Last week I uncovered what looked like an unplayable Acetate Dub Plate -- the plate looked seriously wrecked with no sheen and what looked like mold growing out of the grooves. I put it on and to my amazement it not only played, but in fact, gave a sonic primer in why King Tubby was such a genius. Enough has been written about Tubby by much better and more knowledgeable writers than myself, so I am not going to try to give a history here, but I do have to say something. I got into Jamaican music in the 80s and 90s and for years only looked forward, never back. Then, one day, I happened to be at Moodies Records up in the Bronx when a bunch of Freedom Sounds reissues came into the shop and listening to Dub side totally blew my mind...this Sonic murderation! This was a man -- Tubby himself -- taking the every elements of space and time and ripping them apart and re-imagining what what sound actually felt like. I became a devotee. I read all the stories about Tubby's Hi Fi causing riots when the first dubs were unleashed, I talked to anyone I could find about what is what like to wind transformers for the man...and gradually all that knowledge and interest just became part of my interior dialogue -- yes, Tubby is a genius, but I no longer was as excited as I once had been....I was jaded, immune to his wonders.
Then....I put this Dub Plate on and as the sound opened and closed, expanded and contracted, as bass lines dropped in and vocals dropped out, and the richness of the hi-hats snapped and contorted and the reverb rumbled, I heard Tubby again!!! Yes, this dub had me again! I saw his hands on that mixing board, his ears lighting up as he told a narrative in Dub, a poetry of sound...yes!!!!! Listen to this dub and hear what I hear -- sound, sound in itself, being brought to the highest level of sound -- a sonic experience that sounds richer and more alive than anything our ears could take in on their own...yesss.....Tubby!!!!! All hail to the man himself!!!!!!
Then....I put this Dub Plate on and as the sound opened and closed, expanded and contracted, as bass lines dropped in and vocals dropped out, and the richness of the hi-hats snapped and contorted and the reverb rumbled, I heard Tubby again!!! Yes, this dub had me again! I saw his hands on that mixing board, his ears lighting up as he told a narrative in Dub, a poetry of sound...yes!!!!! Listen to this dub and hear what I hear -- sound, sound in itself, being brought to the highest level of sound -- a sonic experience that sounds richer and more alive than anything our ears could take in on their own...yesss.....Tubby!!!!! All hail to the man himself!!!!!!
