Dub Be Good To Me

In the fall of 2013 AB focuses on a new reggae sub-genre and its influence worldwide: dub. Just call it: the instrumental version of reggae. Dub came into being in 1968 – and so it's exactly 45 years old this year – thanks to the error (!) of one man: Osbourne Ruddock aka King Tubby. During the completion of a master tape, he accidentally forgot to mix the vocals into the whole. Dub (and versions aka instrumentals) was born. To honour this symbolic date, AB launches the series Dub Be Good To Me to provide an answer to the question: how (relevant) does dub sound in the year 2013?

Public Image Ltd.

Dub. PiL. Sex Pistols. Johnny Rotten. Johnny Lydon. Or also: ‘This is Not A Love Song’. ‘Religion’. ‘Metal Box’. Furious post-punk. Dub.

When Johnny Rotten disbanded the Sex Pistols in ’78 he headed over to Jamaica with Richard Branson to scout reggae artists for Virgin Records. When he returned – extremely impressed – he contacted dub aficionado Jah Wobble and established Public Image Ltd. Their groundbreaking debut ‘First Issue’ was released that very same year.
The album emanated dub and Jah Wobble's sound was described as ‘impossibly deep’. In realising this album they were one of the first bands to successfully fuse post-punk with krautrock and dub.

Successor ‘Metal Box’ (’79) is described as one of the most influential albums of all time, it also landed in the Rolling Stone’s Top 500 ‘Greatest Albums Of All Time’.

Following the impressive and experimental ‘Flowers Of Romance’ (’81), PiL also broke through to a broader audience with hits like ‘This Is Not A Love Song’ (’83) and ‘Rise’ (‘86).

The latter was taken from the album – euh - ‘Album’, which was produced by renowned bassist and dub-guru Bill Laswell.

After an extended silence, PiL headed out on the road again in ’09, for a series of memorable live shows.

With John Lydon as only constant factor, of course, and completed by former PiL-members Lu Edmonds (guitar), Bruce Smith (drums) and newcomer Scott Firth (bass) who all entirely do justice to the PiL sound.

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