Red Dog Blue Tongue, recorded over several months across late 2002 and much of 2003, has been sitting on the shelf for over twenty years. It is the missing “brick” in the wall of Rough Red’s discography to date. The Reds had recently come back from a successful 2002 European tour which saw them playing at some major festivals including the Montreux Jazz Festival and the Bardentreffen in Nuremberg Square and later that year the band released a Live in Europe CD/DVD from material recorded on this tour. So, the very nature of this new work, the recording approach, the songs, the studio environments, where the band was in its journey at that point in time - all these factors point to this being a seminal work in the Rough Red story. The recording engineer was Mick George. Given the fact that Mick was the front of house engineer for several of the Rough Red European tours he was well positioned to be an integral part of the recording and production process. The music was recorded over several months at two studios, the first being on a rural property south of Brisbane (now part of a massive residential estate). Some nights, in those quiet moments, you could hear the white ants chewing through the timber beams in the building. The second phase was done at Mick’s studio in a new house at Caboolture north of Brisbane. Mick George and Peter Harvey did the final mixing and production over about two months at a third location in early 2004. Most of these songs have been released on various CDs over the years, some as per the original recording, some completely re- recorded. As I write this it appears somewhat ironic that the one track that has never been released is called “Don’t Look Back.” The name and image of the album, “Red Dog Blue Tongue,” is taken from a painting by well-known Australian artist Peter Hudson, who incidentally was the original drummer with Rough Red. This release is the original work as completed and mixed early 2004. It has been remastered with the assistance of Pete Hill at his studio in Brighton.
Whilst Rough Red has been traditionally considered to be somewhat of a folk band, this material moves across genres and reflects the eclectic nature of the band.