Rockers The Dogs still going strong

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, as the old saying goes. But in the case of Bangor area rock band The Dogs, that’s a pretty good thing.

For more than 30 years, the band has played off and on together, bringing its riff-and-lick, heavy pop-rock to audiences throughout Maine.

Hitting its stride in the early ’80s, the band made a name for itself playing up to five nights a week, 50 weeks out of the year, across Maine, even scoring an opening slot for monsters of rock Black Sabbath when they played the Bangor Auditorium.

The band released three albums of rock originals during that hazy decade of Wham and glam: “Dogs,” “New English Rock” and “Dogs Third.”

Times and tastes changed, and the pace slowed down a bit for the band. Its members kept playing music both together and solo but also devoted more

time to those other things in life besides rock: bills, jobs and families.

Now, after a long hiatus, The Dogs, including Buddy Adams (drums and vocals), Curt Bruton (guitar and vocals), Shawn Russell (bass and vocals) and Greg Deering (keyboards, guitar and vocals), are back together and ready to play shows again. These days, though, the members say they’re playing more for fun than fame, doing gigs on the weekends around northern and central Maine.

The band is even considering recording an album’s worth of new material.

In the meantime, The Dogs have a busy summer season planned with gigs lined up from The County to Mount Desert Island.

On May 30, The Dogs and Freakshow will be the featured bands at a street dance under Bangor’s Joshua Chamberlain Bridge by the Waterfront Bar & Grill. The dance starts at 8 p.m.

For more information, call the Waterfront at 992-7273. For more about The Dogs, log onto www.musicdownload.com/dogs. George Bragdon can be reached at gbragdon@bangordailynews.net.