Dubtribe Sound System
Encyclopedia
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
musical group who produced and performed live world wide between 1991 and 2005.
Dubtribe consisted of singers Sunshine Jones and Moonbeam Jones, but also included many sit in and "on tour" musicians over the years. Originally born in a rent party
Rent party
A rent party is a social occasion where tenants hire a musician or band to play and pass the hat to raise money to pay their rent, originating in Harlem during the 1920s. The rent party played a major role in the development of jazz and blues music...
, Dubtribe Sound System distinguished themselves as performers by performing live for many hours, rather than replaying their recordings from dat tapes
Digital Audio Tape
Digital Audio Tape is a signal recording and playback medium developed by Sony and introduced in 1987. In appearance it is similar to a compact audio cassette, using 4 mm magnetic tape enclosed in a protective shell, but is roughly half the size at 73 mm × 54 mm × 10.5 mm. As...
or portable computers, and touring without stopping, often bringing their own sound, lights, and traveling family with them. But unlike their few counterparts in North America, Dubtribe would depart from the warehouse movement and establish themselves in the mid-1990s as a grass roots tour de force, refusing help, press, or money from any outside interests.
Origins
Sunshine Jones, an ex-punk rocker and Bay Area native, taking in the still-emerging sounds of hip-hop. At club Townsend, DJ Doc Martin broke out some house music. "One night he just started playing Marshall Jefferson and Ten City, and it was a real shock," Sunshine says. "I left angry with Martin because he sold out on hip-hop."After Sunshine spent a summer on the Spanish party isle of Ibiza
Ibiza
Ibiza or Eivissa is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea 79 km off the coast of the city of Valencia in Spain. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. With Formentera, it is one of the two Pine Islands or Pityuses. Its largest cities are Ibiza...
in 1989, it started to make sense. All shapes and sizes getting together to dance, he says. I wanted to share that. It changed me forever.
Back in San Francisco, Sunshine had been leading an acid-jazz band. When it needed a vocalist, he took on Moonbeam in 1990. ("I didn't want to meet anybody named Moonbeam," Sunshine says. "I had the shit beat out of me for my name.") Inspired by Ibiza, he tried to transform his group into a live house-music act. Many of the band members bailed, leaving just Sunshine and Moonbeam to go it alone as Dubtribe. At first, it was a grind trying to get booked in a DJ-centric world, but the duo's DIY 'Come Unity' events at the Bryant Street pad (the first event was a rent party) were a hit, and soon Dubtribe was making records.
Conclusion
Dubtribe Sound System performed their final show at Cielo in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on December 1, 2005.
They reunited on September 5, 2009 to play at the "Buzz Reunion 101" event at Ibiza Nightclub in Washington, D.C.
Notable recordings
- After a few years of cassette tape, and bootlegBootleg recordingA bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
notoriety Dubtribe released 1993's 12" single "Mother Earth." the single was frequently quoted as being a major influence in the origins of The Chemical BrothersThe Chemical BrothersThe Chemical Brothers are a British electronic music duo comprising Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons. Originating in Manchester in 1991, along with The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, The Crystal Method, and fellow acts, they were pioneers at bringing the big beat genre to the forefront of pop culture.- Background...
, DJ IceyDJ IceyDJ Icey, , is a DJ and electronic music producer, credited by Allmusic as having helped to "jump-start the increasingly fertile dance scene in and around Orlando, FL, during the '90s". E, the Incredibly Strange History of Ecstasy credits him as "the prime founder of the Funky Breaks and the Florida...
, and many other breakbeatBreakbeatIn 1992, a new style called "jungalistic hardcore" emerged, and for many ravers it was too funky to dance to. Josh Lawford of Ravescene prophesied that the breakbeat was "the death-knell of rave" because the ever changing drumbeat patterns of breakbeat music didn't allow for the same zoned out,...
producers of the 1990s. Reaching the bottom of the UK Dance charts, included on hundreds of dance compilations, and remains a commonly sampled record.
- Their 1996 ep 'Momentito Por Favor' was instrumental in broadening the latin houseLatin houseLatin house is an electronic dance music subgenre that mixes together house and Latin American music, such as that of Brazilian, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Cuban, Dominican and Colombian origin.-Origins:...
and deep houseDeep houseDeep house is a subgenre of house music that fuses elements of Chicago house into the 1980s jazz-funk and touches of soul music. In the early compositions , influences of jazz music were most frequently brought out by using more complex chords than simple triads which are held for many bars and...
sound of the underground dance scene in the United States
- In 1999 Dubtribe released their 5th album, Bryant Street, and while it undersold the expectations of Jive executives, the track Equitoreal was included on hundreds of dance compilations, and DJ mixes. Equitoreal rose up the UK Dance charts while Dubtribe were struggling to be released from their six album agreement with BMG. After refusing to allow Wrigley's Gum to license the song for a UK television commercial, the band was summarily dropped.
- 2001's 'Do It Now,' intended as the final Dubtribe Sound System recording, found itself in the hands of the UK Dance Music Guru Simon Dunmore of Defected Records Ltd.Defected Records- History :Established in 1999 by former AM:PM and Cooltempo A&R man Simon Dunmore, Defected's first release was Soulsearcher's "I Can't Get Enough" which reached No.5 in the UK singles chart. This early success was followed up with Roger Sanchez's "Another Chance", which hit No.1 in the UK singles...
. Dunmore and his staff created a world wide phenomena of the song, and gave it a 5 year life span in turntable and charts all over the world. 'Do It Now' remains by far Dubtribe's most popular and well known recording.
Notable events
- World Electronic Music Festival, Barrie, Ontario
- Family Affair, Akron OH
- The Big Chill, UK
- Sunrise Festival, Baltimore MD
- Alachua County Music Harvest
- Illegal Beach Party adjacent to the Winter Music Conference (Voted best of conference by MixMag)