Rob Kennedy is the same age as Rock n Roll, having been born during the summer that Elvis recorded the Sun Sessions. He came of age, just outside Manhattan, during the psychedelic Sixties. The first concert he attended (Who/Doors, Singer Bowl) erupted into a full scale riot and left Kennedy with a taste for something more than the usual, tepid rock. One year later he helped tear down the fences at Woodstock; the summer after that found him back in Flushing, Queens witnessing and being transformed by the MC5 and the Stooges' New York debut. Kennedy has a knack for being in the right place at the right time - London, fall '75, Kennedy was exposed to the nascent British punk scene. He returned to Washington DC, where he resided at the time, and formed Da Chumps, one of DC's seminal punk bands. Da Chumps recorded an ep and appeared on :30 Seconds Over DC, the original DC punk compilation. They were responsible for getting both the Bad Brains and Half Japanese their first shows.

Meanwhile, Kennedy had been commuting to NYC to play bass for Susan Springfield (Erasers), and finally decided to move back to New York in 1980. He knocked around in a few bands in the first half of that decade and eventually met Scott Jarvis, who became his partner in the Workdogs. The Workdogs were an extremely influential band. First, they were a two piece with an ever changing roster of sidemen. They had no desire for a permanent line up; a hallmark of The Workdogs' approach was the way a good sideman could change the sound. All of the 'Dogs material was based on the Blues, while most of their sidemen came from the Alt-rock or Punk scenes. As a consequence, the Workdogs were great diseminaters, introducing numerous musicians to Blues, country and jazz styles for the first time. Then there was the matter of Kennedy's songs - they had no words! Kennedy has always preferred to improvise his lyrics extemporaneously. His stream of consciousness style could lead the 'Dogs just about anywhere, to the perpetual amazement of their audiences.

When the Workdogs started out back in '85 they also used to work as a rhythm section for hire. In that capacity they backed Half Japanese, The Velvet Monkeys, Purple Geezus and Maureen Tucker among others. In 1987 they went on extended road trip with The Velvet Monkeys and Jad Fair. The dire economics of this trip permanently turned the Workdogs against touring. They were more than able to stay busy in New York, playing regularly and recording three cds, two LPs and a half dozen singles. They developed a live game show for the bar, Max Fish, that eventually led to a monthly musical residency. Over the course of the next five years, scores of sidemen sat in with the 'Dogs at Max Fish. It has been said that if there were 100 people in a Workdogs' audience, 99 of them were rock n rollers, most had sided with the 'Dogs and most were considerably more well known than the band they were watching on stage.

In 1998, Rob Kennedy moved to Hawaii, much to the disappointment of the avid Workdog crowd that had grown around them at Max Fish. But in spite of being one quarter of the way around the globe, Kennedy continued to pursue his music. He recorded in Hawaii when the material felt right. Then he shipped the songs to New York, San Fransisco and Los Angeles where many of his friends added tracks. Whenever he was on the Mainland he would jump into the studio with a handful of fellow musicians. In 2001 he returned to New York for an extended stay. During that stretch Kennedy played several shows with the Workdogs and recorded nearly another hour of new songs with various different sidemen. By 2003 he had several hours of unreleased new material in the can. Kennedy joined forces with renowned producer, Jim Waters, in Tucson to sort through this material and to produce his new record, "The End Of The Earth".

Kennedy still resides in Hawaii where he does occasional live shows. He has started the Cooper Center Rock n Roll Project, which has helped a group of teens in his little Hawaiian village to start a punk band (Project Plague) that he now manages.

The Workdogs are on hiatus as long as an ocean and a continent seperate them, however Scott Jarvis was happy to sit in on these sessions and he and Kennedy are still the best of friends. There will undoubtedly be more Workdogs shows in the future. In the meantime however, Kennedy has a thousand musical plans of his own, including touring to support The End Of The Earth, recording a sequel to the Workdogs' notorious "Workdogs in Hell" and figuring out a viable way to jam over the internet. He plays regularly with Ka Motley Hui and has never stopped writing new songs.