My car ended up in the garage on Monday, so I had the additional joy of using the Great Western Railway service for a large chunk of my commute for most of this week.
Which also meant spending up to two hours stuck in the train station each evening, watching successive homeward bound trains either being delayed, cancelled or, bizarrely, still showing as "on time" even though their arrival time had long passed and there was no sign of them.
Anyway, what got me to a rather more chilled space - mentally if not physically - was a playlist of reggae and dub music, guaranteed to get me to a better place, even if the effing trains couldn't manage it.
Back in April, I posted Under Dub Covers, a selection of reggae and dub cover versions and it was well received, so here's the follow up!
Fourteen tracks this time, a 50/50 split between reggae and dub, 60s-90s and 21st Century, but 100% certified excellent. Well, the tunes, if not the sequencing!
This week in 1985, I Got You Babe by UB40 "with guest vocals by" Chrissie Hynde first entered the UK singles chart at a modest #22. It was Top 5 a couple of weeks later and #1 a couple of weeks after that.
There was a dub version on the flip side but no extended version on the 12", so I've taken the liberty of creating my own edit for this selection. I've literally spliced the dub intro and outro with (most of) the vocal version. A dub sandwich, if you will, crackles and all.
1) Stoned In Love (Cover of 'I'm Stone In Love With You' by The Stylistics): Pat Kelly (1979)
2) It's Too Late (Cover of Carole King): Marcia Griffiths (1974)
3) A Wonderful Version (Cover of Louis Armstrong): Rhoda Dakar ft. Natty Campbell (2023)
4) Safe From Harm (Album Version By Adrian Sherwood) (Cover of Massive Attack): Horace Andy (2022)
5) Night Nurse (Dub With Vocal) (Remix By Mick Hucknall) (Cover of Gregory Isaacs): Sly & Robbie ft. Simply Red (1997)
6) To Love Somebody (Album Version By Lee 'Scratch' Perry) (Cover of Bee Gees): Busty Brown (1969)
7) The Model Dub (Cover of 'Das Modell' by Kraftwerk): Prince Fatty ft. Shniece McMenamin (2020)
8) Chase The Devil (Adrian Sherwood Dub) (Cover of Max Romeo): Dubblestandart ft. Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Coshiva & Emch (2014)
9) I Got You Babe (Dub Sandwich Re-Edit By Khayem) (Cover of Sonny & Cher): UB40 ft. Chrissie Hynde (2025)
10) Long As I Can See The Light (Adrian Sherwood's Dub Lighting) (Cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival): Monkey Mafia ft. Shirzelle (1998)
11) Dock Of The Bay (Cover of '(Sittin' On) The Dock Of Tthe Bay' by Otis Redding): Dennis Brown (1972)
12) Everything I Own (Dub Version By Stewart Levine) (Cover of Bread): Boy George (1987)
13) All Shook Up (Cover of Elvis Presley): Jackie Edwards (1979)
14) Exodus (Dubvisionist Dub) (Remix By Felix Wolter) (Cover of Bob Marley & The Wailers): Tackhead (2011)
1969: The Upsetter: 6
1972: Superstar: 11
1979: So Proud: 1
1980: All Shook Up EP: 13
1987: Everything I Own EP: 12
1997: Night Nurse EP: 5
1998: Long As I Can See The Light EP: 10
2011: Exodus EP: 14
2014: Dubblestandart In Dub: 8
2015: Play Me / Sweet And Nice (Expanded Edition): 2
A few cover versions that didn't make today's final selection were produced by the legend that is Dennis Bovell. That didn't sit right with me so, as compensation, I've restored links to the two DB-themed selections that I've previously posted. With the above, that's pretty much four hours of dub nutrition!
I love reggae and dub and I love cover versions and it's been a while since I've posted either, so I've mashed them up in one (nearly) hour-long selection.
A 15-track compendium, mostly 21st Century, but with a clutch of 1970s classics thrown in for good measure. I couldn't decide between two Nicky Thomas covers so they both went in!
Today's selection is by way of compensation to Ernie at 27 Leggies for last Sunday's crushing disappointment of posting a mixtape side titled Roots 'n' Culture that was completely devoid of dub and reggae.
No red herrings here, with plenty of bass-heavy rhythms amongst the genre-hopping bakers' dozen of tunes. At least one tune from each of the last six decades and, as far as I can tell, all appearing here (in these versions at least) for the first time.
Lee 'Scratch' Perry is hidden in plain sight, collaborating with Bob Marley on the opening song and reappearing as the Upsetter on the penultimate track.
There are a trio of tunes from 1982, quite by accident, featuring UB40, Rico ably accompanied by The Specials and one of the greatest voices of all time, Bim Sherman.
As you may have guessed, International Beat was a spin-off from The Beat, their debut album produced by none other than Ranking Roger.
There are a couple of covers, with Rico and The Special AKA taking on the title track of Japanese jazz musician's Sadao Watanabe's 1979 album Morning Island.
For Me You Are by Prince Fatty, Hollie Cook and Horseman has a rather more complicated history. The song was originally titled Bei Mir Bistu Shein and written by Jacob Jacobs and Sholom Secunda in 1932 for a Yiddish language comedy musical, I Would If I Could, performed by Aaron Lebedeff and Lucy Levin.
Five years later, Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin got their hands on the song, wrote English lyrics, Germanised the song title spelling and created a global hit for The Andrews Sisters with Bei Mir Bist Du Schön (Means That You're Grand)
The name of Prince Fatty's 2012 remake is an approximation of the original Yiddish to English song title translation, To Me You're Beautiful.
Phew, history lesson over, time to enjoy the music!
It's the first Bandcamp Friday of 2024 on 2nd Feb, so amongst the many Hollie Cook back catalogue recommendations, the dub version of the Happy Hour album is high on the list.
Hollie has appeared on a couple of GDC songs, including Play My Games from last year's On A Mission album, so hopefully in addition to her set she'll pop back up on stage to perform with them. Here's a taster if you've not heard them before.
Here's an eclectic 90 minutes of songs, remixes or acts featuring either '1000' or 'thousand' in the name. What was a little surprising was just how many examples are bouncing around in my collection. Even my shortlist contained roughly twice as many songs as made the final selection.
Those of you who follow the excellent 27 Leggies and in particular Ernie's African Odyssey will have been hugely disappointed by the difficult decision to exclude the mighty King Ayisoba from this week's stop off in Ghana, such was the embarrassment of musical riches emanating from the country. Rest assured, his majesty makes an appearance here, with one of the songs that Ernie originally posted and part of my introduction to the Ghanaian great.
The selection closes with a two-hander from XTC and The Coral and I don't think I could have picked two better songs to wrap up.
Viel spaß mit meiner tausendsten beitragsauswahl, meine Freunde!
1) 1000 Miles: Ride (1994)
2) Rilly Groovy (S1000 Mix By Spencer Williams & Mike Koglin): Beautiful People ft. Jimi Hendrix (1992)
3) Furious Angels (Rollo's Thousand Volts Mix): Rob Dougan (1998)
4) 1000 Miles Away: Hoodoo Gurus ft. Vicki Peterson (1991)
5) One Thousand Miles An Hour: Stereolab (1995)
6) 1000 Faces: Gonzales (2002)
7) Through It Poured The Next Day, I Never Noticed The Rain (Single Version): One Thousand Violins (1986)
8) One Thousand Tears Of A Tarantula (Album Version): Dengue Fever (2005)
9) One Thousand Years: TUU (1993)
10) Swords Of A Thousand Men: Tenpole Tudor (1981)
11) 1000 Dollar Car: The Bottle Rockets (1994)
12) Son Of A Thousand Fathers: Prince Fatty & Mutant Hi-Fi (2011)
13) 1000 Miles: Dirty Three (1996)
14) Blue-Eyed Pop (S1000 Mix By Spencer Williams & Mike Koglin): The Sugarcubes (1992)
15) 1000 Can Die: King Ayisoba ft. M3nsa & Lee 'Scratch' Perry (2017)
16) $1000 Wedding: Gram Parsons ft. Emmylou Harris (1974)
17) A Girl Like You (1000 Times) (Remix By Howard Gray): The Wolfgang Press ft. Claudia Fontaine (1992)
And if that's not enough for you, there are thousands of others that could have made the cut.
Contributing today's cover photo, I bought the 12" of I Feel It/Thousand by Moby in the 1990s. I remember reading in Mixmag or DJ magazine at the time that the song achieved a Guinness World Record for having the fastest BPM tempo of any released single, peaking at approximately 1,015 beats per minute.
None of which means the song is any good, of course. Rather than subject you to the full version, here's two minutes of Moby "performing" Thousand at the Electric Daisy Carneval in (I think) 2015. Health warning: strobe lights, plus a bald, pasty-skinned man topless and puffing his chest out to the largely indifferent masses. The fireworks are lovely, though.
Someone else who's still rocking the hairspray and lippy like it's 1985 is Robert Smith of The Cure. Here's A Thousand Hours (and bonus At Night) performed last October in Los Angeles. The venue is the Smoothie King Center, presumably named after a US company/sponsor but was there ever a more appropriately named venue for ol' Bob?
Back to 1994 and The Fatima Mansions live on stage 1000%, again cutting away to some fairly blank faces. Phillistines! I saw Cathal Coughlan and crew at The Fleece in Bristol around the same time and it was one of the most blistering, incendiary gigs I've been to. A greatly missed creative genius.
You get some strange stuff on You Tube, don't you? I love The Beloved and I really like the song 1000 Years From Today. One fan has taken this one step further and created their own video. Not the mental image I had when listening to the song previously.
I have one song by Lia Ices aka Leah Kessel, courtesy of a Mojo magazine cover mount CD. A bit of an insult really, given that she's released four albums since 2008. Luckily for Lia, the one song is called Thousand Eyes so it gets a mention here. Not a fan-made video, although it's cut-and-paste job shamelessly stealing from Bollywood.
And for those of you who on seeing the post title and theme have been shouting "Where's Slough's finest, Thousand Yard Stare, for feck's sake?!" at the screen ever since, I think it's about time you got your comeuppance.
Sorry, a bit later than usual posting this, due to a Clan K excursion last night and a bit of a lie-in this morning. A warning: this is a big one, you might need a Thermos flask and packed lunch to get you through.
Oh, this is difficult. Even trying to nail down some of my favourite versions - covers, remixes and reimaginings - of 2023 has proved to be an insurmountable task.
Therefore, I've picked out just 23 listed alphabetically by artist. Some I've been enjoying for many months, one in particular (The Woodentops) was a last minute addition, having belatedly discovered it via Swiss Adam's year end run down at Bagging Area.
Strap in, there's a wild ride ahead!
Jango Mango: Ademarr & Joseeph
EP released via Roam Recodings in July, featuring the original version plus standout remixes from Darlyn Vlys and Iñigo Vontier.
Tender (Cover of Blur): The Anchoress
For the past year or so, Catherine Anne Davies released a cover version per month, available for a limited time on Bandcamp. Many of them were subsequently collected for this year's excellent Versions album.
Tender, originally released in 2021, didn't make the album cut but it did get a physical release in April, as the third of a series of limited edition EPs. The EP has long since sold out and the song has vanished from t'internet. To give you a taste of how good it is/was, here's an extract (KF) (Mega).
Gorgeous, isn't it?
Njalo: Cee ElAssaad ft. Bongi Mvuyana
Morrocco meets South Africa with stunning results. Njalo has been burning a hole in my speakers since February and comes in three versions: the original full vocal, dub and instrumental; all superb.
Yeah x 3: David Holmes ft. Raven Violet
I could have picked any of David's singles, whether with Unloved or Raven Violet, as highlights of the year, to be honest. Yeah x 3 was released in November, with a diverse range of remixes from Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, Jordan Nocturne, X-Press 2 and a couple of beauties from Gary Irwin aka The Vendetta Suite.
I was down a specific Transglobal Underground rabbit hole, which led me to the Violins Against Bombs RMX album, featuring 10 reworks of the original 2022 album by TGU along with Fluo Sobre, Rafael Aragon, Dunkelbunt, MiRET and Recycler. Now available as a name your price/free download, so what have you got to lose?
Unchanged (GLOK Remix): Dot Allison
Dot Allison meets Andy Bell on a dub excursion that evokes yet avoids mimicking the majesty of One Dove. Released in June and a perfect companion piece to their respective releases this year.
Other Skies: Electric Blue Vision
As mentioned in yesterday's post, Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray have been on fire this year with standalone remixes and releases. However, when they come together as Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Uptown, the listener is in for a dub excursion par excellence.
Other Skies, the second single by Electric Blue Vision by Emilia Harmony and Jesse Fahnestock, broke cover in November, the sublime original also channeling the spirit of One Dove. The remixes took the song in wildly different directions, all worth the trip.
Confessions Of An Ageing Party Girl: Emily Breeze
A 2020 single and highlight of this year's Rapture album, March saw the release of a remix by Massive Attack's Daddy G (Grant Marshall) and Robot Club (Stew Jackson). Not available on Bandcamp but available through most of the usual places.
If you're a regular visitor to the essential music blog No Badger Required - and if you aren't, I urge you to start right now - then you'll have spotted that I referenced it over there as my track of 2023. Thanks, SWC!
Cello Song (Cover of Nick Drake): Fontaines D.C.
I was slow to listen to Fontaines D.C.'s second album Skinty Fia this year - my mistake - and to their singular take on the Nick Drake back in March. My fellow blog travellers have written about why this is the epitome of what a great cover version should be and they are absolutely spot on. If I heard this in complete ignorance, I'd think it was a stunning song. The fact that it may inspire listeners to check out not just Fontaines D.C. but Nick Drake can only be a good thing.
Cello Song features on the album The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs Of Nick Drake, which I could easily have included in my list of favourite compilations yesterday.
Shakatak: Gaudi
Woah, come back. If you're worried that this March 2023 release is a tribute to the '80s white English jazz-funk band, rest assured. Daniele Gaudi delivers another colossal slice of dub, especially on the 'ReRub' version.
Pez (bdrmm Remix): GIFT
This all started with A Place To Bury Strangers, specifically their remix album See Through You Rerealized which featured separate remixes by GIFT and bdrmm. I wasn't familiar with either band and little trawl of Bandcamp unearthed their respective back catalogues. The two come together on this remix, released in August as a precursor to GIFT's debut album, Momentary Presence, a couple of months later. Check 'em all out.
Dirty Hugs (Richard Sen Remix): GLOK
The Pattern Recognition album got a 3-track remix EP in March, a great month for releases, in retrospect. Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Uptown and Tom Sharkett from W.H. Lung set the bar high but Richard Sen has no difficulty in holding his own and taking the original 20-minute trip on a wild chase through the city's nightlife.
A Night In Siolim (A Space Age Freak Out Remix): Högt I Tak
Paisley Dark Records have been a go-to with each release, not just for the high quality electronica but the calibre of remixes. Label boss John Paynter proves that you don't need to outsource to produce something quite special, as his Space Age Freak Out remix from December amply demonstrates.
I Am The Fly (Cover of Wire): Jah Wobble
The Wob made a raucous return (not that he's ever been away) with a slew of new albums in 2023, August's A Brief History Of Now revisiting his punk/post-punk stylings with fellow traveller Jon Klein. Their cover of Wire's I Am The Fly was an unexpected treat, Klein on vocals and Jah Wobble working his usual bass magic.
And, as a bonus treat, here's the man himself showing you how it's done (and yes, Mike, he is playing more than one string!)
Arabiklan (Rude Audio Remix): James Rod
Another top notch Paisley Dark remix package, this time in May, with an artist that I wasn't that familiar with. James Rod provides two classy originals with Synthetic Glory and Arabiklan, handing them over to Mindbender, Hunterbräu, Högt I Tak and Man2.0. Rude Audio aka Mark Ratcliff delivers a blinder.
Trading Places: Jezebell
I've written previously about Trading Places, issued as a pair of EPs in April, offering up 'daytime' and nighttime' versions. All excellent, but the 6PM version gets a special mention for the delightful cameo by Siouxsie Sioux, expertly woven in by Jesse Fahnestock and Darren Bell. Available as a name your price/free download.
Phoenix (Cover of The Cult): JIM
First off, apologies that I've completely forgotten which music blog introduced me to this cover version and JIM (Jim Baron) in general, as I doubt I would have found him or the rather lovely Love Makes Magic album otherwise. Originally issued in June, the 10-song album included this fine cover, swapping bollock rock for Balearic acoustica to brilliant effect.
Bridge To Heaven (Sonic Boom Bass Remix): John Massoni
Another chance discovery this year whilst searching for Sonic Boom related items was his collaboration with John Massoni on the 8-track EP, Think Of Me When You Hear Waves. A further Sonic Boom remix of Bridge To Heaven, stretching things even further to just under ten minutes, shimmered into view in August.
Willow's Song (Richard Norris Ritual Mix): Katy J Pearson
Katy J Pearson recorded a whole bunch of covers for The Wicker Man EP, released in October to celebrate the film of the same name's 50th anniversary. Katy had originally recorded Willow's Song as the closer of her 2022 album Sound Of The Morning and the Richard Norris remix came out in June this year. A strong contender for remix - and track - of the year and perfectly aligned with his own mighty dub workouts as Oracle Sounds.
Edge Of The Edge Dub (Adrian Sherwood 'Reset In Dub’ Version): Panda Bear & Sonic Boom
August - another solid month for great music - saw the third iteration of the Reset album, following the original and 'Songbook + Instrumentals' versions. Here, Adrian Sherwood puts the entire thing through a dub rinse which promises much and somehow manages even then to exceed expectations. Much as I love Noah Lennox and Pete Kember's collaboration, Reset In Dub takes the music to another plane of existence.
Expansions Dub (Cover of Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes): Prince Fatty ft. Shniece McMenamin
Not the only cover version that Prince Fatty shared in 2023 though arguably one that I wasn't expecting at all. With Shniece on the mic and Fatty at the controls, the listener is in safe hands and the dub version feels even more like a big aural hug. Another August highlight.
Fitzroy Avenue (BFP Acid-Flex Mix By Bedford Falls Players): Warriors Of The Dystotheque ft. Joe Duggan
We're on the home stretch now with yet another Paisley Dark winner, going all the way back to March. This is a generous 8-track digital EP, with a bonus hidden ninth 'No Effects Vox' version, i.e. just Joe Duggan. Tons of great remixes by Mindbender, Högt I Tak, Hunterbräu, Ed Mahon, Jezebell and this one from the ever excellent Mark Cooper aka Bedford Falls Players.
Ride A Cloud (Coyote Remix): The Woodentops
The Woodentops released Ride A Cloud, with remixes by Coyote and Andres y Xavi, in June and somehow I managed to miss it completely. Thankfully, Swiss Adam to the rescue with his own end of year round up meant that I discovered this wonderful 3-tracker and it's ended up here just in time to wind things down after that marathon workout.
Tomorrow, I'll be trying hard to pick some more 2023 favourites. Heaven help me.
