4. King Tubby And The AggrovatorsShalom Dub

When I was a teenager and just wanted to hear different sounds all the time, I would often find out what the musicians I liked were into and followed that. Me and my mate back then really loved that Public Image record, Metal Box, and I think we had read that Jah Wobble was into this bloke called King Tubby. Anyway, as I remember, they had this record called Unleashed Dub in the local record shop and either my mate bought it, or I bought it for his birthday or something. In any case, we used to listen to it all the time. I guess we would have been 18 or so. The thing is though, pre-internet, I didn’t really get what dub was all about and how the tunes were made or even that it was made for big sound systems, so it was kind of a revelation hearing this kind of stuff on big sound systems for the first time.  No record on a hifi at home can prepare you for that!

The record I like most though is Shalom Dub. It’s all about the B-side on this! Just great tunes and especially those stripped down dubs make the whole vocal sound so moving and fragile somehow. I’m not sure it’s even rated as a top record by common opinion but my copy of it is almost unplayable now as it’s so scratched and worn out from being played so often.