Editorial Reviews
Selector Dub Narcotics
Music Review:
Music Review
The Incredible Shrinking Dickies [Original recording remastered]
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5 Song Debut [Explicit Lyrics]
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Amazon.com
In the early '80s, Calvin Johnson, the charming singer from Olympia, Washington's faux-naïf, folk-punk group Beat Happening started K, his own record label. Within a few years, K grew into a loose distribution system. The incipient International Pop Underground influenced thousands of bright-eyed garage acts--Nirvana and Beck among 'em. By the 1990s Beat Happening disbanded, and Johnson formed a loose-knit neo-primitivist dub-funk-punk combo, the Dub Narcotic Sound System, and a studio patterned after funky Jamaican studios, Dub Narcotic Studio. Selector Dub Narcotic presents 23 previously unreleased tracks recorded at the studio in the last few years, including Versus, Jon Spencer, Beck, and Nikki McClure. Tunes range from loose, organ-driven hip-hop to party funk, sensuous fake-soul, affected fake-gospel punk rock, and lovely, minimalist Cherry Red-ish pop. --Mike McGonigal
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...Calvin Johnson has wooed many a player into that enchanting studio of his. Being a savvy producer, he kept all the tapes, knowing that some day, a one-off Beck track would be of value, or an impromptu Blues Explosion recording would beef up a collection of less marketable strays. With 23 tunes, and only a couple duds among ‘em, Jon so proves himself a studio man of high integrity and a music patron of good taste.