On Thu, 30 Dec 1999 Cesium5Hz@aol.com wrote:
quoted 12 lines Actually, I think this Zen Artist is better known as Mad Professor and I> Actually, I think this Zen Artist is better known as Mad Professor and I
> doubt that he was referring to our rather limited conception of linear time.
> All Dub certainly did not come from King Tubby. It came from the
> shamanist-rhythmic spheres of the witchdoctor, which in African culture is
> the source of the mystical experience - that which allows the use of trance
> in healing. This rhythmic trance was and is very similar in structure to
> modern techno music. Both forms are uniquely intertwined - one reflects the
> effect of trance, the other of the dance. It is not coincidental that modern
> electronic dub music ala Basic Channel, Chain Reaction and Rhythm & Sound
> camps have a strong basis in mystical music - the reduction in sound
> structure is their extension into the spirit world.
> The dub was, is and ever shall be...
Umm, you can talk about witchdoctors and mystics if you want, but King
Tubby invented dub. Period. I'm sure if you asked the Mad Professor
directly, he'd also tell you that King Tubby is the "dub originator."
Don't take it from me, take it from Steve Barrow:
"Today the remix and dub version are commonplace in popular music; less
widely appreciated is the fact that these techniques were pioneered in a
tiny studio at 18 Bromilly Avenue in the Kingston district called
Waterhouse. That pioneer of dub was an electronics engineer and sound
system operator named Osbourne Ruddock, but to the crowds who flocked to
his dances, and the countless singers and record producers who utilised
his skills, he was known as King Tubby."
You can download the rest from bloodandfire.co.uk, it's the liner notes to
"Dub Gone Crazy."
Every style of music is based on what came before, and no one benefits
from skipping the intermediaries. Jumping straight back to some african
witchdoctor without giving any props to King Tubby is just plain wrong.
Where does Fela Kuti fit into this? He's a lot closer to a witchdoctor
than King Tubby was, I mean, he was in Africa, and he did 20 minute long
songs with trance inducing precussion and call and response sections, but
I wouldn't describe *anything* that he did as "dub." How does that fit?
I guess I'm freaking out a little bit too much, but Tubby is completely
overlooked by just about every electronic music fan I've ever met in my
life, and I can't figure out why, mainly because he was a fucking genius
*and* none of ths stuff we're listening to today would even exist if he
didn't come up with the flying cymbal (and those spring-reverb
thunderclaps and the dropped in test tones, etc etc) first.
You can't go to the record store and talk to a witchdoctor for
inspiration, but you can go and buy a King Tubby album. I'd say that King
Tubby is more of an inspiration to most musicians than witchdoctors are.
Umm, can I get an amen?
.Bil.
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