Dub Sex >> Before things started spiraling down

Dub Sex - "Then And Now"

(Skysaw Records, ca. 1987/1988 / Cut Deep Records, 1989)

I got an excerpt of this song in the mid-'00s somewhere online, and quickly became pretty obsessed with it, then bought the actual 12" EP (self-titled) in 2008 on eBay.  This band was a favorite of John Peel, recording a whopping four Peel sessions despite never releasing a full-length album.  In fact, this song was performed on his show as early as January of '87, so it was surely written in '86 or earlier.  If I remember correctly, one band member did some time in The Fall, which would explain Peel's affinity for Dub Sex, since he had an inexplicable allegiance to Mark E. Smith's abominable band.

This song later appeared on a compilation of the band's material called Splintered Faith, which I have on vinyl rip and CD rip; the LP version has 15 songs, and the CD version has 18.  I'm intentionally uploading the crackly vinyl rip so that folks will be inspired to seek out and purchase the actual LP or CD.  Both are long out of print, so you'll have to buy secondhand, hence the band won't actually see any profit from your endeavor, but at least you can say you have something by a band called Dub Sex, whose sound is not remotely dubby and is definitely the polar opposite of sexy.  The singer's voice is one of the most unpleasant things I've ever come across, but I can't imagine anyone else singing "Then And Now" other than maybe Henry Rollins.  I also couldn't imagine the EP without its arrestingly unforgettable cover pic, credited to a photographer named P. Hoare:

I have no idea if Unwound were ever fans of Dub Sex, but their early, manic stuff sure seems to be in a very similar boat.  Early Swervedriver had some musical and geographical similarity to D.S.; coincidentally D.S. had a song called "Swerve," replete with a bare-bones, but professionally-shot, music video:

They had a slightly cooler video for "Time Of Life" in 1989, which shows bassist Cathy Brooks more clearly.  She had some pretty sweet basslines in many of their songs, such as "Voice Of Reason," "Man On The Inside," "Every Secret (That I Ever Made)," "The Underneath", and "Caved In."  So you could say she was the only one who contributed anything remotely resembling dub music to their sound.  Some interesting YouTube comments from "The Underneath": "I saw Dub Sex supporting the Stone Roses in 1989 at the International just after the Roses had released their debut album...two great bands" and "what happened to these guys? they are at least as good as Fugazi."  Your only chance to see the band members in living colour is probably this performance of "I Am Not Afraid" on Tony Wilson's TV show The Other Side Of Midnight.  (Wilson ran the club The Haçienda and co-founded Factory Records.)

Last week, after I loaded about half a ton of these white landscaping bricks into my car in 95º heat; note the chest sweat:

Best live bands I saw in the first half of 2012:
!!!, School Of Seven Bells, Whom Do You Work For?, A Silver Mt. Zion, Kindest Lines, The Neville Brothers (Jazz Fest), The Flaming Lips, Grimes (w/ Born Gold as her backing band), Tatsuya Nakatani + Helen Gillet + Rob Cambre, Tineke Postma (two shows in one night), Foo Fighters (Jazz Fest).

Good but nothing to write home about:
Alcest, EXITMUSIC, Shabazz Palaces, Magnetic Ear (French Quarter Fest), Dayna Kurtz, Sasha Masakowski (French Quarter Fest).

Ones I should've seen:
White Hills, The Weeknd (show sold out literally as I was about to buy tix online), Chairlift, Twin Sister, Har Mar Superstar (missed him twice so far this year; have still never seen him), No Joy, The darkness, Thurston Moore, Nautical Almanac, etc.

Atheist wins right to wear "religious pasta strainer" in i.d. photo

Speaking of the lyric "I used to live in this town before things started spiraling down," check out this YouTube video and/or this one.  Disclaimer: I'm a full-spectrum atheist, meaning I don't believe in any god(s) and am against all religions.  I have the least problem with "Far East" religions, since they're mainly centered on introspection and personal discovery.  I think any reasoned survey of the facts will show that Mormonism, Islam, and Scientology are cults, not just religions.  I like lots of aspects Arabic / N. African culture, and in fact I have over baby 100 date palms outside my window, have owned a Mali uromastyx lizard for 15 years, just noticed a CD called Moroccan Spirit on my desk, get chicken shawarma at a Metairie restaurant called Byblos on the regular, have The Kite Runner on DVD on my rack about 6 feet to my right, bought a copy of the Qur'an last year at a thrift store on a whim, etc.  And this is all despite having some Jewish blood on my mom's side.  I know that might come off as a "Some of my best friends are [black / Jewish / etc.]" type of rationale.  My point is just that I have no problem with Arabic people or culture, I just don't care for Islam, e.g. the fact that kids in the region are forced to join it from a very early age, that drawing Muhammed is punishable by death, that Jews are a mortal enemy, and other inhumane aspects.  From a broader perspective, I've long said that white people are the illegal immigrants in this country and that Native Americans and Mexicans have much more right to this land than we white people do.  I just don't know if this country can survive another wave of militant immigration, since the white influx of 1492 tore it apart pretty quickly.

Planets with similar climates: Venus Beads - "One Way Mirror" (1990), Unwound - "Lucky Acid" (1993), Prosaics - "Teeth" (2004), Hüsker Dü - "Lifeline" (1983), Live Skull - "Fort Belvedere" (1986), Quicksand - "Lie And Wait" (1992), Helmet - "Murder" (1990).