Dougal

The music is singer/songwriter, troubadour style, thoughtful, intelligent, sometimes topical, sometimes universal, always entertaining.

Dougal is a Gaelic name that means “dark stranger”, not easy to live up to. Dougal has been creating music all his life, sometimes just in his imagination. He was born in Regina, yes, really, but didn’t stay there long, and grew up all over the place, spending some early time on a houseboat on the Athabasca River, in Calgary, Collingwood, four years in Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia, three years in various Newfoundland outposts, before landing in Toronto at age 12. He has been there ever since. His early musical education included: his father playing the harmonica while the dogs howled along, his mother teaching him the recorder, seeing a one-man-band in Africa, with a jiggling skeleton attached to the bass drum pedal, requisite piano lessons, learning bagpipes to play in the school band and avoid having to carry a rifle, playing tenor sax in a jazz band, The Quintet, switching to bass to play with a rock band his brother formed, subsequently called the Vacant Lot, helping start the Grub Street Banana Band (it was the 60s after all), went on to form Rockwood, then went underground for a while. He later surfaced to bring together a free-improvisational group called bitchin’, playing violin, bamboo flute, harmonica, keyboard, and vocalizing. He currently concentrates on songwriting, guitar playing and finding appreciative audiences.

The setup can be from basic PA, Mike and DI to extensive staging, lighting, and sound inputs. It depends on the configuration.