Reddog

A brief history

Back in 2008, Hackney Stop The War held a benefit gig.
The artistic director was MC Redman ( Red Saunders of R.A.R. fame ), I, DJ (at that time) tourDog was invited to add my technical assistance. The event was a great success and Red and I had a lot of fun making it happen. We then got together to put on another, larger, STW event @ Chats Palace, Homerton. Another excellent event, at the end of which we decided to produce regular events that catered to an eclectic audience, with a collective goal, as MC Redman explained: "RedDog is - radikal arts / entertainment. old skool diy. RedDog nights are party nights for radical rockers. We'll mix it up... we like Bands, Musicians, Poets, Performance Arts, Radical Images, Films, and Ranting Dissenters ...all welcome! It's a global culture garden,... dig in! RedDog is an audio visual production - with live performances of the other kind. RedDog is a not4profit organisation - any money made goes back into promotion and supporting new projects. RedDog can be lured from it's lair by the promise of a fee and a venue in which to perform".

tDog the visualiser at work

"RedDog came out of our support for Hackney STW, Respect, and Love Music Hate Racism. The wonderful thing with RedDog is that it's small and local. We're autonomous DoGs who love imagination and culture, and hate the Korporations Brain police and new Labour shite pumpers". There followed many a night of excellence, the archive of flyers and images is scant testament, but worth a look. RedDog@Chats lasted for a few months only, as Chats Palace lost it's council funding and had to become totally self-supporting. This meant that the 'not for profit' cheapest gig in town ethos of RedDog was no longer a viable proposition. Red Saunders moved to concentrate on his ' Hidden' project, and DJ, now VJ, tourdog "VJtDog", continued either doing psychedelic sound and light shows for various fund-raising events, or under the new name of Reddog Produtions, supplying PA and lights for gigs, parties, conferences, or meetings.

The audio on the animation below is taken from a documentary about the Red Dog Saloon, which we only found out about a couple of months after the founding of the RedDog Experience in Hackney, turns out we had hit on a name with an infamous pedigree. For a quick history of The Red Dog Saloon, here's the link: Red Dog

The Vultures:
The Vultures were the creation of the cartoonist Tim Sanders, representing the scavenging nature of the corporate world. Capitalists - Vultures in pin-stripe suits.
Reddog took this to the streets as a theatrical device... along with the Reddog 'sound buggy'. Looking out for the Reddog crew on the streets became a thing, joining in, and helping make protest fun..........

Here is a photo archive of the making of the Vultures

Reddog productions is still going today, in a reduced, selective, more relaxed capacity

VJ tDog also started to get a little creative, expanding the 70s style psychedelic lighting, adding to the digital projections side with original images and videos.

The photo archive includes pictures from both original RedDog nights and later RedDog Productions events.

Much of this work was done under the name of tdog the visualizer, though the majority of works created under this name were one-off live creations, never recorded...
If you missed it, you weren't there, or something like that.

Also, if you're interested, here's a list of previous Reddog clients - though many of the links have expired, some were a long time ago! Click here.