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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various artists - Singles: The Great New York Singles Scene

So what we have here is a load of classic record sides from various New York independent bands of the mid- and late-70s, collected on a single cassette, courtesy of the gang at ReachOut International Records, better known to the likes of youse as ROIR. What a great label: the home to the first Bad Brains and Bush Tetras records, the Stimulators tape, Glenn Branca and Suicide and Lee "Scratch" Perry and G.G. Allin and the Raincoats and just a metric fuckton of amazing sounds from downtown when it was still a beautiful shithole where you could get an apartment for $75 a month.

They're all stone cold hits. One could slap the original 1974 cut of "Piss Factory" of Patti Smith on as side A, track 1, fart on a snare drum for the remaining 87 minutes of a C90, and it'd still be worth it. But to then follow up with a pair of Ork Records releases ("Little Johnny Jewel Pt. 1" and a pre-Voivods "Blank Generation"), and you know you're in for sheer excellence. While the remainder of the tape isn't quite as Hall of Fame as those first three, they're all an awesome sampling of pre-Koch DIY NYC. There's the John Cale-produced Model Citizens, and Theoretical Girls, featuring Glenn Branca, both presaging the No Wave scene. Invaders and the Speedies turn out a pair of power pop cuts that, had they come out of L.A. or the Midwest, would have influenced generations of tunesmiths who wanted to be something more than KISS or Cheap Trick. Even the Mumps, playing something akin to post-glam, wouldn't truly get their due for years until after vocalist Lance Loud died.

Despite the last release of this coming in the early 90s, only some of these cuts have gotten collected elsewhere; I'm thinking specifically about Numero Group's awesome "Ork Records: Complete Singles" box set from 2015. Still, with the weather turning a bit cold and a leather jacket becoming climate appropriate, this is a good way to tune into some old stuff that wouldn't otherwise be easy to track down.

Discogs

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