Anyone that knows me will attest to my music snobbery. I hold the arts to an extremely high standard and believe that artist of any medium need to have open and honest conversation. It doesn't matter if you are a painter, a musician, a photographer, a chef, or a designer. Artist are bullshit without their body of work. How popular they are in the mainstream, the number of clients they service, how much money they make....none of that means anything if they are unoriginal and uninspiring. I say this in preface to my first ever review on music. At least a review that is written out and not a reply to a status update on Facebook to as why Creed indeed does suck. I write this not as a critic or someone trying to sell something, but just an honest opinion from a music lover.
With all of that being said, a few weeks ago I got the invite from Tommy Dubs to come take some images inside the studio while he and his band Seismic Leveler were doing some final mixes on their upcoming release "Ebb Tide Motel." Dubs and I go back quite a while when our bands use to play shows together in Ocean Beach. I remember the first show we played together was at a house party at the end of Long Branch Ave in OB. Southern California is the breeding ground for white guys playing mediocre/bad reggae. I honestly paid no attention to most of them. it was usually all the same uninspiring crap. Stoner's pretending they are the next coming of sublime, drummers playing bad one drop beats with no meter, and singers yelling to "praise Jah" in their love ballads over weed. It gets old really fast. The first 10 seconds of Dubs' set and I knew this guy was different. (he was the playing with his band Gadfly at the time.) There was a tinge of reggae to the music, but more of a dramatic and personal feel that you knew came from reggae being an inspiration to his own style and not trying to replicate another artist. The song writing had a journey feeling to it as if they weren't just playing a song, but taking you through the chapters of a book.
CLICK READ MORE BELOW TO VIEW THE COMPLETE POST:
Fast forward eight or so years and here we are sitting in a studio downtown and I couldn't be happier that what I was listening to was still producing that same feeling. The feeling of "Ebb Tide Motel" isn't so much an album worth of songs, but feels more like a soundtrack to an unwritten movie about living life in the unique Ocean Beach community of San Diego, Ca. Each of the songs lend a hand to each other in how the flow of the album feels from start to finish. You can tell when a musician lazily throws tracks onto a CD and when one creates an album of songs almost forcing you to start on track 1 and not finish until the last one is complete. "Ebb Tide Motel" is no different.
If you aren't familiar with the actual Ebb Tide motel in Ocean Beach, it is situated in a kind of seedy part of OB. Tommy Dubs explains is at a "Halfway house to reality" and I always remember it because they found a girl stabbed to death inside a room the first day I moved into the neighborhood. Trying to explain the feeling of life in OB is tough unless you have lived there for any sort of time. I always equate it to a college town except no one goes to class. Young people flock to the carefree lifestyle and living in a beach community, but many forget to check reality and become lost. I have strayed on the lines of access to excess more than enough times when I lived there.
Giving a listen to the track "Ebb Tide Motel" puts me right back in that place in time and gives the listener a truthful insight into someone's inner thought that is standing on that line. Anyone at a crossroads in life only chooses the lighter path by guidance from other people who care about them. Having someone to lean on. Someone you can tell your mistakes to. "Ebb Tide Motel" perfectly describes this struggle; from the reflective wondering guitar intro to the strong chorus line, "Ebb Tide Motel" takes you through the gamut of regret and emotional triumph.
"Man in the Sky" features Piracy Mel C whose extremely strong dancehall reggae "Sister Carolesque" verse answers back Dub's questioning like the truth is knocking down the door. The concept of "Man in the Sky" hits perfectly in our time and place in the world as humans. It questions our convictions that we constantly fight for as the truth but fail to dig deeper as to where they come from. How much of what we believe in is fed to us from the media and from our government. The song plays on the idea that we are all the same, but our beliefs are somehow construed by what we allow ourselves to be persuaded by. My favorite line in the song and probably one of my favorite lines ever is "The Kool-aid that your drinking, is the Kool-aid that I'm drinking"
If you appreciate smart music that will inspire you I highly suggest grabbing a copy of "Ebb Tide Motel" when it drops at the end of July. If you have ever lived in Ocean Beach, I suggest you put this album on, close your eyes, and give thanks that you are a healthy normal person. You can download it, as well as previous albums, from Tommy Dubs & Seismic Levelers iTunes page or by visiting their website.
No comments:
Post a Comment