DJ Colonel in the Cratedigger Dubzone

DJ Colonel has been honing his skills way out in Bend OR. He sent me a batch of his shows, and of the ones that I have had a chance to review, his Dub Special was my fave.

Here is the tracklist:

01 Banana Walk Dub Specialist
02 Don't follow Babylon(Blood and Fire Meets Wai Wan Remix Dub Shop Stylee) Twilight Sound System and Ranking Joe
03 Rasta Dub Horace Andy
04 Dub Out Oku Onuora
05 Drive By Dub Dub trio
06 Since I Dub Aggrovators
07 Fist Of Fury Prince Jammy
08 Buck Rogers in The Black Hole Roots Radics
09 Red Shift Scientist
10 African Jumper Tommy McCook
11 Reggae Train Cornell Campbell
12 King Tubby The Dub Ruler King Tubby
13 One Armed Boxer Lee Perry
14 DJ's Choice Dennis Alcapone
15 Dub Organiser Dillinger
16 Reggae-mylitis Peter Tosh


I hope that you dig Colonel at The Controls.

Download DJ Colonel Dub Radio Spectacle HERE

RB is a guest selecter at this is tomorrow

this is tomorrow blog is celebrating its' first birthday by inviting guest selectors to post mixes.

I am in awe of the company that I share in this honor. Larry from funky16corners and Vincent from Fufu Stew have already posted their mixes. I visited the Colonel's well of dub treats for the final time for the mix I made for this is tomorrow. The final installment of the Colonel dub mixes is called, The Colonel's Dubquarters (edit.)

Dig & enjoy, and congrats on one year DJ Blueprint!

Colonel's Back Again- Murray's Choice Mix

Yes, cratedigger's favorite guest, Colonel, is back with a vengeance with both an aggressive and trance inducing mix called Murray's Choice, fueled by the CDs full of dub and reggae that he sent me.

From his generous gift, I am still reaping the kind mix for you, dear reader.

This mix around, there is some reggae mixed in with the dub. Thematically as well as sonically, Murray's Choice spans many eras. Definitely pack the headphones, G.

Hopefully the sound will rattle your ipod/car doors/house/apartment, like it did the CDHQ.

Download The Colonel's Murray's Choice Mix



Murray's Choice Tracklist:

01 Dangerous Match One Scientist
02 Lamb's Bread Collie Jacob Miller
03 Natty Rebel Uroy
04 Universal Dub J-Boogie
05 Natural Roots Mad Professor
06 King Tubby Meets The Rockers Augustus Pablo
07 Soundclash Dub Syndicate
08 Cool Rockers Lee Scratch Perry
09 Extra Time Five Scientist
10 Dub Organiser Dillinger
11 It Dread Inna The Earth
12 Ecological Dub

Been a while... some tunes to tide youse over

I have been away from the Cratedigger homestead all of last week, with nary a chance for digging. In the meantime and in order to keep things interesting, here is a list of interesting mixes put out by other bloggers:

Vincent at Fufu Stew has a new mix called, Fufu Soul Soundcheck. Some great covers are on offer on his mix. Makes me wonder how he has the time to put together so many tough sets.

DJ Dubstrong at Disco Devil has a new dancehall dub mix that I have been listening to today called, Uptown Skank v. 2. He hails from Brasil, so much of the blog is in Portugeuse.

Phill Most Chill at That Real Schitt put out a digital version of his mix called 2001 Spaced Oddities from a few years back of some killer beats and breaks. Here is Side A. It is cool listening. I have much to learn, Grasshopper.

Heavy Soul Brutha Dave from Soul Brutha's Put The needle on the Record has the second installment of his series, Soulbrutha Meets Caplog V. 2 on Mod Radio UK. It is an internet radio show that repeats. Maybe he will post it soon... hint, hint.

Enjoy and support the players above. I am off to Gotham. Hopefully, I will be able to put something together on Friday or over the weekend.

Hats off to The Colonel-cratedigger guest selector...

A close friend of mine from the way back machine, chose to keep his life much closer to nature than I did after college.

His name is the Colonel. He spends much of his free time climbing mountains and slashing powder on the slopes in the western areas of our grand country.

For the soundtrack to his outdoor pursuits, he is a big reggae and dub fan. I received an unbelievable package in the snail mail from him last week containing a whole grip of cds filled with freaked out tunage.

In honor of this great gift, I have assembled a mix of some of the jamming tunes contained on a few of the cds. Call the Colonel a guest selector, if you will.

As I mentioned, the tracks below were grabbed from cds and NOT vinyl.

ENJOY! And Thanks Colonel.

Download The Colonel's Little Unique Mix



Tracklist

01 Dance of The Vampires Scientist
02 A Useful Version Prince Jammy & The Aggrovators
03 Prince Far-I Bedward Dub Syndicate
04 Alam Dub Bill Laswell & Jah Wobble
05 Dub In The Right Way Soul Syndicate
06 Rude Boy Dub Prince Jammy
07 Drifter Dub King Tubby
08 The Alien Aborts Roots Radics Band
09 Dreader Locks Lee Perry & Junor Byles
10 Kiwi Culture Mad Professor
11 Trinity Dub Massive Attack vs. Mad Professor

Rough Guide to Dub

As I posted earlier, I have been gigging to more dub as of late. I got this disc a while back and the cratedigger reference system has been jiggling the mortar loose from the cratedigger crib ever since.

The second track Satia, Keith Hudson meets King Tubby (pictured above with the BKLounge crown) is a prime example of shaking everything I own at this point in time.

The groove in Conquering Dub credited to Yabba U & King Tubby, is tight, basic reverbed horn charts over a tight bass and some sick reverbed organ that never seems to decay. When the lead becomes the chink a chink guitar into the organ into the horn chart, you miss the bass, then it drops. Almost a relief, then the echoed organ comes into play. This is the stuff. Find an MP3 below, kind reader.

Le Roi Tuby is apparently a big fan of sound effects as well. Thunder and gunshots predominate such as on track 5.

sometimes the cymbals get the treatment and will mess with your noggin opposite the flute in track 8, Satta Dread Dub by Aggravators. "Let us repatriate" "Zion yeaaaaah, repatriate...." into reverb space.

What gets me in these productions is the trebly guitar riffs that reverb off into space... Then other sound elements are dropping in, just like the cut n paste computer culture that followed many of these sounds by a couple of decades in the 90s.

Many of these tracks are pretty short in my mind for dub tracks, methinks that this collection is an excellent way to get one's feet wet for all that is dub. Could they be edits? I am too ignorant of the genre to know, but I dig groovin' to this collection. Dig it!

Downbeat the Ruler

As it has been extremely nice weather wise around these parts, I have found myself hitting the reggae, dub and instro sounds a bit more than I have in more than in a few years.

Along these lines, I found the CD pictured above and available here.

While I shudder to think that anyone could ever use music as background music, (kind of like hanging a painting that an artist labored on over a toilet) this CD is a perfect SDTRK to working or perhaps cooking a gourmet meal of spicy beans and potatoes.


I am sure that everyone knows the deal with Coxsone Dodd, his sound system and Studio One, ground zero for all that is Reggae. I will be brief. Mr. Dodd used to come to America to search (dig) for R&B to spin on his system, with the ensuing wave of Rock and or Roll, Mr. Dodd needed to create some original music for use on his system.

He started a label in 1959, and in 63 set up a recording studio. The rest is history.

Here is a track from the CD, do yourself a favor and get a copy of this one.

Real Rock by Sound Dimension

Lee Perry Jamaican E.T.

I checked this more recent (from 2002) CD out from the library. I am not sure what I was expecting, but to listen to this set is disconcerting to say the least.

Scratch produced and composed all of the tracks, but a Black Ark production this is not. He does give a shout out via the track Message to Black Ark Studios.

The production is clean and buries the competent beats and grooves pretty far below Lee's vocals. He utilizes a technique of sorts throughout this set wherein he puts his voice is both left and right channels simultaneously. In effect he layers his vocals, spouting random stuff (as you would expect.)

The end result is that the listener gets a feel for what it is like to have voices in the listener's head. Well, Lee Scratch Perry's voice in the listener's head at least.

I fully realize that not every Scratch album can be Africa's Blood, but still this was pretty disappointing.