Rough Red

24th October 2007

Since Rough Red laid down their arms after a screamer of a European Tour that ended in Neuremberg Square in front of 20,000 people, Fegan was without a gig. No longer could he content himself with driving the women of foreign countries into a sexual frenzy with his Barry Manilow moves and artfully hidden cucumber, he had to actually learn to be a musician or find himself a team at the Booradabin Bowls Club. So two years of intensive guitar tuition with Simon Gardner and a boxful of introspective songs later; he’s back. The songs are stories from adventures on the road, never one to accept crappy pop song lyrics and one reasonable hook repeated over and over again to appease the drunk’s chorus in karaoke clubs, they are slices of life, probably poems if the truth be known. Some are dark and inward looking, some plaintive, grainy studies of man’s darker side and many just observances of people’s reactions to interesting times; I even get to say things to my father I couldn’t have said when he was among us. There are places of dark beauty and moments of spectacular colour; the ‘wolf note’ on Danielle’s 1780 cello, the manic gypsy abandon of Dave Lee’s violin, Lee Matthew’s sliding double bass, Tyso’s masterful grungy guitar, Sammy and Michael’s amazing backing vocals, Sal’s guidance, JB and Harv’s little dashes of inspiration and the masterful manipulation of Napoleon Mascha on the knob thingies. Like a gigantic Christmas cake made from an old recipe by a committee of master chef’s it is a layered panoply of talents and interpretations whose proof is in the listening. When you find yourself surrounded by such inspiration it is difficult not to push yourself and turn out something you believe is worthwhile but then again you’ll be the best judge of that.

www.foxtrax.com.au

Rough Red will play their final gig for 2004, and their final gig for sometime, on New Years Eve.

The lads have moved on to some new projects individually, and will be playing only the occasional show in the future. The final album is currently being mixed, and will be available through the web site in the near future.

The New Year's Eve gig features the return of guitarist Steve Tyson for this one-off performance, which is at the Shorncliffe Yacht Club, Sinbad St, Sandgate, from 8.30pm. So come along for the chance to say goodbye to the Reds in their long-standing line-up.

April 4,2004

Change of Direction for Rough Red

Due to a family health crisis, Steve "Tyso" Tyson has retired from live playing and will no longer be a part of the Red's when we play live.
Steve will continue to write songs in his new studio however in the short term his main focus will be on family matters. The Reds' wish Steve all the best for the future and we pray that his family will return to "normal" as soon as possible.

The Red's are continuing to perform live, but now in a 4 piece format.
A new musical direction is sweeping the band and we have now changed to a more Roots and Groove based format, replacing the Celtic influences of the past.
Upward and onward .....................

A new venue located in Brisbane's cosmopolitan suburb West End is about to open, and the city's favourite folk-rock band ROUGH RED will kick it off this Sunday, November 9th. The Rez Bar is located on the corner of Russell and Boundary Streets in West End. The Reds play on Sunday afternoon from 1pm to around 5pm, in stripped back acoustic mode.The Rez Bar has great food and wine, so punters can sit outside in a laid-back environment and enjoy original roots music whilst consuming the great things on offer on the menu! In a few weeks time, the Rez Bar will begin as a serious night-time venue, offering a variety of musical offerings and genres. But in the meantime, get down to West End this Sunday and kick back with the Reds.

How's this for a great way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon? A drive in the country, not too far from the city, sitting in the Queensland winter sun in the beer garden of a fantastic little pub, some excellent food, a few beers or a nice bottle of red ...... and oh yes, some great original roots-flavoured music to kick back to.

That's the scenario when ROUGH RED plays the Bearded Dragon Tavern at Tamborine Village this coming Sunday afternoon, July 27th, from 12:30 pm, and once a month thereafter through to October.

The Sunday arvo vibe is very different to Friday or Saturday night gigs, and The Reds take a more laid-back approach to their sets, playing a mix of songs from their four albums, and a bunch of new material from their work-in-progress album.

The Bearded Dragon adopts a refreshing attitude towards music and its influence on the local community. The publican refuses to have poker machines in the pub. His view is that they are a blight on society and the pub does well enough without ripping further hard-earned dollars out of the community. The venue deserves to succeed on that basis alone.

The pub is located at the corner of Mt Tamborine Rd, Beenleigh Rd, and Beaudesert Rd, Tamborine Village, at the foot of Mt Tamborine.

Check out the Reds' web site at www.roughred.com for other local gigs, upcoming tour news, and European updates. Hope to see you next Sunday.

ROUGH RED will be back at the Kenmore Tavern, in Brisbane's western suburbs, on a once-a-month residency basis, starting on Friday July 4th.

The pub will return to its original format, with the Reds performing in concert mode, and no more "doof-doof" between sets!! The venue lost its way for a while, intent on chasing the younger market with rap crap at a thousand decibels blasting people out of the room in between the live acts. All they succeeded in doing was losing the regulars who came to see us. Fortunately, management has seen the error of its ways, and the band has negotiated a return to the KT on the original basis.

Now you will be able to come to the pub, grab some good food, have a few beers or a bottle of wine, and enjoy Rough Red in concert again - just like it used to be when we recorded "Uncorked" there.

So come on down on Friday July 4, from 8PM, for the opening show. For those of you who haven't been there before, the Kenmore Tavern is located on Moggill Rd at Kenmore.

Brisbane based folk-rockers ROUGH RED head south on April 17 for a short tour, performing at one of Australia's great festivals, The National Folk Festival in Canberra.

The National is one of the major folk / roots festivals on the Australian calendar, and is held over the four days of the Easter period. An international line-up of acts is on offer again, and the Reds are very excited at being included on the bill.

After a few dates in country New South Wales, the band then heads further south to the Mt Beauty Music Muster, in northern Victoria, on April 25, 26 and 27. Mt Beauty is one of the emerging festivals in the country, and this year, the locals have something special to celebrate - surviving the horror bush fires which plagued the region earlier this year.

The band's new album and DVD, "Live in Europe", has been well received and is selling steadily around the country. The Reds will be doing some further touring down south later in May to promote the album.

We just wanted to help. Our rainmaking skills aren’t all that flash, so we thought the only way we can help Australia’s farmers was to sing a few songs instead.

So we have packaged up four tracks, from our previous three albums, that tell various stories about the plight of the farmer, and made them available on a single EP.

These songs are heartfelt expressions of the connection we feel with our brothers and sisters on the land. We are rapt that CREDIT UNION AUSTRALIA, Australia’s largest credit union, has joined with us to produce “FOUR for THE FARMERS”.

The EP is available for sale for only $10 at any branch of Credit Union Australia, with every dollar (after pressing cost of $2) going to the FARMHAND appeal.

“Tears of Dust”, “Man on the Land”, and “Sons of the Southern Cross” tell the story of our farmers, their families, their struggle, and the Australian spirit. We have also included a song “Harry’s Farm” about a farmer mate of ours in Germany, whose problem isn’t drought, it’s the German government burying nuclear waste next to his farm. It’s a struggle our farmers can identify with. If it’s not one thing it’s something else.

We hope in some small way these songs make a difference. “FOUR for THE FARMERS” will be available as from next Monday at any branch, throughout Australia, of Credit Union Australia, or via our web site www.roughred.com

So let’s help our farmers in this incredible time of need. Tell your friends and families about “FOUR for THE FARMERS”, and encourage them to pick up some copies for Christmas presents.

“LIVE in EUROPE” - the new CD from ROUGH RED, with bonus 1hr DVD “Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival”

Our new “Live in Europe” CD, with bonus 1hr DVD, is due for release on December 9.

When we were in the studio recently, mastering this CD and editing the DVD, we became aware of a mainstream artist (who shall remain nameless) working on a new live album who had already spent 60 studio hours doing overdubs! 60 hours! We thought to ourselves, why bother calling it a live album??

We have long held the view that if you’re going to release a live album, then it should be an honest body of work - it should be LIVE, damn it! As was the case with our previous live album “Uncorked”, we have not enhanced this new “Live in Europe” package with any overdubs, or re-recorded any parts whatsoever.

As such, it is a raw, honest, warts & all approach once again. And therefore it ain’t perfect. But what it does, we think, is it captures the incredible energy and excitement that comes from playing on big stages to big audiences. That is an amazing buzz that is hard to describe. We hope you agree that our “honesty is the best policy” approach is the way to go!

The CD tracks were recorded at two of the biggest festivals in the world - the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, and the Bardentreffen Festival in Germany. The DVD was filmed predominantly at one of our Montreux shows, with some extra footage from Bardentreffen thrown in.

The album contains three new tracks. “The Walls of Derry”, a longtime stage favourite, has finally been captured on tape. We returned to the village of Fredelsloh in Germany, to the incredible church built in 1100 as a musical instrument, such that no matter where you stand in the room, the sound is perfect. Here we recorded a new acoustic track, “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know”.

Finally, we have included a bonus new studio track called “When You’re Gone”, a Byrds-like alt.country piece with pop overtones.

If you want to pre-order a copy, just send us an email. Better still, we are going to launch the album at our gig with FRED SMITH on December 19 at the Paddington Workers Club, so you can pick up a copy there, and have a Christmas drink with us.

CD track listing : The Walls of Derry / Lady on the Wire / Stand & Deliver / The Stranger in the Mirror / Groovin’ in the Desert / Night Train / Drunken Sailor / Tell Me Something I Don’t Know / When You’re Gone. Total playing time approx 50minutes

DVD track listing : Mad Dan / Lady on the Wire / The Walls of Derry / The Innocent Victim / The World Keeps Turning / Kaylene / Johnny Boy We Miss Ya / Long Train Running / The Stranger in the Mirror / Flying Dutchman’s Inn. Total playing time 1hr

ROUGH RED will be special guests for enigmatic Australian singer/songwriter FRED SMITH, on Thursday December 19, at the Paddington Workers Club in Brisbane.

Fred has been dubbed “Australia’s answer to Billy Bragg”, and since he first appeared on the scene with his 1998 debut album “Soapbox”, his dark humour and sardonic wit have impressed all who have heard him. Several songs from “Soapbox” received airplay on Triple J and ABC Radio, and Fred was hailed as one of the finds of the Woodford Folk Festival that year.

Soon after, he left for Bougainville and the Solomon Islands on peace monitoring missions. Whilst in Bougainville, he worked with local musicians to release 20,000 copies of an album of Peace songs. Touring throughout Bougainville, Fred became something of a celebrity in the war torn PNG province.

He returned to Australia to record and release his second album in 2001, the widely acclaimed “Bagarap Empires”, an “intelligent, compassionate and sardonic response to his experiences as a peace monitor”. The album received extensive airplay especially on Radio National.

Fred is touring with his band The Musicians, and is great live performer. In his quiet wry manner with deadpan face, he captures the uncertain yet sardonic side of modern Australia. He has a perceptive eye for Australian life, its follies and joys, and an ability to express this in a song. His band have a fierce vibrancy and energy, which enhances Fred’s pop sensibility and fresh, simple melodies.

Fred has recently released a mini-album “Party Pieces”, which is a six song snapshot of Australia at the beginning of the 21st century.

The Reds played with Fred at the recent Illawarra Folk Festival, and struck up a great rapport, and so we jumped at the opportunity to perform with him again in his only Brisbane show. The concert starts at 8PM, and tickets are $12 and $10 at the door.

For further information about FRED SMITH & THE MUSICIANS, check out www.fredsmith.com.au

Illawarra, Woodford, a new live album, ongoing recording of new studio album --- it's a busy period for Rough Red.

We played the Illawarra Folk Festival over the weekend of 13 , 14 and 15 September, and experienced one of the great festivals on the Australian calendar. We played several shows over the three days, and we were blown away with the reaction we received from enthusiastic audiences. Our thanks to Dave deSanti and his team for having us at the festival.

The Reds have just been confirmed for the Woodford Folk Festival, another of the truly great Australian musical and cultural events. We haven't played Woodford for a few years, so we are really looking forward to returning. Keep your eye on the web site for details.

Something else we are very excited about is that we have decided to release a "Live in Europe" package. We returned from Europe with a bunch of tapes mainly from our festival shows, and there is some great stuff amongst it all. So we are going to put together a live CD, which will feature two new songs, plus a selection of reworkings of songs from "Better Red than Dead" and "Seeing Red" that were not on "Uncorked".

In addition, we filmed one of our shows at the Montreux Jazz Festival, which is being made into a DVD. So the "Live in Europe" package will include CD and DVD, which we think is pretty exciting. We hope to have this produced and available by Christmas.

In the meantime, we are still in the studio recording the new songs, with a view to releasing this new studio album as soon as possible next year.

We have only one more local gig this year, back at our regular venue the Kenmore Tavern. So if you can, come along on Friday November 1st to catch the band and have a drink with us. If not, we'll hopefully see you at Woodford. Cheers.

The Reds have just arrived back on Australian soil, following our 4th tour of Europe, without a doubt our most successful tour to date.

We kicked off in Sweden at the Skuleberget Festival, held in a remarkable natural amphitheatre, just below the Arctic Circle. We played here in 2000, and it was great to return to play to such a warm, enthusiastic audience. This part of Sweden has embraced the Reds’ music wholeheartedly, and is run by a fantastic group of people who really looked after us.

We then trekked across to the south of Norway, to play one of the best pub gigs you could possibly imagine. 200 people packed into the Pakkhuset in the summer town of Farsund went off, and our thanks go to our great friends from Hotel California who organised the gig, and almost killed us with kindness for two days!

The Paide Shanty Festival in Estonia followed, and it was a wonderful experience to visit a Baltic country, and get a taste of a completely different culture. This was more of a world music festival, and the Estonians loved the Reds’ brand of Australian roots. We saw some excellent acts there, including a stunning band from Russia called Russian Soul. If they ever get to Australia, which they are hoping to do, they are a “must see”.

Some club gigs in German led up to one of the great experiences of the tour, playing two shows at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The Montreux festival is everything it promised to be - the world’s biggest names in music spread over multiple stages over a 15 day period. To be a part of this was a privilege, and we were blown away with the reaction to our performances. For these two shows, the Reds were joined onstage by Steve Tyson’s daughter Rebecca (who you will recall guested on the UNCORKED album), and she excelled on soprano saxophone and flute. Some great live recordings will come out of these shows.

An emotional return to Harry’s Farm, the subject of the song on the UNCORKED album, followed. Harry Gunter continues to lead the local resistance movement against the German government storing and attempting to bury nuclear waste in the area near his farm, and it was truly inspirational to stand on stage and play that song to the resistance members and local supporters. We also had a damn fine time, thanks to Harry!

We have a great support base in Denmark, and we returned there next to play two shows, the first in a great little pub in the town of Korsor, which was packed to the rafters, and the second in the Kulturhaus (sort of like our cultural centres) in Skanderborg, to a great theatre style audience. As usual we were overwhelmed with kindness from our great friends in those towns.

We then played a series of club, café and music pub shows throughout Germany, and every gig was fantastic. The wonderful thing about German audiences is that they come to see you, they come for the music. Eating and drinking is secondary to the music, and they pay you the greatest compliment by simply being there. Great shows all of them.

We finished the tour with one of the greatest musical experiences of our career, the Bardentreffen Festival, in the historic city of Nuremberg. This is a festival that takes over the whole old part of the city, with multiple stages, and acts from all over the world. We did two shows, the first to a great audience of about 2000 in the Lorenzer Platz. That alone would have been a great way to finish. The next day we played on the main stage in the Haupmarket, the main central square of Nuremberg. We walked onstage to a shoulder to shoulder crowd of some 15,000 people. We’ve played to crowds that big before, in Australia and Belgium, but this was something out of the ordinary. The crowd roared, and the feeling on stage was just one of “how good is this?” A truly remarkable way to finish the tour.

So we are back home, with the number one aim of finishing our new studio album. As is always the way, we have come back from Europe with a stack of new song ideas, so we are looking forward to putting them into play.

We will be doing selected shows over the next few months whilst we concentrate on the studio, so keep your eye on the gig section and come along to see us when you can. Cheers