Yard Dogs Road Show

Yard Dogs Road Show
Group photograph of the band.
Background information
Origin	US
Genres	Cabaret, Vaudeville
Years active	1999-present
Associated acts	Chicken John, El Circo
Website	www.yarddogsroadshow.com/

Yard Dogs Road Show is a thirteen-member traveling cabaret that features a unique blend of performances, including vaudeville, burlesque, stage magic, sideshow oddities, and beatnik "hobo poetry." Performances include musical interludes, song and dance numbers, and background music from the Yard Dogs cartoon heavy band. Originally from San Francisco, the Yard Dogs made their first full-fledged national tour in the Spring of 2005, playing 25 shows in 35 days with seven sold-out performances. Their show is used as a vehicle to travel and promote an independent lifestyle and spirit. All the performers are completely independent and 100% collaborative in creating their performances on stage. Their main objective is to inspire others to create and express themselves outside of the box. Consequently, creative communities are increasing in towns they have visited and revisited. The Yard Dogs Road Show is collaborative group of friends who love to travel and perform together. Through their collaborative performances they aim to bring other artists together and create more independent artistic communities throughout the world.

The Yard Dogs began in 1998 as a three-piece traveling jug band formed by Yard Dogs founder Eddy Joe Cotton. The jug band started out playing in the road houses and dance halls of the west coast. During this time, band members took part in modern-day acid tests with the likes of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. For the next year, the band toured up and down the West Coast in a 1967 Ford Galaxy 500. It was on a cold night in 1999 that the band stopped to roll out their sleeping bags off Interstate 5 at a place called Dog Creek Road that the band found its new name and new calling. Thus the Yard Dogs Road Show was born.

One by one, the band attracted its colorful cast of performers. The band now sports such members as Tobias the Mystic Man (sword-swallower and magician), Guitar Boy (a spandex-sporting "guitar hero"), Hellvis (a musclebound fire-eater), and the Black and Blue Burlesque dancing girls. Founder Eddy Joe Cotton has also performed with They Might Be Giants and has been featured on NPR, West Coast Live, and To the Best of Our Knowledge. He is also the author of Hobo - A Young Man’s Thoughts On Trains And Tramping In America, which made it to the Denver Post best-seller list.