Taking their cue from television, and borrowing the last names of notable characters from 1950s/1960s shows, The Reruns were part of the Hamtramck scene, moving in the orbits of The Romantics and The Mutants with a power pop sensibility. The core of the band – Kenny Haskell (Kondrat), Al Phife and Dave Bodine (Uchalik) – had been friends since they met at St. Florian High School in Hamtramck in the early 1970s.
Before The Reruns were officially formed, the core of the group played in several cover band of the era including a gig backing up an Elvis impersonator. Coincidently, The Returns claim their first gig as a band was on the night Elvis died – August 16th, 1977.
The Reruns put out two singles during their time as a band – the first in 1978 on The Romantics’s Spider Records label and the second a year later on The Mutants’s FTM Records – recording both at Ann Arbor’s A-Square Studio.
The band continued to play locally, and taking part in mini-tours that took them to the east coast and New York City, before things started to change around 1981. That’s when the rehearsal space their manager gave them to use was burglarized. The band lost their guitars and basses to thieves. When other bands on the scene heard about the theft, they banded together for a charity gig to help The Reruns get some new gear at Lili’s. Leading up to that gig, Kondrat, Phife, and Uchalik came up with the first version of what would become the long running Detroit area polka-rock group The Polish Muslims.
The Reruns have played some reunion gigs over the years, but the band became less of a concern after The Polish Muslims began to take off.
There is a tribute band to The Reruns called The Redones. The Detroit area group that features several of Kondrat’s sons and plays songs not only by The Reruns but other Hamtramck scene bands such as The Mutants and The Romantics.
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