Now we start to get into the more interesting Dub War records! Possibly most interestingly, this isn't the first copy of Dub Warning I've owned either. You may remember from my previous two Dub War posts that my friend Tom introduced my friends and me to Dub War. We'd played the two albums (and the remixes) endlessly but hadn't realised there was a scattering of other records they'd put out. Well, back in the day I used to go record shopping in the second-hands of Bournemouth and Boscombe fairly regularly, a habit that fleshed out parts of my record collection very cheaply. There were certain letters of the alphabet I'd go to first (which was pointless because I'd always look through them all eventually), and "D" was one of them. I hoped to pick up the Dub War LPs at very best. One day, I was amazed to finally see the name "Dub War" on a record, even more-so because it was a Dub War record I'd never heard of. I was so surprised I spent ages looking at it just to make sure it wasn't some other band called Dub War.
I knew that Tom's birthday was coming up and, at that time, he was way more obsessive about Dub War than I was, so I decided to give it to him for his birthday. When I was a kid I was always baffled by my parents saying Christmas was more fun for seeing how happy their presents made us, and I never really got that until that day. I knew Tom was going to be over the moon. He'd not long bought a turntable too, so the fact it was on vinyl was all the better. I was so excited about this present that I stopped in the first phone-box I could find to phone our friend Nick and tell him about it (an actual phone-box! This was in the days before mobile phones and phone-boxes basically being toilets). Anyway, Tom's birthday soon came round and he thought it was excellent, so I was pleased.
A year or two passed, and a similar feeling of stumbling across a Dub War record in a second-hand store occurred, but this time I instantly recognised the sleeve (in the same Soho record shop where I bought Therapy?'s Babyteeth). It was a good find, because I'd come to want a copy of Dub Warning of my own (and this one was in even better condition than Tom's).
Dub Warning is a nice little record. The opener, Original Murder, went on to become Mental on Pain, but with some slight changes ("We don't want no" rather than "Mental, it's really mental" in the chorus). Crack is an unintentionally amusing song about the dangers of smoking crack ("Don't smoke crack / It's gonna make you whack"). The highlight though must be Dub War where Benji's vocals get to soar in a way they hadn't yet. (Also, I only just noticed the Blade Runner sample at the start of Words of Warning.) The cover is a picture of the air-raid siren that Dub War (and, later, Skindred) used at the start of their shows. All in all, a pretty excellent find, especially considering I had to find it twice!
Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 6
Cost: £4 second hand
Bought: Soho
When: 09/04/03
Colour: Black
Etching: Side A: "Jeff was ere" Side B: "Dange is ere"
mp3s: no
