Saturday, 31 July 2021
Hit Run Records Mix
Weed, fights and the Honey Monster - how Adrian Sherwood fell in love with the studio
Wednesday, 28 July 2021
Talk Talk Talk Mix
Tuesday, 27 July 2021
F*nky As F*ck Mix
Monday, 26 July 2021
The Wailers (BBC OGWT 1973)
Jah Wobble's 10 Commandments of Dub Mix
I first heard this as a pre-release in 1976. Love the sound of Augustus Pablo's melodica; I am also kinky for the sound of the dubbed-up timbale drums that feature on this recording. King Tubby was the king of pure, heavy-duty dub at that time. It was released in this country on Island Records. Hearing 'King Tubby' for the first time had a profound effect on me: it was like hearing music from another cosmos. There are any number of good King Tubby compilations now around - Trojan Records and the Blood & Fire label are good places to look.
2 CONCRETE DUB Bob Marley
I no longer have this record... in fact, I have not heard it for probably 25 years, so I hope it does really exist and is not a figment of my imagination. If memory serves me well, it was the dub version B-side of an Island 7" single; probably of the track called 'Concrete Jungle', from the Catch a Fire album. It must have been one of the first ever domestically released dub singles. It was great to hear a dub version of a Marley track - I nearly always preferred the dub version of a tune. There was more space, and the bass and drums were pushed to the fore.
3 MARCUS GARVEY (DUB VERSION) Burning Spear
One of the very first dub versions I ever heard. I heard it in 1975 on a Friday night on the Capital Radio reggae show. I used to listen to that show religiously - Tommy Vance was the DJ. I now occasionally hear him DJing on heavy-rock stations as I channel-hop.
4 PROMISE IS A COMFORT TO A FOOL Trinity/Yabby You
A classic bassline, with a beautiful vocal refrain, and DJ chat. There are some bass lines that contain the whole mystery of creation within them. This is one of them. Other examples are Roy Budd's bass line to the title track of Mike Hodges Get Carter, and Cecil McBee's line on Lonnie Liston Smith's 'Expansions' are two that come immediately to mind. The crediting of reggae musicians is notoriously lax. There are three possible players, re this particular tune. All giants of the bass - Robbie Shakespeare, Aston 'Family Man' Barrett and Clinton Fearon. If I had to put money down on who it is on this track, I would say it was Mr Fearon.
5 TWO SEVENS CLASH Culture
For a while back in 1977, you could not get away from this tune. It still sounds heavenly. It reminds me of walking back from a party in Hackney on a Sunday morning as the sun was coming up. I couldn't get the tune out of my head.
6 JUJU MUSIC King Sunny Ade
There was a little-known dub version of this classic album, mixed by an engineer that I worked with, called Groucho. What he did was devastating. I would love to hear it again. It was on Island (again!) and was released around 1982.
7 ROWING Dennis Bovell
One of the great musicians of his generation. I used to watch him perform this with his band Matumbi. As with "Juju Music", I hankered after hearing it again. I'm pleased to say that the label Pressure Sounds has released a compilation of Dennis's dub stuff, which includes this track.
8 THE SAME SONG Israel Vibration
Similar to our own late, and very great Ian Dury, 'Skeleton,' 'Apple' and 'Wiss' [Israel Vibration's three members] were stricken by polio in the fifties. This blend of their vocals within a dub context is wonderful. Yet again, there is a great compilation on Pressure Sounds.
9 CONSCIOUS MAN DUB Lee Perry and the Jolly Brothers
You could not have a dub selection without Lee "Scratch" Perry appearing. This is a great example of his idiosyncratic style.
10 SMILING STRANGER John Martyn
This is taken from his 1980 album One World. It was one of the first records outside reggae to utilise dub techniques. Superb.
Friday, 23 July 2021
Let's talk about 'discrimination' Crapton shall we?
Maybe we wll start with this... Remember that? Onstage in Birmingham 1976? This racist tirade coming from a man who 'was inspired by' nah let's say 'ripped off' black music. We shall call a spade a spade eh Eric.
The year rock found the power to unite
John Grant - Boy from Michigan (6 Music Live Session)
Dennis Cooper, Gisèle Vienne & KTL (Stephen O’Malley and Peter Rehberg)
Peter Rehberg R.I.P.
Man...that is one hell of a shock to take in...Peter Rehberg (1968-2021) pic.twitter.com/rqZP3wDTAw
— INA grm (@Ina_GRM) July 23, 2021
Exiled Global Mix One (2008)
Thursday, 22 July 2021
Bob Monkhouse and the 'subversive' peni (1949)
So I got asked to do a mix
It will be aired in about three weeks on Tales From The Dubside so I better keep the mix under wraps until then but here's a teaser of: Tim Intro/Space Oddity (LSK Sherwood Dub/Dubitron Melodica Version)
Mad Mike (Detroit) to Basic Channel (Berlin) 11/3/93
I've signed up
...and you should read The Attackerman's obit for RumsfieldI’m excited to announce Forever Wars, an experiment in covering the apparatus of ‘national security’ that I’m going to report, write and publish on Substack. (1/n)@charlottetklein lifts the curtain for @VFHIVE: https://t.co/l9pBEDVs1S pic.twitter.com/FeNWvq446o
— Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman) July 20, 2021
Fritz Catlin on Ben Thompson's The London Ear (ResonanceFM 15/7/21)
Monday, 19 July 2021
Saturday, 17 July 2021
Tweet o'the day
Speed, cocaine, ecstasy, weed. pic.twitter.com/SFmVUuUI5O
— Paul Sng (@paulsng) July 17, 2021
Wrong Speed Record Chat No.48: John Doran
It comes to an end...
I had a general sense that the cycle would consist of five novels, but that wasn't set in stone. Within that premise of five novels in mind, I'd decided that each of the middle three books would concentrate on one of the ways in which I viewed my subjects. The second novel (Frisk) would prioritize the libidinal, sexual, erotic appeal. The third novel (Try) would prioritize my emotional response. The fourth novel (Guide) would prioritize the cerebral, intellectual, and analytical. The fifth novel (Period) would present what remained after all of the examination, trickery, and damage of the central three novels, creating Closer's decimated, resolved twin. So the task of writing Closer was to both realize all these predetermined notions while creating a novel with enough material within it to sustain the cycle that would follow.
"...Mona, Hey. Oh (...) yeah, I remember. You were in Amsterdam when I was there? That's crazy. Crazy 'cos I had no real friends there, so I wish our paths had crossed. It's great you're going to do something on Mike Hart. I can't remember if I ever met him properly -- probably -- but Compendium was such an important and great place, and even though I don't get to London often, I miss it terribly when I'm there. The last reading I did in London was there. Your new blog is lovely. I'll be a reader, and let me alert the folks around here. Everybody, Mona, friend of and occasional commenter on this blog, has a terrific new blog that brings all kinds of things to the fore, from the great Lizzy Mercier Descloux and Miles Davis, for instance, to decisive backroom stuff on nasty Sarah Palin and much more. Check it out..."
...and yeah it would have been good to have got to know each other in Amsterdam though we did work out that we both got showered with broken glass when someone obviously had taken offence at William Burroughs' reading at the One World Poetry Festival at the Melkweg and smashed this glass door just after he had gone through it but the next five or six people which included Dennis and myself were not so lucky. I still have a recording of Burroughs reading that night (November 12 1985) and when I finally get it digitised Dennis will be the first to get a copy.
Dennis has just posted over on FB that even Kirkus and Publishers Weekly have given starred reviews for I WISHED, and that these are the "first ever stars from those places. Trippy." It is also always worth checking out Dennis's blog which is one of the greatest out there. Trust me and here's The New Yorker explaing what happened when Google removed his last blog
Finally to confirm when exactly the Burroughs reading was I found the clipping above from an online Jeffrey Lee Pierce archive where it also says this about his Amsterdam appearance:
Interesting that it doesn't say what he read at this, his second ever reading, isn't it?. Truth be told he was paralytic and after five minutes (if that) of mumbles he was escorted offstage by Simon Vinkenoog. Sadly I'd seen him in worse states before.