Half An Hour Of King Tubby

The beach at St. Bees, Cumbria, has some interesting features as well as its own natural beauty. These two rings up the cliff face, presumably for mooring boats to, both well worn by the sea and time. The soft cliff face and rocks have been a haven for graffiti artists and people wanting to scratch their name, leave a reminder of who visited and when. There are lots of names from 1985 and 1986, the traditional so- and- so loves so- and- so (do they still? ) and some much older graffiti, some dating back to the holiday makers and day trippers from the 19th century (as seen below). 

The cross in the photo above is my concession to Easter. Happy Easter. Sunday, whether Easter or not, is always a good day for some dub and dub doesn't get more serious or better than when King Tubby is at the controls. I put this mix together with hundreds of King Tubby tracks, dubs and songs in front of me, hours and hours worth and almost all of it as good as anything that came from Jamaica in the 70s. 

Half An Hour Of King Tubby

• Tommy McCook And The Aggrovators: Disco Rockers
• King Tubby: We Rule
• Tommy McCook And The Aggrovators: The Dub Station
• Yabby You and King Tubby: Warning Version
• Augustus Pablo: 555 Dub Street
• King Tubby: Dub From The Roots
• King Tubby: A Better Version
• King Tubby And The Aggrovators: Dub Fi Gwan
• King Tubby: Declaration Of Dub
• Augustus Pablo: King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown

Tommy McCook and The Aggrovators' Super Star- Disco Rockers came out in 1977, the year two sevens clash. Tubby engineered it. Tommy McCook and The Aggravators Dub Station album came out two years earlier, one of the best dub albums there is- lush, melodic, dramatic, Tubby manipulating volume, mix and FX at the desk. It bounces. 

Yabby You and King Tubby's Conquering Lion dates from 1977. An expanded edition from 2021 on Pressure Sounds with all the dubs is serious summer music. Listen with a glass of rum and ginger on ice. 

555 Dub Street and the title track that closes the mix above both come from Augustus Pablo's classic 1976 album, King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown, one of dub's definitive texts with a line up of the best dub musicians at their peak- Robbie Shakespeare and Aston Barrett on bass, Carlton Barrett on drums and Earl 'Chinna' Smith on guitar. 

Dub Fi Gwan- clattering drums, endless rhythms, rimshots, echo and bassline- was the final track on Dub Gone Crazy, a 1994 Blood And Fire compilation of Tubby tracks from the 1975- 1979 era. It turned me on to King Tubby and dub in a big way. 

A Better Version is from an expanded version of King Tubby Presents: The Roots Of Dub, a King Tubby album from 1975, Horace Andy's Skylarking twisted inside itself and dubbed out into space. Strangely I've missed including anything from the original version of that album in this mix- a Tubby Mix Two will have to follow at some point. 

Dub From The Roots and Declaration Of Dub are both from 1975's Dub From The Roots, his first full length, self- titled album, dubwise versions of Bunny Lee songs. 

Conquering Dub

Dub for Tuesday from Yabby You and The Prophets, the flipside to his debut single Conquering Lion. The album, also called Conquering Lion, was released in 1975, widely seen as one of the classics of roots era, with a cast of players including Tommy McCook, Aston Barrett, Earl Chinna Smith and Augustus Pablo. Incredibly Yabby and the band recorded it onto two track- one track for bass and drums and one for organ, with additional instruments dubbed on at Tubby's after. The original album has been re- released this year in expanded form with the original ten cuts and a further twelve dubs and versions. Essential roots reggae, full of the political, righteous and devotional fervour of mid- 70s Jamaica. You can buy the whole thing in a variety of formats here. 

Conquering Dub

Lovers

14th February. Valentine's Day in lockdown, difficult to spark some romance perhaps when you've been living in confined quarters for the best part of a year and a dinner date in a restaurant is out of the question- a takeaway tea or coffee while sheltering from the arctic blasts that have been heading our way this week is the most that lovers can hope for. We've still got music though. Here's some songs for lovers.

First The Scientist and a rocking dub from 1980, recorded at Channel One and mixed at King Tubby's, Sly and Robbie on board with bass and drums. 

Lovers

From 1991 and  Love Corporation,  Ed Ball's loved up Creation Records dance division- chunky drums, piano runs and thumping bass. 

Lovers

Scientific

Making it to the end of the week feels like some kind of small achievement- the darkest time of the year, the virus rampaging around us and a long way to go before we start to come out of this can make everything feel a bit hopeless at the moment. Take your victories where you can. It's Friday, another week chalked off. Dub always improves things, always lightens the load. 

In 1980 The Scientist released his first album, The Best Dub Album In The World. Scientist, real name Hopeton Brown, grew up loving electronics and landed a job at King Tubby's Kingston studio (Tubby would have celebrated his 80th birthday next week had he lived). Scientist worked his way up through the ranks and in 1980 put out his modestly titled debut album, recorded with Sly and Robbie on the bass and the drums at Channel One and then mixed at Tubby's. The bass and drums are perfect throughout, the bubbling bass rhythms playing off against the splashy cymbals and rimshots. Organ comes and goes. Guitars are fed through FX units and sent spinning into space, all produced by a master of the art. Ten tracks, , nine of them under three minutes long but not feeling too short, and you can pick any one of them to demonstrate that the title of the record isn't far off. Try this one...

Scientific

Isolation Mix Eight

An hour and five minutes of lockdown vibes and an attempt to lift the spirits and up the tempo a bit this week. This one is a global trawl of tunes taking in Dubwood Allstars and their splicing together of King Tubby, Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton, a classic 70s Lee Perry production from the Black Ark in Kingston, Jamaica, Moon Duo doing Black Sabbath in very laid back style, groove- based melodic noise from Scotland (Mogwai) and Norway (Mythologen), some funky 80s crossover dance pop from NYC, Natasha Khan and Toy as Sexwitch, Paris duo Acid Arab and South London's Rude Audio, all on a Middle Eastern tip, and early 90s Balearic dub house majesty from Sheer Taft (Glasgow) and Underworld (Essex). Bank holiday weekend. Take it easy. Stay safe.

Dubwood Allstars: Under Dubwood

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Zap- Pow: Riverstone

Moon Duo: Planet Caravan

Mogwai: The Sun Smells Too Loud

Mythologen: Trust

Tom Tom Club: Wordy Rappinghood

Sexwitch: Ha Howa Ha Howa

Acid Arab: Club DZ

Rude Audio: Rumble On Arab Street

Sheer Taft: Cascades (Hypnotone Mix)

Underworld: M.E.

Declaration Of Dub

The fourteen tracks that make up King Tubby's 1975 album Dub From The Roots came as some kind of epiphany to me back in the 90s. Spread across two sides of vinyl the album showcases Tubby's skills and prowess at the mixing desk. The whole album is swamped in reverb and delay, a wash of sound effects with the bass riding on top or underneath). Drums and percussion bounce around, flourishes of organ and guitar drop in and out. Rimshots ricochet between the speakers. Backing vocals get pushed up front briefly. Timeless, outer space music.

Declaration Of Dub

Road Block

Sometimes it's only proper Jamaican dub from the mid 70s that really fills that hole, that provides the basslines and the rhythms and the s p a c e. And then you realise you must have Augustus Pablo's melodica snaking around on top. And King Tubby at the controls. And all is good.

Road Block

Road Block was on 1974's Ital Dub and was written by Bob Marley and Aston Barrett, a version of The Wailers' Rebel Music. Here's the whole album for your Saturday morning skank. It won't help you get much done but you'll have a good time doing very little while this plays.

River Theme

That's the Mersey, wending its way from Stockport, through Sale (where the picture was taken) and out through Cheshire to Liverpool. Mersey Paradise as four mop-tops once said.

There's an excellent 7" release- sold out/repressed/sold out/repressed and currently available again here- by the Dubwood Allstars called Under Dubwood, a Richard Burton reading Dylan Thomas in dub King Tubby excursion.

The B-side is River Theme, a grizzly, funky garage-psyche groove from The Time And Space Machine.

River Theme

Kimble

Today involves all manner of Christmas stuff. But first, to ease the pain, some dub. The Legendary Skatalites In Dub is exactly that- the horns of ska with the dub basslines and rhythms of King Tubby. This one is a perfect example and why you should get a copy of this album if you don't have one already.

Kimble Dub

The Champion Version

If you ever need to explain to someone what dub is and why there are times when you should fall to your knees and hail King Tubby as a supreme musical producer and explorer, play them this. And then the rest of the Blood And Fire compilation Dub Gone Crazy- The Evolution Of Dub At King Tubby's 1975-1979. And then they'll know.

The Champion Version

Dub You Can Feel

From cosmische yesterday to dub today. There are a bewildering number of King Tubby albums and tracks, some on what look like iffy labels in poorly printed sleeves/cd cases. You can't go wrong with the two definitive dub albums Tubby made in the mid 70s, The Roots Of Dub and Dub From The Roots, both made with Bunny Lee. The titles are often brilliantly self explanatory as well- Dub You Can Feel, A First Class Dub, Rocking Dub, The Immortal Dub. The sounds and experimentation in those records never fail to move and inspire and (like Neu!'s music), it never sounds old or dated either.

What colour is dub? Dub is green.

Dub You Can Feel

Rocking Dub

King Tubby cutting straight to the chase in naming this one, a rocking dub. Quite unsettling at first then getting into its offbeat swing, cymbals flying and all sorts.

Rocking Dub

A First Class Dub

There's something about dub and Sunday mornings for me. King Tubby's 1974 release King Tubby Presents The Roots Of Dub is as good a place as any, although the follow up (Dub From The Roots) and the Augustus Pablo album King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown run it close. The sleeve layout and the typography will be familiar to Beta Band fans. This one has the characteristic flying cymbal sound, some phased guitar, piano dropping in and out and one of those basslines that I love so much.

A First Class Dub

Dub Station

If you ever see an affordable copy of King Tubby Meets the Aggrovators At Dub Station on cd or vinyl buy it and then give me a call. I've been after it for some time. Recorded in 1975 (and reissued on cd in 2007 and currently out of print) it is a superb dub reggae album. The cd reissue is currently priced on Discogs at getting towards £45. A vinyl copy on Amazon marketplace is being offered at £134.00. Yup. So if you chance upon a copy in a charity shop, car boot sale or second hand shop that doesn't check Discogs, buy it. You won't regret it and it may just become a handy nestegg. Not that you'd want to sell it.

A Youtube uploader has handily put the whole album up and the bonus disc of another twelve songs. Bunny Lee (on the phone above) assembled The Aggrovators as the house band at his studio an throughout the 70s and 80s they included the cream of Jamaica's musicians. Jackie Mittoo, Sly and Robbie, Aston Barrett and countless others passed through the ranks. King Tubby was Bunny Lee's go-to man for dub effects and this album showcases Tubby's skills with tape manipulation, echo, sound effects and all manner of tricks. The band, particularly the rhythm section, are on fire throughout- bouncy and punchy on the faster tracks, spaced and stoned on the slower ones. Horns and woodwind provide fanfares and melody, riding above the stunning bass.

King Size

Eric Cantona turned forty nine a couple of days ago. He was, as far as we're concerned in this part of the world, the King. In modern football terms, as they said about The Clash, Eric is the only footballer that mattered.

King Tubby's productions are rightly the stuff of legend, the work of a man who re-shaped music. Ideally some of the dubs he cut in the 1970s should be listened to alongside the A-side, running together. This one from 1976 has the lead side of Johnny Clarke's Don't Trouble Trouble and then at 3.27 Tubby's Ruffer Version from the flip. Phased horns, machine gun fire, underwater sounds, sirens, the odd snatch of vocal and the sublime bass of The Aggrovators original rhythm track.

Dub In The Right Way

I've been digging Dreadzone recently. Their dub inspired techno hits the spot, uplifting and righteous. Greg Dread has a Soundcloud page that is worth rooting around in, all sorts of rarities, versions, remixes and live shows. Here's a couple of highlights.

Dreadzone versus King Tubby



A vocal version of their 90s classic Little Britain featuring Earl Sixteen. The instrumental version of this song was all over the place at one point and has some cultural resonance today in the light of the referendum and the issue of devolution for the regions. It's strange to think that Dreadzone supported the Gallagher brothers at Knebworth.

Satta Dub

I've been listening to King Tubby quite a bit this week. His dub productions are so far out there, space and sound manipulated and played around with but very precise too. His 1976 class King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown, done in collaboration with another gentle soul Augustus Pablo, is the Tubby album to go for and needs to be listened to as a whole really but this track, the album's closer, is doing all the right things for me at the moment.

Satta Dub

Bottom Dub

I was listening to this in the car at the weekend- The Legendary Skatalites In Dub, wherein The Skatalites get mucked about with by King Tubby. The car isn't the ideal place to listen to dub, too much of the subtlety and the bass gets lost, but it was a lovely day and it sounded really good. This track in particular, with it's beautiful bassline, was superb.

Bottom Dub

Bag A Wire

I was listening to the radio while on holiday last week (through the telly no less) and the disc jockey played Bag A Wire Dub by King Tubby. It was one of those real 'stop what you're doing and just listen' moments. King Tubby's dub is such strange music and appears to have so little in common with anything that came before it- this one has some chanting about Marcus Garvey, deep bass bubbling up and down, horns coming and going, lots of echo, rim shots. Fluid and free form from Jamaica in 1976. Otherworldly.

Bag A Wire Dub

It might be worth pointing out that the disc jockey who played it was Huey (formerly of Fun Loving Criminals) who often comes across as a bit of a knob but, fair play to him, he played some good tunes that particular afternoon.

Dub Fi Gwan

This King Tubby track is what dub should sound like (to my ears anyhow). Tubby mixing it live at the desk, The Aggrovators supplying the tick-ticka-tick-ticka-tick rhythm and excerpts of dub-a-dub-dub-dub bass with some spacey FX and phased guitar chords.  One of the first dub tracks I ever heard (via the Blood and Fire comp King Tubby: Evolution of Dub 1975-1979, essential). Out of this world.

Dub Fi Gwan