10th Anniversary show!

Food & Fundraiser!

BY LYNN WELBURN

Nanaimo Daily News - Nov 21, 2003

A 10th anniversary only comes along once so it makes sense to celebrate.

And that's just what Brent Boehler of Brent and Woofy intends to do.

To mark 10 years of entertaining children, Brent and Woofy will release a new CD and collect food to help needy families in the city. The 10th anniversary show is set for Nov. 30 at 1 p.m. in the NDSS Community Gym and it's free for everyone who comes with a donation of a non-perishable food item for Loaves and Fishes.

"I did a similar thing in 1997 when I released my Christmas CD and we got a packed house of 600 or 700 people," says Boehler. "So I figured since I wanted to do something special for my 10th anniversary, why not collect food for Loaves and Fishes and help people out. We're gonna get a big pile of food there."

The event, he says, will also give him the opportunity to talk with the children about Loaves and Fishes and the work they do to help people in need.

Boehler got into children's entertaining when his own kids were small.

"I've been a musician since I was in my early 20s and I'd spent a lot of years singing in bars to unappreciative audiences," he says with a laugh.

"When I had my own kids, I started writing songs for them and they really liked them. I'd also always wanted to become a ventriloquist so that's how Woofy (his canine dummy) came on the scene."

Entertaining kids, he says, "is a fun job. It's very rewarding."

He works the birthday party circuit and similar events and also does balloon deliveries in costume, but says the Brent and Woofy gig "is my main focus... after my own kids."

The CD - entitled Under A Star -contains 12 original songs Boehler wrote over the summer and which he has recorded in Nanaimo's Raincoast Studios.

"There's a lullaby, some listening music, sing along choruses... the kinds of thing I do in my shows," he says.

"It's very infectious music and listening to it I have to say this is the best stuff I've ever done."

His shows, he says, are primarily aimed at the two to nine-year-old crowd, but he always tries to make sure older kids and the parents also get some laughs out of his act.

"It's family entertainment... everyone from one to 101 can enjoy it."

From CD sales on the day of the concert, Boehler will give one dollar from each CD to NDSS which donated the use of the gym for the concert.

"It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to this and I hope to see lots of kids and their parents there," he says.

Brent and Woofy will also be on the radio to celebrate their anniversary.

The show will run Nov. 23 at 7 p.m. on 101.7 FM CHLY in Nanaimo. Kids can call 740-1017 to talk to them live on the radio.