Usually, when I write a “this week in OFB history” thing in an email, it’s just an excuse to post pictures of a gig we played back in 2004 or something. But this week, something really cool happened in OFB history.

This week in 1973, a child was born. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a…crib. He was a baby and that’s where you put them…even way back in the 70s.

He grew up right around the corner from a gazebo where Bob Seger allegedly got married one time. One of his high school jobs was working security at Detroit Tiger Stadium and we’re proud to say that no Detroit Tigers or radio personalities were ever harmed during his tenure. One of his hobbies in high school was dressing up as superhero-turned-high-school-mascot, Mariner Man

In college, he once sneaked a case of Molson Canadian bottles into his dorm room in a classical guitar case. (Did you know that a case of beer bottles is too much weight for a classical guitar case? You have to sort of hug the case and carry it like a three year old child…which is not how most people carry a guitar case that has a handle.) He also sneaked a Bud Light party ball into his dorm room in an old hockey bag. (Did you know that when a party ball is in your hockey bag, you don’t so much “carry” it as “lug” it with both hands? Subtlety has never been a strong suit.)*

Like a modern day Johnny Appleseed, when he was a young man he planted trees throughout the I-94 corridor with Ragnon the Viking Warrior.

He used to drive across the state to play a mid-week gig with his band and then drive back across the state in the middle of the night to make it to his day job. He was a member of the Crossroads Blues band. He co-founded Six Ways South and The Union before co-founding Out of Favor Boys.

He’s crashed half of the convertibles he’s owned and managed to walk away. He was an outlaw biker on a bike that should have been outlawed. He’s lucky to be alive. And we’re very happy he’s made it this far.

May 29 is Danny Ouellette’s 40th birthday. Go find him and give him a hug.

* Out of Favor Boys does not recommend drinking Molson Canadian and Bud Light in your dorm rooms. Don’t be like us. Be better than us.