2024 Slim Days Band Spotlight: DICK BURNS
The Party Band - Back after a 12-year hiatus.
28 years after their first performance, after shuffling through a total of no fewer than nine members, Dick Burns returns to the fundamentals that made them a Black Hills favorite right out of the gate – a solid, tight trio focused on fun songs played well plus a healthy dose of impish goofiness – a party band.
Dick Burns was conceived not as a group of musicians that would play music to entertain audiences so much as hosts of a cooperative effort between player and listener, an interactive exchange of energy, and the band feels like they got away with something special for years. Playing at The Uptown Grill and Filly’s in Rapid City, The Back Porch in Spearfish, Durty Nelly’s in Deadwood, The Sinister Grin in Chadron, and a couple dozen other, mostly now defunct, clubs in the region as a cover band, they were able to slip in their original music among popular alternative rock songs from the 80s and 90s. Audiences were hearing Dick Burns’ own music at every show they attended.
Before long they knew the words, were requesting the songs, and singing along with the band. They were getting on stage to learn – on the fly and in front of a live audience – to play drums, or sampling cocktail weinies simmering on stage in the band’s trademark obscenely hot and spicy BBQ sauce. They weren’t audiences anymore; they were collaborators and enablers. They were friends.
After a 10- or 12-year hiatus, (founding members Scott Gooch and Michael D can’t even really remember how long it’s been,) the boys are looking forward with excited anticipation to their reunion on October 19 at Slim Days 2024 at Dawes County Fairgrounds in Chadron.
Incidentally, Jeff Roltgen, aka “the new guy,” knows it’s been a 12- year hiatus. After all, he joined the band 25 years ago. Humble as he is, everyone involved knows he’s the brains of this outfit.
