In 1990, Mental As Anything members had agreed to take a sabbatical from their band work and turned to solo or side projects. Mombassa and O'Doherty formed the duo Reg & Peter/Peter & Reg (they alternated names whenever interviewed). Under the name of Reg & Peter, the duo issued the single "Jean / Nobody Home" in March 1991 on Regular Records, the song is described by Mombassa as "a fusion of psychedelic and Celtic rock 'n 'roll dealing with metaphysical romance", before assuming the name Reg & Peter's Dog Trumpet for the album 'Two Heads One Brain'. The album made the Rolling Stone's list of top albums for the year. Two further singles were lifted from the album, "Made of Wood / Red Brick Home" in June 1991 (the cover art for which is a painting of a howling dog trumpet by Mombassa) and "I'm So Handsome / Dream" in October 1991. The name Dog Trumpet came from a piece of Mombassa's artwork which featured a creature resembling a cross between a dog, a trumpet and a jet engine. The album was produced by Steve James and helping out in the studio were Mike Gubb on keyboards (ex-Dynamic Hepnotics, Mental as Anything, The Whitlams), John Bliss on drums (ex-The Reels) and Mark Honeybrook on bass.
The next two years saw the release of two EPs, 'Kiss a Gun Down' in October 1992 and 'Strange Brew' in October 1993. Film clips were made for "Beast of Prey" and "Melancholy Way", although they were not released as singles. ''Strange Brew'' was an inspired reworking of the old Cream song. The artwork for 'Strange Brew', was painted by Martin Sharp, who designed several album covers for the real Cream in the late 1960s. Tony Martin had replaced Honeybrook on bass.
After that, Mental as Anything re-emerged to tour and record, with Dog Trumpet put on the backburner. In 1996, Reg and Pete revived Dog Trumpet and issued the album 'Suitcase'. Backing the duo in the studio were Tony Martin, Andy Travers on drums (ex-the Happening Thang) and Amanda Brown on violin, backing vocals (ex-The Go-Betweens). "Suitcase" was released as a single on TWA Records in 1996, with "Into the Bible" released by TWA as a radio single in 1997 (the cover picture of a lecturing monster is by Mombassa).
The band's third album, 'Dog Trumpet', was recorded over a period of years and was engineered and produced by O'Doherty on an old sixteen track reel to reel in the spare room of his flat in Coogee. It was released in February 2002 on Half A Cow Records. Aside from regular drummers, they used Terepai Richmond for some tracks. The cover is a painting by Mombassa of him and his brother Peter when they were small children. Dog Trumpet released their fourth album 'Antisocial Tendencies' in March 2007 on Half A Cow Records. The album features a cover of "Lili Marlene", a popular World War II song made famous by Marlene Dietrich.
In 2008 Mombassa and O'Doherty began recording songs for the next Dog Trumpet album, uploading a demo of "The Great South Road", a new song from the forthcoming album, on their MySpace website in December 2008. The album, 'River of Flowers', was released on 28 May 2010. Early August 2013, Dog Trumpet released the double album 'Medicated Spirits' through Orange Lounge Recordings. The album has been short-listed for the 'Australian Music Prize' Australian Album of the Year. The band have also been invited to attend SXSW in March 2014.
Playing various Festivals all over from Port Fairy Folk Festival, Bluesfest, Blue Mountains Music Festival, SXSW. Dog Trumpet lost their talented Drummer/Journalist Iain Shedden in 2017. Dog Trumpet's seventh album, 'Great South Road', was released in May 2020 and featured the singles "Gravity", "Wallpaper", "Lonely Death Cleaning Company", "You've Heard it All Before" and "Overseas and Elsewhere". The album garnered great reviews and because of COVID19 the brothers decided to do various performances live on Facebook to promote the album.
In 2021, their back catalogue was released digitally, with vinyl records released on 29 October 2021 via Demon Records. A new single and video, "F**king Idiots", was released 20 May 2022. Dog Trumpet released a further single. "The Ballad of Clayton Looby" on 9 September 2022, from their forthcoming album, 'Shadowland', which is scheduled to be released on 4 November 2022, on vinyl, CD and digitally worldwide by the Demon Music Group. The video for "The Ballad of Clayton Looby", contains footage from some of Australia’s 1970s surf films, including Alby Falzon’s Morning of the Earth and Phil and Russell Shepard’s A Winter’s Tale and Paul Witzig’s The Lost Witzig Reels. "Nina Simone" the third single from Shadowland, was released on 7 October 2022.
Members
Reg Mombassa (guitar, vocals) Peter O'Doherty (guitar, mandolin, bass) John Bliss (drums)
Mike Grubb (keyboards) Mark Honeybrook (bass) Tony Martin (bass)
Amanda Brown (violin, vocals) Andy Travers (drums) Jess Ciampa (drums) Bernie Hayes (bass)
Hamish Stuart (drums) Jonathan Zwartz (bass) Peter Mitchell (harmonica)
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Trumpet
On a parallel of names, Dogs In Space were a band. Michael Hutchence was in Dogs In Space and Pete & Reg were on the Australian Made bill with INXS in Mental As Anything. Now, with Dogs In Space, came a band called Thrush & The Cunts. I see the Hard Ons and that is a reference to a Penis, so why are Thrush & The Cunts not here ? The irony is, they are now. I think Ollie Olsen had a hand in the soundtrack for Dogs In Space, which Ollie was in that band and later Max Q with Michael Hutchence.
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