various artists - Macro Dub Infection Volume One

Before I fanboyed out of Lee Perry and King Tubby and Scientist, this was what I thought of when I thought of dub. Less associated in my brain with reggae at that time than as a confluence of many branches of electronic music, I was more familiar with Bill Laswell and Spring Heel Jack at that time. And "Macro Dub Infection Volume One", which I first encounted in the back pages of my buddy's CaseLogic binder, is the key reason why.

I love how broadly defined dub is here. This is a distinctly British endeavor, featuring names like Mad Professor, Laika, 4hero, and the Disciples. The Yanks make a couple of appearances: it's the first time I ever heard Tortoise, and Laswell performs under his illbient Automaton banner. This was also probably the first time I had come across Tricky. "Maxinquaye", "Nearly God", and "Pre-Millenial Tension" were such huge records for me in the late 90s, and this was my first exposure to his genius. There are even surface outliers like COIL and Scorn present, though a dive into their tracks provides the context that, yeah, they belong here.

Released on Virgin in the UK and Caroline in the States, it was nice turning up a copy for $3 at Value Village over the summer and nudging me to really dig back into my mid-90s electronic collection. And apologies for any stray tagging here; I would have gone back and corrected with a fresh upload, but I also downgraded my copy on my hard drive to a 128kbps version and stored the CDs. And most folks I know would trade incomplete tagging for a high sample rate.

Discogs

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various artists - Select Cuts From Blood & Fire

I feel bad that I missed my last posting slot. Outside of my professional life, I tend towards not being disciplined. So it's important to me that I follow through when I commit to doing something; whether that's posting twice a week, or following my Reminders app religiously, or just being on time. And when I fall short, it stings, no matter how banal or unimportant in the greater scheme that task might be.

But I don't feel that bad.

Now that that's out of the way: on to the music. In this case, it's a cheapy pickup from eBay. Whenever I see "Blood & Fire" on a record, my brain perks up. I'm a huge fan of what the now-defunct Mancunian reissue label put together during it's 15-some-odd year history. And when I can snag one of their out-of-print releases for a buck or two, all the better. So a late night scroll turned this guy up without an awful lot of information. I didn't consider cross referencing what this was on Discogs; it was going for $1 plus shipping, fer Crissake! Just pull the trigger.

So I did, and it arrived, and I was pleasantly surprised. Select Cuts was a sub-label of noted remixers Echo Beach, It paired contemporary artists with older catalogs and let them go off with remixes. The results, as I've come to discover, are pretty solid. There are names I know (the Orb, Stereo MC's, Transglobal Underground) remixing artists I love (Horace Andy, King Tubby, the Congos). Simple as.

This isn't something I would have ever sought out, but it's something I'm happy I stumbled across. Rabbit Rabbit, everyone.

Discogs

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various artists - Yesterday (16 Fab B**tles Reggae Classics)

4/30 update: apparently, I forgot to post the link. And Mega was giving me a hard time, so you get a Kraken link on this one. Sorry, gang. On with the shit talk.

It's confession time. I....(sigh).

I do NOT like the Beatles.

It seems antithetical to my current "let's see how dumb I was to dislike this when I was 18" stance, but I still cannot get into the Fab Four in my late age. I will offer grudging respect to solo George Harrison and Paul McCartney, definitely fuck with Beatles-adjacents like Billy Preston and Yoko Ono, but I just can't hang with the Liverpudlian legends. Maybe it's the boomer worship, maybe it's that John Lennon always struck me as a self-important pud, maybe it's just because the Stones are more fun. But I just don't get how anyone under the age of 60, most of whom weren't alive when the Beatles were a working band, can worship them.

HOWEVER...I can absolutely get behind a Beatles cover. Whether it's Motown covering the early pop catalog, or Nina Simone's version of "My Sweet Lord", or this collection from 1991, there's something about a different artist interpreting Lennon/McCartney that makes it click for me. This has a few AAA headliners on it (the Maytals, Dandy Livingston, John Holt), but it's a lot of deeper cuts from the Trojan vaults AND includes a fair amount of solo work. Even viewed as a relative novelty, this helps prove that the Beatles weren't TOTAL shit, and maybe I should pull my head out of my ass on this one.

Discogs

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various artists - X-Ray Music: A Blood And Fire Dub Directory

The summer is coming to an end, which, for me, means really stepping up the amount of reggae I listen to. Starlit nights call for a righteous dub to tear down Babylon. And this, a 1999 sampler from the late, lamented Blood & Fire label, is almost purpose-built for such a need. Headlined by a quintet of King Tubby dubs, along with productions from Scientist, Lee Perry, and Prince Jammy, this is a pretty irie CD.

Did I use "irie" correctly?

Discogs

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various artists - Bonus CD: Rebel Discomixes

Another reggae record, since I forgot to load up something for Friday.

This one came via a Half Price Books "fill a bag for $25" sale several years ago, and while I'd prefer to have the whole "The Best Of Studio One Collection" set, I'll settle for having this disc of extended mixes. You get a trio of Dennis Alcapone deejay cuts, a lil' something from the Jackie Mittoo-led Soul Vendors, some early Winston Francis, and Tommy McCook leading the Brentford Disco Set.

Six tracks, 47 minutes, dub on, gang.

Discogs

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various artists - Young Gifted And Black: The Story Of Trojan Records

UPDATE 1/25/23: new Kraken link uploaded.

I stopped by the local Half Price Books over the weekend, my favorite ex-employer, on the hunt for some Criterion laserdiscs and other fun at (you guessed it) half price. Any day that ends with a double disc of "Glen and Glenda" and "Bride of the Monster", a copy of Samuel Fuller's "The Naked Kiss", and a few other classics on 30mm aluminum is a good day. However, I took a quick peek into the music book section and found a copy of "Young Gifted And Black: The Story Of Trojan Records", a 2003 book put out by Trojan owner (at the time) Sanctuary Publishing. While I wasn't necessarily feeling spending the money, I'd never seen a copy on the shelves before, and it came with the compilation I share now. Who am I to deny a sign from the reggae gods?

By now, it should be quite clear that I'm into reggae. I'm not into some Ras Trent/cultural appropriation/I like to get wicked stoned white boy reggae scene. I'm into the deepest south soul, six hours of Lee Perry dubs, a chanting down of Babylon and a celebration of skinheads. My first ever Trojan purchase was a two-fer: Symarip's "Skinhead Moonstomp" and the classic "Monkey Business" comp. It was the introduction to another bit of obsession, searching out not just more reissues and compilations, but always keeping an eye out for dub plates and white labels and the records I'd mostly just read about or heard on the random radio show.

I've yet to start reading the book, but this was am immediate "load it onto the phone" record. At 33 minutes long, it's almost just a sampler; barely scratching the surface of initial seven year heyday. But, fuck, if this doesn't pique your curiosity, get you dancing or crate digging, then I guess you're in the wrong place, baby.

Discogs

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various artists - In Dub Daze: An On-U Sound Compilation

Amongst a wide range of industrial, deathrock, ambient, and acid house releases, there are a few gems in Cleopatra's 90s catalog. Although I couldn't appreciate it at the time, I can look at those first five years and say, "whoa, they really had their shit together". After all, they were the ones putting Kraftwerk's best records back in print on CD, putting out new stuff from Psychic TV and Helios Creed, and giving a young Ape his first exposure to Blitz, Angelic Upstarts, and Broken Bones. They licensed some hella good stuff, a fair amount of which it took me a long time to get into (looking at you, Kommunity FX). And they had strong distribution via Caroline, which meant you wouldn't necessarily have to crate dig in order to find something cool.

They compiled a bunch of the On-U Sound singles, initially released as vinyl only in the early 80s, across three CDs in 1996 and 1997. The first of these, "In Dub Daze", turned up in a cutout bin at Camelot Music in Harford Mall sometime during my first obsessive wave with dub.

...and that's where I left this, back in April, when I essentially quit writing for a few months. I'll leave the knob polishing alone from here on out...you get it: Cleopatra put out some solid reissues back in the 90s. Adrian Sherwood's collective isn't on the level of Scientist or Lee Perry to me, but it's summer, and when the heat dome camped out over the MSO Compound here in the PNW a few weeks back, it found myself playing this on repeat. It has some swelter on its side, some shimmy.

Discogs

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Flux (Of Pink Indians) - Uncarved Block

Your enthusiasm for the things you love waxes and wanes. I haven't listened to Minor Threat in at least 3 years but their 26 songs remain my favorite hardcore of all time. I believe that Mrs. Ape and I have watched no less than 15 seasons of the various Drag Race shows over the past month. So it goes, too, with the blog.

Let's face it: my desire, after 7-10 hours of steady work on my new, at-home, on-the-computer job, to spend any amount of further time on my personal computer, is minimal. It doesn't mean that I don't like writing, or discovering and sharing my favorites; I'd just rather hang out with the missus and the dog, which doesn't leave much time for this fun little hobby. So if you see less of me here, or the posts are a bit...terse, just take it as I'm ramping down. I scratched the itch that led me to pick this back up a month after I lost my job last year.

The rise of the 45th PotUS led me back into the welcoming arms of the mid-80s anarcho-punk that I fell in love with back in my teens. I never got into the crusty lifestyle (I was really into Fred Perrys and Converse, and liked working), but the music, the deep alternative not just to the mainstream but even the relative selling out of punk culture...well, it was hot. And an aggressive, antisocial response to right wing hegemony spoke to me once again. So I started revisiting my Crass Records singles: not just the namesake band, but K.U.K.L., Dirt, Poison Girls, and the mighty Flux Of Pink Indians.

So it was that sometime last fall, I spent a fiver (plus S&H) and ordered this, FoPI's third and final studio LP. I'd never heard it, it was inexpensive, and I saw Adrian Sherwood was featured on it, so I figured I'd dig it. I did; I DID dig it. It's exactly the sort of "progressive" record I'd imagine you'd make as you grew a bit older, absorbed more influences, met new people you'd want to collaborate with, while still staying true to your core independent spirit. While at 43, I'd still love to make music in a punk style, I cannot imagine making it without it reflecting dub production, Memphis brass, clanging percussion. That's what you get here.

I'll see you the next time I feel the itch.

Discogs

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Yah Congo Meets King Tubby & Professor At Dub Table

I spent my time yesterday that I'd normally blog working for a client, so not only did I miss a day, this one will also be short, which is fine, because I'll be damned if I can find out much more about this other than what it says in the liner notes.

It's a set of King Tubby and Professor mixes, featuring the likes of Larry Marshall and the Gladiators, produced and arranged by Glen Darby, aka Yah Congo. While the liners don't give a specific recording period, I'm guessing this happened right around the same time Darby produced the under-heard Skatalites reunion session later released under "Heroes of Reggae in Dub": so right around 1975-76. Darby released some cool sides under his See Yah Me label, including Delroy Wilson's "I've Been In Love" and Calvin Stewart's "Bablan Turn", both of which have these great Black Brother versions on their B-sides.

So what do you have here? Just some real solid riddims, with heavy monster dub production courtesy of the late King Tubby and Professor, who was acting at Tubby's assistant during this period at King Tubby's Studio. I don't love this so much as some of the Scientist records I've shared, but it's a strong enough rarity that I'm kind of shocked it's never been reissued before. It's cold and it's wet outside, and I give 3:2 that the world might come to an end in a few weeks, so something appropriately apocalyptic and spiritual in right in my wheelhouse.

Discogs

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Bad Brains X John Yates

If you follow him on Instagram, then you're probably already hip to John Yates' take on the classic graphic design aesthetic behind Blue Note Records. John kicked off his "Punk Note" series in May, with a killer take on "Here Are The Sonics", influenced by Reid Miles' covers for the timeless jazz label in the 50s and 60s. As John notes in his initial posting, "I took [Miles's] aesthetic and applied a history of punk filter. I took 1965 as my starting point, and took it through to 1990, the year before “punk broke” #sonicyouth. There are going to be bands/musicians I either missed, or chose to leave out, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time." 200 covers and a month later, he'd covered a huge swath of punk history. And all of it, as you'd expect, looked pretty grand.

While that was taking place, the Bad Brains were consolidating chunks of their back catalog under their dormant Bad Brains Records label. Teaming with California's Org Music, the DC/NY hardcore legends had regained the masters to all of their records from their first 10 years in existence, excepting 1986's "I Against I" (still under control of SST Records). They relaunched their website and solicited preorders for the first round of reissues, due to launch in February 2021.

Now, you're probably like me, in that you own every Bad Brains record you want to own, often times in multiple formats. I have my Caroline CD of "Rock For Light" that I bought from Stikky Fingers in Fells Point sometime around 1996, a yellow shell copy of "Bad Brains" that I snagged on eBay a few months ago, and my Victory Records picture disc 10" of "The Omega Sessions". Having copped that 2019 "Black Dots" vinyl reissue when it came out, I don't need any more Bad Brains records any more.

BUT, part of this reissue campaign involves Sr. Yates doing limited edition "Punk Note" covers for the BB's first, second, and fourth records. Over the next year, Bad Brains Records will reissue "Bad Brains", "Rock For Light", and "Quickness" on limited-to-1,000-pieces colored vinyl, featuring a redesigned cover. "Bad Brains" (aka the ROIR tape) comes in green, "Rock For Light" on yellow, and "Quickness" on red. "Rock For Light" is even reverting to its original 1983 mix and track order, a great development if, like me, you've only had access to the 1991 Ocasek/Jennifer remix. And as used to the lightning bolt hitting the Capitol Building as I am, the design and photography on these reissues is simply phenomenal.

One can preorder "Bad Brains", as well as a new pressing of the "Pay To Cum" 7", at Bad Brains Records now. Both are shipping spring 2021.

Hakim Bey - T.A.Z.

I've been familiar with Hakim Bey for around 25 years now, probably as a natural extension of studying anarchism in my late teens and early 20s. There was (and still is) something attractive about his running with Burroughs, his presence in far-left culture from Leary's League for Spiritual Discovery all the way up through Occupy, and his ability to draw links between politics, crime, and art. His pedophilia, once it became more public, put me off in a big way.

So why share "T.A.Z."? Well, it's a weird-ass artifact from the mid-90s. "T.A.Z." is a spoken word record, scored and arranged by Bill Laswell on his Axiom label (a sub-label of Island Records). Like Laswell's Material work, the music here is grounded in dub, but moves continually into Eno-esque ambience and drone. I don't love Laswell, but this remains interesting to me.

And that's because of the readings from Temporary Autonomous Zone that comprise the spoken word portions of the record. There's theory at play here that, in practice, can make life still worth living, especially as our national culture devolves into fascism. Bey once spoke about the energy having been spent out of American activism; creation of a separatist structure outside the boundaries of control can be a recharge to activism. By attaching a finite time limit to its existence, one can also avoid the depression of what is intended as a permanent autonomous zone being destroyed.

I dunno...that's what I'm thinking about right now. Maybe tomorrow I'll have some dick jokes and I'll write about some dumb punk rock record. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Discogs

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Augustus Pablo - East Of The River Nile

I'm 43 today.

I've really hit a wall about what I wanted to write about for this momentous occasion. Birthdays are just...mehf. I come from Patton Oswalt's stance on the matter: when you're an adult, a celebration once a decade until you're 90, then a slap on the ass the other nine birthdays. Is it a sign of a depressed personality? Almost certainly; I'll own it. I'm part of that last "great" generation of white men who were raised to believe that no one really gives a shit about your feelings, and that you should do something that really "matters" if you think you should be celebrated. No wonder I'm fucking depressed. What a hell of a way to be raised.

I've often thought about musicians dying young as I've grown older. I once thought I wouldn't make it past 22 (Buddy Holly, Darby Crash). 1999 was such a shit year, having sold a big chunk of my record collection, split up with the first love of my life, and moved off to a college I'd fail out of within a year. I slept with a pistol under a pillow for months, begging myself not to use it. I blew past the 27 Club. I got married, finally got a degree, and bought a house. Within another five years, most of that would be gone, the only thing left another several years of student debt. I hit 40, and I felt like I finally had the world by the balls. I lived in a place I loved, with a woman I adored, making a living wage for the first time ever. I even took a real staycation for the first time ever. I returned to work three days later, and got laid off. I haven't had a stable job since.

Can you see why I'm not high on my birthday? There are times where it feels like it's the herald of a new load of misery.

Augustus Pablo was 44 when he died of a collapsed lung in 1999. There are two ways I look at this. One is that I'm almost as old as he was, and that I'll never make a work of art as great or lasting as "East of the River Nile". The man made the melodica sound as cool as Coltrane's sax or Watt's bass. What can I possibly do to measure up? The other is that I'm still here; I can still discover the genius in a piece of art like this. It's in the discovering that, even when everything else feels like it's shit, I find the momentum to keep moving. Crate digging can make a bad day good, a good day great. I found a Canadian cassette of this a couple years ago that had never been entered on Discogs; at 19 cents, it's probably one of my favorite thrift store finds from the past few years.

Depression is an anchor that weighs me down every day. I take medicine and participate in therapy and work on myself every day and it's a fucking drag even on the best days. Yeah, even on a day like today, it can be tempting to let myself drown. It's music like this that helps me float, sometimes even surf in life.

Discogs

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The Heptones ‎– Unreleased Night Food & Rare Black Ark Sessions

Summer time is the right time to roll down the windows, turn up the bass, and drive around listening to reggae as loud as you can stand.

In honor of that sentiment, as well as the unofficial end of summer coming today, here's a now-out-of-print collection of Heptones recordings, circa 1976, the great majority of which have never been released anywhere else. It's only been in the past couple of years that I've branched out to embrace any roots reggae or lover's rock. What I had previously dismissed as second-rate Bob Marley now opened up, in great part to all the dub I'd been finding cheap and listening to since moving to the PNW.

The Heptones were a remarkable trio of vocalists whose history together dated back to the late 1950's as a street-corner harmony group. They'd gather together in 1966 for their first recording sessions, cutting a trio of rocksteady albums for Studio One before slowing down their sound. They'd work with a variety of producers from 1971 to 1975, before convening at the Black Ark, Lee Perry's renowned studio, at the behest of Island Records to make "Night Food".

What's cool about these recordings are not only the outtakes from a group at the height of their powers, but also the intersection of so many awesome musicians backing them. Leroy Sibbles would leave the group within a year of cutting "Night Food", but you couldn't tell by the level of performance heard here. A key chunk of the Wailers would back the Heptones here, contemporaneously with the recording of "Rastaman Vibration". Credited as the Wailers All-Stars, the Brothers Barrett, Touter Harvey, and Chinna Smith all lay down some amazing riddims. Of course, the standout is the engineering of Lee Perry. This was one of the final sessions held at the Black Ark before Perry burnt it down. The production is just out of this world; the collaboration between Perry and the Heptones would continue into Perry's "Super Ape" and the final classic-lineup Heptones release, 1977's "Party Time". To me, this is a perfect jam for the last warm days of the year.

Discogs

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various artists - Dub Chill Out

Lee Perry photo from jamaicanmusic.com

It's finally gotten hot here in Washington state, so what better way to cool off during an international viral crisis than by bumping some dub?

I got this through work the year it came out. Music Club was a UK budget label that did a fair amount of inexpensive compilations that I'd still recommend to people looking to get into a particular music style. In this case, this was the first record of dub I'd ever bought. I knew who Lee Perry was, but was in the dark about everyone else. It was a great introduction to a number of the all-time greats: King Tubby, King Jammy, Scientist, Augustus Pablo, and the all-time great riddim section of Sly & Robbie.

I thought it'd be fun, since I have no access to the original CD, to do a bit of annotation and list what releases each of these tracks come from. And then I started working on it, and discovered it was a lot more difficult than I'd have expected. So why don't you just lean back and listen to this, and I'll go get us some ice cream?

Discogs

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Scientist vs. Prince Jammy - Big Showdown

Scientist at Channel One – 1983 (Photo: Beth Lesser)

I don't have a lot to say here that I didn't already mention in my earlier Scientist post. This is Scientist and Prince Jammy, doing dub plates of Barrington Levy tracks, backed by Roots Radics. Pretty standard early 80s reggae excellence, as far as I'm concerned.

What's fun about this release is that the original Jamaican release on Jah Guidance apparently has completely difference music from the overseas releases on Greensleeves and Мирумир. This version comes from the 2015 Мирумир CD reissue, which omits Prince Jammy's credit on the cover. I found it new for $8 at a Half Price Books. How they ended up new copies, I'll never know.

Also worth pointing out: apparently Scientist and Greensleeves had a falling out in the recent past, so all the reissues coming out of the UK have no reference to the all-time great producer. It seems weird to me that the only legit reissue, with proper billing, comes from Russia. But it's a weird, weird world, ladies and germs. I'm just trying to hear some decent dub.

Discogs

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Scientist Wins The World Cup

YO! SCIENTIST!

I dunno why people in this part of the world keep dumping amazing dub records into Value Village and Goodwill, but I'll be damned if I complain. I came across this fun disc a couple years back for all of $2, which makes it a fine purchase. This is the final record Scientist mixed at King Tubby's Studio before he moved over to Channel One. All the Greensleeves themed records from that time period are excellent, but I'm sharing this because it fits the "dollar bin" theme, and who doesn't like a good soccer cartoon cover? This is also the 2002 CD reissue, which includes six extra tracks.

Dub is not for everyone. But if studio wizardry is your bag, well, this one waves a big ol' wand over some Roots Radics tracks and weaves some magic. I've always felt like dub is a great work-from-home soundtrack. Great sounds, few distractions. Check this riddim out, bud.

Discogs

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