The Yard Dogs Road Show is a hobo cabaret, a living patchwork of vaudeville and rock and roll. Last spring they sauntered through the Northwest with their Cabaret Blitz! Tour. Most recently, the troupe left Oregon Country Fair audiences breathless. Now, Yard Dogs Road Show heads east coast for a string of dates, and stops in Denver for a very special Halloween show with Devotchka.
Yard Dogs Road Show are pure visual and sonic voodoo. It’s a true story on stage: sword swallowers, dancing dolls, fire eaters and sunset hobo poetry - all animated by the live sounds of the Yard Dogs cartoon heavy band. Born from the saloon vaudeville that toured the Wild West in the late 1800's and slammed into the underworld of modern American road culture. The Yard Dogs create a timeless space for the union of ancient theatrical alchemy and modern pop culture.
Current confirmed show details are as follows:
September 15 Earthdance Laytonville CA
September 21-23 Capitol City Carnival Centreville VA
September 24 Spiegel Tent New York NY
September 27-28 Asbury Lanes Asbury Park NJ
October 03-04 The Bijou Knoxville TN w/ Gill Landry
October 05 Orange Peel Asheville NC
October 06 Variety Playhouse Atlanta GA
October 08-09 Flying Monkey Arts Huntsville AL w/ Gill Landry
October 20 Monterey Fairgrounds - King City Room Monterey CA
October 27 Fillmore Auditorium Denver CO w/ Devotchka and Benevento Russo Duo
October 31 Orpheum Theater Flagstaff AZ
Please visit www.yarddogsroadshow.com for full tour dates and more information.
With the publication of his book, Hobo: A Young Man’s Thoughts on Trains and Tramping in America (Random House / 2003), straw boss and founding member Eddy Joe Cotton and the Yard Dogs Road Show surfaced into the mainstream media, including recent recognition in SPIN Magazine. As the San Francisco Weekly reviewed, “Many wandering youngsters identify with the label “tramp artist,” but few have taken it to the top-hat perfection quite like Eddy Joe Cotton…[Eddy] and the Yard Dogs Road Show do their neo-vaudeville thing the only way it should be: with flash, panache and an underlying sense of menace.”
Bringing rock & roll to theatre and theatre to rock & roll, Yard Dogs Road Show has collaborated with Teatro Zinzanni, Cirque Du Soleil, and Burning Man and have performed such renowned festivals as Bonnaroo, Vegoose, Oregon Country Fair and Wakarusa.
There is some speculation as to the origin of the Yard Dogs Road Show. Not for the want of mystery but for the difficulty in translating an experience that was navigated by the overly-romantic and sleep deprived. Shows came and went leaving very little time to fully comprehend what was going on. Some say the carnival-inspired performance art of the Yard Dogs Road Show began as a three piece jug band performing in road houses and dance halls and at informal gatherings, including Oregon’s modern day acid tests with Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters. Some say they traveled in a 1967 Ford Galaxy 500 and the evolution of their show revealed itself in the flames of a campfire on Dog Creek Road: dancing dolls with feather fans, an hombre in silver sunglasses eating fire, a dreamy guitar boy with golden locks, a bearded swami capable of conjuring the supernatural . Others say this story is complete hogwash and it was actually the brainchild of a unemployed “cowboy” and his faithful muse – transient artists with an incredible talent for brainstorming impossible ideas while under the influence of poppy tea and wishful thinking. By chance these conversations were overheard by an ambitious young poet who decided to actualize them for the sake of all impossible dreams everywhere.
Either way, that was seven years ago, and the unlikely troupe of gypsies has been performing on stages ever since.
www.yarddogsroadshow.com
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