of you probably didn’t know you were groupies, but you are, like it or not.
If you’ve never been out to see us, we hope you give us a try some night; if you have seen us before, we hope you’ll come out again. We’re always learning new tunes and updating the song list. And we’ll be around for some time we hope – after all, it’s not like we’re ever going to be famous or anything.
BOONDOGGLE – because playing rock music in small bars in front of drunk people is serious business
