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Review – The Rhythm Dogs “The Dogfather”
On “The Dogfather,” the Rhythm Dogs’ first album in seven years, the Portland band returns with an unusual blend of groove-based jazz, funk, ska, blues, Latin, and Afrobeat.
The band is made up of saxophonist Mary-Sue Tobin, trombonist Greg Scholl, keyboardist Chris Azorr, drummer Mark Burdon, percussionist Chuk Barber, and bassist Mark von Bergen, who together with the recently deceased John Rink (to whom the album is dedicated) founded the band in 2000.
Critical listeners usually approach a work sequentially, but one may want to start with the opener “The Big Up” and then jump to “Respect Bossman.“ These tracks feature guitarist Jennifer Batten, who toured the world and recorded with both Michael Jackson and guitar master Jeff Beck. She tears through both cuts with aggressiveness and impeccable taste adding incendiary solos and exquisitely funky rhythm work. Another highlight are the three cuts featuring Jamaican legend Scientist, one of the most influential figures in dub and roots reggae music. Here he mixes Pharoah Sander’s spiritual anthem from the 1970s “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” given a clever ska arrangement by the band, and launches that tune and the reggae-tinged “Sapphire” into the outer circles of dub. He uses the same echo-drenched treatment that he has applied to recordings of the most important figures in Jamaican music, Bob Marley, Lee “Scratch” Perry, and Sly & Robbie among them.
While Batten’s and Scientist’s contributions add undeniable power and dimension to the disc, there is plenty more here.
Other than the Pharaoh Sanders tune, the album is made up entirely of strong originals ranging from the funky “Weetie” and the Fela-meets-Ornette “Afro-Funkolodics 3000 AD” to a pair of stunning ballads, “Mimi in the Country” and “Song for My Mother” (the latter incorporating the rarely performed changes of Mingus’s “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”) – and plenty in between.
While the compositions are well constructed and creative, the interplay and soloing also stand out.
Tobin’s work on tenor and alto soars especially on some well-developed and inventive solos on “The Big Up,” in which she handles the challenging task of following Batten’s burning guitar work, and on “Mimi” where she takes Azorr’s stunningly beautiful melody and makes it her own. Azorr’s keyboard work is always thoughtful and inspired especially his grand piano on “Mimi.” Scholl’s trombone, present on all four Rhythm Dogs’ albums, is stronger than ever; his tone is clear and powerful and his soloing often tests the outside parameters of the music’s harmonic structures. von Bergen, who penned most of the tunes, provides an elastic and muscular bottom, with nods to funkateer Bootsy Collins, reggae’s Robbie Shakespeare, and free-funk pioneer Jamaaladeen Tacuma. The rhythm section – which often steals the spotlight – is composed of Barber of the iconic Latin funk band WAR (Low Rider, Spill the Wine, Slippin’ Into Darkness) and Berklee-educated Burdon. Together provide a solid and rolling undercurrent and are featured on a couple of fiery percussion duets.
This is the Rhythm Dogs’s finest effort to date and must be heard. Very highly recommended.
To order the album, go to www.facebook.com/rhythmdogs or contact rhythm.dogs@gmail.com.
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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