When I started listening to Dub War, they'd long broken up. However, a short while later we heard news that the singer had started a new band called Skindred and were pretty keen to check them out. It was certainly the closest we'd get to new Dub War. These two songs appeared on the internet and we enjoyed them; Skindred were heavier than Dub War, but that worked for us. A bit later their debut album, Babylon, came out and I enjoyed it for a while.
A few months later, I was in Bristol for a university open day and found a very cool record shop in the alleyways of an underpass (I was in Bristol this Monday and I think found where it used to be - it was already closed the second time I visited Bristol). In there I found this copy of the first record Skindred put out, containing the two songs we'd listened to online. The 10" was limited to 300 copies, and they'd all gone by the time the news reached us, so I was pretty pleased to find it that day. Annoyingly, my fingerprints seem permanently smeared on the label. I must have had greasy hands that day.
Both Target and Brainkilla start with such a noise that I'm never sure I've got the record at the right speed. They're both catchy songs but, sadly, also the best Skindred songs I've heard (although they've released another three albums since Babylon, but I'm pretty sure I won't get much out of them now). If Dreams and Illusions was where Dub War was going, these two songs feel like a step back before Dub Warning.
I didn't know it when I started Dub War Week last week that on Saturday I'd end up going to see Skindred. My friend and I made a last-minute trip to Leeds Festival, and I thought it would be rude to not see Skindred. To my surprise, the set still contained a bunch of early songs I knew, and it was funny to see Benji on such a big stage - the times we saw Skindred back in the day he was confined to The Joiners and The Nexus in Southampton (a conversation the other day reminded me that after the Joiners show, we met Benji and he gave us all beers from the tour bus. Nice guy. None of us had a bottle opener though, and I remember prying mine open on a metal fence. I kept the bottle for years before deciding it was a silly thing to keep!). I can't say Skindred were the best band I saw on Saturday, and I wonder what I would have thought of them if I hadn't spent those years listening to Dub War, but it was nice to see them.
Format: 10", diecut sleeve
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3 second hand
Bought: Bristol
When: 05/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
