Time Running Out for Roundup Time

The Hayloft's legendary open-mic show closes a 15-year-old chapter.

Dec. 21, 2019

After 15 years of hosting the open mic Thursday nights at the Hayloft Inn, Bill Dungjen is hanging up the omnidirectional microphone after a longer version of the weekly event on December 26.
 
“I just figured 15 years is enough,” said Dungjen. “Everything’s got a life cycle.”
 
Old friends of the show have been making the trek out to M-72 west of Traverse City to sing a few songs before the end of the series.
 
“It’s part nostalgia, or people wanting to get their licks in while they can,” Dungjen said.
 
Shayne Arsenault was a former regular who hasn’t been able to make it there as often in recent years, but he wanted to make it back a couple times before the curtain falls on Roundup. There are other great open mics in the area, but he said there was something truly special about Dungjen’s long-running weekly gathering.
 
“With it being all the way acoustic with ba condenser mic, it’s like playing in my living room,” he said. 
 
Arsenault has made good friends among other regulars. He’s developed as a player and watched others do the same, while seeing a broad range of abilities among the players.
 
“I’ve seen some people grow and get a lot better, and that’s a really cool thing,” he said.
 
Dungjen started hosting in 2004, and has improved the show over the years. He came up with the “Roundup” name several years ago, and for many of those years, he broadcast the show on WNMC, Northwestern Michigan College’s radio station. For a time, he put together Sunday afternoon performances that cast on Interlochen Public Radio, as well. He encouraged people to bring all types of talents, including stand-up comedy, poetry reading, skits, or anything else that would make for an entertaining sight or sound.
 
He’s seen hundreds of performers in the 750-or-so shows he’s done at the Hayloft, and among them have been some unusually great performers — and others that were just plain unusual.
 
Many remember when Traverse City’s bluegrass-guitar virtuoso Billy Strings and then high-schoolers The Accidentals used to stop by — long before Strings played the Grand Ole Opry or The Accidentals took the South by Southwest Festival by storm, and well before both piled up accolades on a national scale.
 
There have also been many surprisingly polished hobby musicians, some of whom have become regulars, while others were a one-time sensation.
 
Others have been memorably off-beat, like a bit of performance art inspired by Don Quixote … and with props.
 
“And there was this one guy who had learned one song on the trombone, and he came and ripped it off and it was fun,” Dungjen said.
 
Still, it was musicians, mostly acoustic, who were the bread and butter of the show. Bluegrass, pop, country, blues and soft rock were the most often heard, with a bit of jazz thrown in on occasion.
 
Every week, Dungjen set up the red-velvet curtain to contain the sound and muffle noise from the back door and musicians tuning up (when they weren’t tuning or warming up in the bathroom) on the wooden dance floor of The Loft.
 
It was more than just a parade of singers and guitarists. Every so often, Dungjen or a performer would say, “Hey Kids, what time is it?” and the audience would answer in a resounding chant of “It’s Roundup Time!” Also, every week, Bill read the police blotter from the Leelanau Enterprise, for folksy minor crimes and irritations reported, and for a time, he and regular visitors performed original comedy skits.
 
The longest drive contest was a favorite feature. Usually, someone from Kingsley, or maybe Charlevoix would win. One week, two families from China battled it out to determine out whose home was actually farthest from M-72. 
 
Swing/blues singer/songwriter Blake Ellliott, who now performs full-time around Michigan and beyond, said she learned a lot from Dungjen.
 
“I cut my teeth there,” said Elliott, who has also hosted open mics elsewhere. “It gave me an appreciation of what it is to run an open mic and be a good host and create a welcoming atmosphere. He’s a generous host.
 
“I really appreciated his showmanship,” she added. “It always felt like a Prairie Home Companion-ish vibe.”
 
While both Dungjen and the Hayloft owners have decided that the program has grown as far as it can at that location, Dungjen hasn’t ruled out bringing back a version of it at another venue. If that happens, though, it won’t be until after he takes some time off from it.
 
Meanwhile, Dungjen will continue to play gigs in the area with bluegrass and acoustic musicians, and last year he and his family launched a seasonal breakfast food truck named Cracked. And he will continue to produce Glen Lake High School plays. 
 
The final run of the Roundup, Dec. 26, is scheduled to start at 5 p.m., rather than the usual 8 p.m., at the Hayloft Inn, 5100 E Traverse Hwy, aka M-72, in Cedar.