Armchair Boogie Will Show Off New Album at Denver Concert

A lot has happened since the members of Armchair Boogie met at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point nearly a decade ago. Shortly after their nascent aggregation at the school, the group moved to the state capital of Madison, a couple hours to the south, where the band jelled and began to blossom as a jamgrass endeavor.

"We had a different drummer right off the bat in Stevens Point, but when we made the move to Madison, he dropped out and we picked up our current drummer, Denzel [Connor]," explains Armchair's banjo picker and singer, Augie Dougherty. "Denzel had been going to school with us in Stevens Point, but he joined the group officially in Madison, which is a bigger town."

While bluegrass might not be the first to spring to mind when talking Wisconsin, the Badger State has a long history of Americana and acoustic music appreciation as well as plenty of bluegrass-related festivals. In holding with the state's grassroots-music affinity, Dougherty made the somewhat unusual choice to pursue the banjo while he was in high school.

"When I was fifteen, all my buddies were playing guitar and taking guitar lessons," Dougherty recalls. "I'd pick up their instruments and try to mimic what they were doing. They were playing stuff by bands like Led Zeppelin, the Who and Pink Floyd. High school boys being high school boys, they would say, 'Hey, get your own instrument and stop copying me.' So I talked to my mom about it, and I decided to get a banjo. The sound just made me smile."

Dougherty, who grew up in the town of Dodgeville, about 45 minutes to the west of Madison, says he was able to find a good banjo instructor who taught him the fundamentals of picking, but it wasn't until he became a part of Armchair that he began to fully enjoy his preferred instrument.

"I knew I loved the sound of the banjo, and I knew I wanted to play something different than the guitar," Dougherty says. "In 2014, I went to a bluegrass festival in Wisconsin called the Jackpine Jamboree. The year after that, I went to another great fest called the Blue Ox Music Festival, which is a big deal around here. I saw the Infamous Stringdusters, the Sam Bush Band, Greensky Bluegrass and the Del McCoury Band. It was a lot of the big hitters. It blew my mind wide open. My banjo teacher had gotten me to be pretty proficient on banjo, but because no one I knew played a lot of bluegrass, it was tough to collaborate. So even though I liked bluegrass, I played bass in a Led Zeppelin cover band and then played electric guitar in an alternative rock band when I first got to college."

Despite his side trip into guitar-driven rock, it wasn't long after he started attending school in Stevens Point that Dougherty ran into a group named Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, whose members were living and playing in the town. When the aspiring young banjo picker heard the eclectic act's fetching blend of traditional music and rock, he glimpsed his musical destiny.

"Horeshoes and Hand Grenades is an awesome band that has a great old-time and bluegrass feel," Dougherty enthuses. "In Stevens Point, I got to jam with them at a few house parties. There was another cool band called Sloppy Joe that played a lot, too. It reinvigorated my desire to play bluegrass and the banjo. There were also some bluegrass picks happening around town there, too. When I met the guitarist Ben Majeska, who is our guitar player in Armchair Boogie, we started jamming together. After that, we were off and running."
Armchair Boogie released its fourth studio effort, Hard Times & Deadlines, in March and will be diving into some of its new material when it takes the stage at Cervantes' Masterpiece Ballroom this Friday, April 26, with support from Pert Near Sandstone. The group recently finished a tour with Montana-based jamgrassers the Kitchen Dwellers, which took them through the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest, among other places. Dougherty says the band particularly enjoys playing in Colorado, where the band has been well received.

"After Wisconsin, Colorado is our second favorite place to tour," says Dougherty. "We play a few covers, but the majority of our stuff is original. The new album represents a maturing sound for us. We're excited about touring. Even though the pandemic really slowed stuff down, we're catching up, and we're stoked to be out in the van and playing live again. The road goes on."

Armchair Boogie and Pert Near Sandstone, Cervantes' Masterpiece Ballroom, Friday, April 26. Tickets are $20.