TUBBY AND THE DUB TOY

I've listened to enough yapping today and I just ran into a collection of dub sides that King Tubby did. Recorded from 1974-1979, with his got-to posse, the Aggrovators. The Aggrovators had Carlton Barret, Sly Dunbar, Carlton "Santa' Davis, Robbie Shakespeare, Aston Barrett and Tony Chin. I would think that any of you with a decent knowledge of reggae would recognize at least a couple of those names. Just Sly and Robbie alone (pre-syn-drums!), they were the hot rhythm section at the time.

This record used to be all over the place. I put off picking it for years because the LP cover was so unimaginative. That's a nice way of saying it sucks. I've seen bad album covers on good reggae records but this one prevented me from even picking it up. And it was on a Canadian label, so I probably thought the mixes were factory seconds, not his best stuff. Once I knew more about reggae, saw the personnel listed on the back and considered the era (pre-digital), it wasn't hard to find a copy. You can usually find a used LP for less than twenty bucks. If you just want to check out an online version (with downloads) there's a link below.

The big news tonight is that, when looking at past Tubby links here, I was reminded of this Dub Selector thing. It's a interactive page with nine or so riddims that you can fuck with yourself, albeit in a primitive nature. But it's fun making noise and, depending on your level of boredom, amount of mood enhancers, and interest in dub, you could be there for a long time. My best advice is to just start clicking away on anything that's blinking or moving. Some have echo effects, some drop out one instrument or more, and some are just a rim shot here, or a reverb kick there. Most have vocals that can be brought up, or dropped out. The small dark purple icons at the bottom take you to different riddims. If you are at all into dub, this site is a something you ought to bookmark.

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Listen:
King Tubby - Rastafari Dub (1974-1979) at Internet Archive 12 mp3s or streaming, In the right column, under "Download options" click on "VBR MP3 Files"
Play:
Infinite Wheel Presents Dub City Rockers (Interactive dub simulators. Description in paragraph above.)

HAT SIZE? FOR WHAT?

If you know anything about the history of dub, you know who King Tubby is. He pretty much invented it. He was the first producer/engineer to fade shit out and fade shit back in. He was an electronic wizard, built his own systems, and so on. In his wake came Prince Jammy, Scientist and others. I mention those two because I ran into a mix that has all three of them. I also ran across that photo above, the first I've ever seen of Tubby with hair. That's a "stop the presses!" moment for some. Is for me.

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Listen:

King Tubby - First Generation mp3 at Internet Archive
Prince Jammy - Second Generation mp3 at Internet Archive
Scientist - Third Generation mp3 at Internet Archive
King Tubby - Tubby's New Fashion mp3 at Internet Archive
Prince Jammy - Prince Jammy On The Scene mp3 at Internet Archive
Scientist - Scientist At His Best mp3 at Internet Archive
King Tubby - Tubb's The Originator mp3 at Internet Archive
King Tubby - Original Stylee mp3 at Internet Archive

AIN'T NO BRUBECK I KNOW

I've never listened to these three reggae versions of "Take Five" back to back, so you're stuck with them. The first of the three is Val Bennett's "The Russians Are Coming", which is just a cover renamed, a scrappy attempt to skirt publishing royalties. Yeah, you know, fooled everybody. The next, also by Bennett, was found with the title "Blow Mr. Hornsman Part 2". My guess is that it's a version B-side. Whatever. It's a little more out there. The third is attributed to King Tubby even though he doesn't play a damn instrument. This is about where I start thinking about what a huge mess record keeping must have been in the sixties and seventies Jamaican music biz. With a shitload of independent labels, a bunch of studios, musicians often on multiple labels, repeatedly used riddims, versions, dubs, and DJ versions, many with different names. Shit, who could keep up with all of that?

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Listen:
Val Bennett - The Russians Are Coming mp3 at Aurgasm
Val Bennett - Blow Mr. Hornsman Pt 2 mp3 at Beware of the Blog
King Tubby - Take Five mp3 (streaming) at YouTube
The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Take Five (streaming) at YouTube

GRAB BAG SPOTLIGHT

There's no theme here. My tastes are varied. So, apparently, is my mood tonight. I've been sidetracked over at The Explosive Generation. When I run into a high concentration of different types of music that I happen to like, I know enough to dig around a little bit. If you are a record store, I would be the pest. Which is all to say, there's some good music over there, particularly if you like to dabble outside of your safety zone.

Here's just a few. "Rumble", as you know, is the big bang of badassery. It is the air you breath. Don't ask any more about that. Ronnie Cook and the Gaylad's OG version of "Goo Goo Muck", so we can all have a moment for Lux. Ditto, sorta, Warren Smith's "Dear John", it's rockabilly anyway. Then there's King Tubby, because...fuck, do I have to give you reasons? Because it's Tubby. damn it. Sir Lord Baltimore is down there for you aging 70's hard rock second tier band freaks. The Digits,...go fish.

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Listen:
Link Wray - The Rumble mp3 at The Explosive Generation
Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads - The Goo Goo Muck mp3 at The Explosive Generation
Warren Smith - Dear John mp3 at The Explosive Generation
King Tubby - Money Dub mp3 at The Explosive Generation
Sir Lord Baltimore - Hell Hound mp3 at The Explosive Generation
Didjits - Turn It Up mp3 at The Explosive Generation

BACK OFF JACK

Reggae fiends, commence chop licking. I practically tripped on these in a clicking frenzy, and they're all choice cuts for one reason or another.  The first one is, in a word, killer.  It's the one credited to "Various Artists," and is a disco single, and each side has a vocal, with some King Tubby dub, and Augustus Pablo slathered on top of it for good measure.  Side one is Jacob Miller's "Keep On Rocking," and the flip is the Heptones "Love Won't Come Easy."  There's a whole lot going on in these two cuts, enough to warrant a slight pain in the ass to download (it's a rar file, so get out your chosen extraction machine). The Meditations cut is a Lee Perry production, and if you're like me, you can't get enough of stuff with crazy producer stink on it. The Marley thing is also a Lee Perry work, a little less spit shined than the Marley stuff played incessantly by the hackey sackers.  And there's one by the Perry himself, from the last recordings he, the crazy producer, made before intentionally burning his Black Ark Studio to the ground. The Minstrels' cover of the Impressions "People Get Ready" is a Studio One joint, so it's a no-brainer.  It's supa-smooth.  It's from a 45 reissue, the original is apparently pretty rare, routinely selling for over a grand.  So, yeah, suck that one up.

Club Cortez, the blog that hosts all of these is awesome for all sorts of non-rock 'n' roll stuff.  There's a great Hawaiian mix, distilled from thrift store Hawaiian LPs with the cuts selected for their "weirder and more alien" qualities (here, here!).  Another post has a great Latin Jazz LP by some dude named Montego Joe.  It would behoove you to do some digging around over there. 

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Listen:
Various Artists - Keep On Knocking and Love Won't Come Easy (1979) (via DivShare) at Club Cortez See description above. Jacob Miller, the Heptones, King Tubby and Augustus Pablo, on one disco single. 
The Meditations - No Peace (1978) mp3 at Club Cortez 
Bob Marley - Rainbow Country (1979) mp3 at Club Cortez 
Lee Perry - Bed Jammin' (1980) mp3 at Club Cortez 
The Minstrells - People Get Ready (1968) mp3 at Club Cortez 
Visit: 
Club Cortez

REGGAE GRAB BAG

After finding another reggae version of Dave Brubeck's "Take Five," this was going to be a one song post, but as is usually the case, well enough could not be left alone. So here's a grab bag of sorts, starting with Bennett's version of "Take Five" followed by another version by King Tubby. After that, Stranger Cole's "Rough and Tough," because it's a nice example of how bluebeat borrowed heavily from early R & B from the States. Alton Ellis and Pat Kelly are in there because I happened to run across them and dig them quite a bit. Roy and the Invaders' cut down there, "Fat Dog," is a bit of an oddity. Released on Coxsone Dodd's Iron Side imprint, it's one of very few reggae songs to prominently feature a harmonica. And the last of the songs down there, "Where The Healing Waters Flow," by Claris Brown, is one from another Dodd imprint, Tabernacle, a label he reserved for gospel oriented records. (Dodd had a bunch of labels. partly because his Studio One label dominated the Jamaican charts. He released records on different labels to try to avoid cries of radio station favoritism.

While on my rambling spree I ran across two other sites to add. Jamaican Archives has several great mixes, mostly vintage "Jamaican music created in the heyday of the 45rpm single." The all covers mix linked below has Alton Ellis' cover of "It's Your Thing," Slim Smith's cover of "Spanish Harlem," and the Pioneers' cover of "Papa Was A Rolling Stone," just to name three. I also ran across another site that I hadn't seen before. The imaginatively named Rasta Reggae Music has a ton of stuff, uploaded on Mediafire. (You'll figure it out.) Both LP and 45 downloads, so no matter what your attention span is, there should be something for you. And there's quite a bit too. It will keep you out of trouble for a while.

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Listen:
Val Bennett -Take Five mp3 at Beware of the Blog
King Tubby - Take Five (dubless) mp3 at 8106
Stranger Cole - Rough and Tough mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu
Alton Ellis - Cry Tough mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu
Pat Kelly - You Are Not My Kind mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Roy and the Invaders - Fat Dog mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Claris Brown - Where the Healing Waters Flow mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Mix:
Cover Me Jamaica - 21 song mix at Jamaican Archives
Reggae mish mash:
Rasta Reggae Music

DUB JACKPOT!

Okay, casual dub people, this is for you. If you don't have much of any dub in your collection, you ought to start where it all began. Reggae. Dub. Analog. Before it became all that digital laptop nonsense. I ran into three fine mixes on a blog by someone named Vampyreverdi. This guy has a pretty good collection, and although there may be some songs on the three mixes that originated from the same LP, they're all pretty strong mixes. This isn't a case of me being too lazy to do my usual round up of mp3s. These collections are solid enough that if you don't have the wherewithal to download mixes, it's high time you learned. They're worth it. I've put the artists below, but not the titles. The complete listings are at his site. Dig in.

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Heavy Heavy Dub Serial Killers at Vampyreverdi's Blog

Volume 1:

Carlton Patterson & King Tubby, Scientist, Augustus “Gussie” Clarke, Drum Bago & The Rebel Group, Mighty Two, Tappa Zukie, Soul Syndicate And Niney The Observer, Michael Rose, King Tubby, Aggrovators, Glen Brown & King Tubby, Joe Gibbs & The Professionals, Key All Stars, King Tubby & John Holt, Revolutionaries, Lee Scratch Perry & Prince Jammy, Niney The Observe, Scientist & Jammy & The Roots Radics, Sly & Robbie At Prince Jammy’s, Zoot Sims & the Aggrovators, King Tubby, Clint Eastwood

Volume 2:

Lee Perry & The Upsetters, Impact Allstars, Augustus “Gussie” Clarke, Barrington Levy, Rico Rodriguez, Scientist, The Upsetters, King Tubby, The Mighty Two, The Jahlights, The Revolutionaries, Carlton Barrett & Family Man, Augustus Pablo, Gregory Isaacs All Stars, Joe Gibbs & The Professionals, Junior Delgado, Keith Hudson, Lloyd’s All Stars, Soul Syndicate And Niney The Observer, Ranking Dread, King Tubby & The Aggrovators, Bottlehead

Volume 3:

Revolutionaries, Augustus Pablo, Bunny Lee & The Aggrovators, Gladiators, King Tubby, Bigger T, Gregory Isaacs, Herman, Silvertones, Impact All Stars, Johnny Clarke, Mighty Two, Sly & The Revolutionaries, Morwell Meet King Tubby, Observers, Inner Circle, Joe Gibbs, Santic All-Stars, Tommy McCook & The Supersonics, Scientist, Tappa Zukie, Roots Radics Band

PLAY TUBBY FOR ME

The name King Tubby is synonymous with dub, but you knew that right? (If not, here's an excellent profile.) Assuming that you're somewhat familiar with him, you might also know that the Tubby well runs deep. Even if you have a lot of his stuff, even if you're a total obsessive, you're not going to have it everything he's done. After all, it's not like some rock band reissuing something with a few alternate takes. King Tubby's bread and butter was alternate takes. Every time he turned a dial, or moved a fader, and added dub to the title, another version was born. When you take into account material released under his own name, versions he did for other artists, and dub plate sound system exclusives, you come up with a discography that may never be absolutely final.

Earlier this week I received an email from a guy who had seen an earlier post about King Tubby, he actually took the lead, visited Wikipedia to learn more about him, and then procured himself some Tubby sides. As you'd imagine, it made my day. I was already pondering another King Tubby post (because you could do one a week and still not exhaust what's out there), but then I remembered a site I'd bookmarked a few years ago.

The site, Infinite Wheel Presents Dub City Rockers, allows you to play like you're King Tubby. You just start out picking from one of the dub selector options (various starting rhythms), it's take you to another screen and there may or may not be minimal instructions (i.e. what can be achieved with the arrow keys, etc.) but my best advice is to just start clicking away on anything that's blinking or moving. Some have echo effects, some drop out one instrument or more, and some are just a rim shot here, or a reverb kick there. Most have vocals that can be brought up, or dropped out. If you are at all into dub, this site is a something you ought to bookmark. To go through it all would take hours. It'll bring out your inner Tubby.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Play:
Infinite Wheel Presents Dub City Rockers (Interactive dub simulators. Description in paragraph above.)
Listen:
King Tubby - Take Five (dubless) mp3 at 8106
King Tubby Meets the Agrovators - Inspiring Dub mp3 at Salon.com
King Tubby - Dub From the Roots mp3 at Future Shocked
King Tubby - King Tubby Dub mp3 at CubikMusic
King Tubby Meets Lee Perry - Rainy Night Dub mp3 at Cr3ation
King Tubby - King At The Controls mp3 at Walrus Music
King Tubby - A Noisy Place mp3 at Siblingshot On The Bleachers
King Tubby - A Rougher Version mp3 at Gorilla vs Bear
Prince Jammy vs King Tubby - Jah Works mp3 at Siblingshot On The Bleachers
King Tubby & Scientist - Ravin' Dub mp3 at Fat Berri's
King Tubby & Scientist - Copper Shot Dub (Music is My Occupation) mp3 at Siblingshot On The Bleachers
Read:
King Tubby page at Roots Archive
King Tubby profile at Perfect Sound Forever
King Tubby - Discography and dub sources at XRay Music
Earlier posts:
King Tubby & Scientist post
All reggae related posts

KING TUBBY AND SCIENTIST

Here's a whole mess of King Tubby, and a little of Scientist, Tubby's former assistant. I just realized that the "Dub Ten Pack" that I had linked to (in the sidebar, now gone) had expired, so in case you missed those, here's another fix. King Tubby, as you should know by now, pretty much invented dub (I say "pretty much" because there's always some geeks who will dispute anything), and Scientist was some sort of whizz kid who hung around his studio, before breaking out on his own. There's one more down there, if you're not a total purist: a mashup someone did of King Tubby's version of Ring of Fire with Johnny Cash's original. Weird I know, but what the hell...

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King Tubby - Satta Dread Dub mp3 at Siblingshot
King Tubby - Jah Love Rockers Dub mp3 at Siblingshot
King Tubby & Soul Syndicate - King Tubby's Key mp3 at Clumsy & Shy
King Tubby & Ken Boothe - Lotion a Guy From Spain mp3 at Mad Decent
King Tubby - A Noisy Place mp3 at Siblingshot
King Tubby - Soundboy Massacre mp3 at Siblingshot
King Tubby - Take Five mp3 at 8106
King Tubby - Drop Dub mp3 at Siblingshot
King Tubby - Roots of Dub mp3 at Siblingshot
Scientist - Night of the Living Dead mp3 at The New Montreal
Scientist - Yor Teeth In My Neck mp3 at Pringlewood
Scientist - Dance of the Vampire mp3 (via Box.net) at Tonegents
Purists beware:
G3RSt - Dub of Fire (J. Cash/King Tubby mashup) mp3 at Audio Porn

SEE YOU ON THE COUCH

Here's a good selection of dub. Dub aids digestion when prone on a couch, semi-comatose from a tryptophan overload. It's also great for making plans on how to spend all the time you'll free up by not shopping or buying anything for one day. Friday is Buy Nothing Day, which I highly endorse. How many days can you celebrate by not doing anything?

King Tubby - Satta Dread Dub mp3
Augustus Pablo - Keep on Dubbing mp3
The Upsetters - Black Panta mp3
Scientist - Babylon Fight Dub mp3
More dub at For The Sake of the Song

More about Buy Nothing Day:
Buy Nothing Day at Wikipedia
Buy Nothing Day at Adbusters.org

BOSS SOUNDS FROM THE TRASTOS HI-FI

One advantage of being a certain age is that, when it comes to reggae, your objectivity isn't necessarily skewed by hippies, hacky-sack, Bob Marley, trustifarians or other such reggae cliches. My friends and I were lucky enough to be turned on to reggae as an ersatz chaser to a punk rock cocktail. When all other mellow music was getting tossed aside, reggae was not. Simply put, it was the best rebel music with a soulful beat available. It was an awesome awakening: the hunt for reggae on the shelf, any store shelf (Ratner's Electric in downtown San Diego?!?), the booming sound system of the reggae disco at North Park Lion's Club (you could feel the bass in your chest), the kind recommendations from reggae freak elders, and learning the proper way to spell New York ("a knife, a fork, a bottle, and a cork, that's the way you spell New York..."). And all of that discovering of this other acceptable genre comes flooding back when I hear anything from Horace Andy's first album, "Skylarking".

At the time, a lot of earlier reggae was getting licensed in the U.S. and issued at bargain prices. Marley had yet to break and it seemed like the reggae that was being released as if spattering paint, just hoping some of it would stick. The reissues were typically released with bland packaging with total disregard of the exotic covers of the originally issued LPs. It boggles the mind to think about what could have happened if these LPs were released with the original packaging (as seen here). What if the significance of these reissues was more widely recognized, and what would have happened if reggae music as a whole had broken before the rampant one dimensional Marley mania?

Before any miscreants start whining about how great Bob Marley was, let me pose this question: what would rock n' roll be like if the only artist most people were familiar with was the Rolling Stones? You get the picture, so make room on your plate. There is so much more essential reggae.

.

Horace Andy - Skylarking mp3 at KinoSport

All the ingredients are here: an essential 1969 Studio One classic
Horace Andy - Skylarking, the entire LP download at Global Groove
Sound Dimension - Real Rock mp3 at The Suburbs are Killing Us
The house band at Studio One with the rhythm that backs 250+ early reggae classics
Sound Dimension - Real Rock Version mp3 at The Suburbs Are Killing Us
The Heptones -Hypocrite mp3 at Ear It Now
The Maytals - Pressure Drop mp3 and 6 other Maytal cuts at I Predict A Riot
Sister Nancy - Bam Bam mp3 and 11 early reggae & rock steady cuts at I Predict a Riot
Bam Bam, from 1982, had to have been on MIA's turntable at some point
Alton Ellis - I'm Still in Love With You mp3 at Grand Panda
If the rhythm sounds familiar, you must have checked Althia and Donna's Uptown Top Ranking
Big Youth - Screaming Target mp3 at Djnodj
The Slickers - Johnny Too Bad mp3 at Motel de Moka
King Tubby - Take Five mp3 at 8106
How this is a King Tubby cut when there's no dub is beyond me, but a cover of Dave Brubeck with a groove keeps me from asking too many questions...

Augustus Pablo and King Tubby - King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown mp3 and 3 others at Dollar Bin Jams

Another all time classic: melodica + dub = chill bliss