Big Dog Trouble Variety Band from Novato, CA

Big Dog Trouble: The Band Bio Big Dog Trouble was born from the ashes of another band which included three of the four members of the present group. Chris (Sea Dog), Jean Marie (Zen Dog) and Jim (Moondog) created BDT as a place to continue to explore three-part harmony and original material together. The quartet now includes Mike (Shaggy Dog) on bass and vocals as well. We have an occasional fifth member (also a Michael, a.k.a. Kosher Dog, our drummer), but for the most part we are just four. Without a full-time drummer, we rely on beats generated by Chris's talented feet on drum pads, and by Jean Marie on hand percussion. Our audience is often amazed by just how much sound and rhythm comes out of the four of us. We draw our material from a 70-year span, dipping all the way back to the 40's for a couple of jazz standards, mining heavily the 60's and 70's, including material from the Beatles, Neil Young, and Stevie Wonder to name a few, and we write about a quarter of our songs ourselves. Chris is the principle songwriter with Jim contributing as well. Jean Marie has just begun to collaborate on a few newer tunes. We all sing lead, but thrive on the layers of harmony we weave together and on the subtle interplay of instruments—the tunes familiar, but in some way new as well, transformed into "Dog Songs." This is music we love, and our feelings are clear in our performances. We sing, we laugh, and we love to get the crowd involved—sometimes dancing and howling along, and sometimes just sitting and listening. Come check us out soon!