After making their triumphant return in 2020 with their self-titled album, Long Beach Dub Allstars have taken it all the way back-to-basics on their latest album “Echo Mountain High”. The album will take listeners on a trip through a psychedelic mountain range of musical madness filled with reggae, rock, ska, hip hop, hard dub, & soul. Long Beach Dub Allstars have always taken chances and have never been afraid to chart into unknown musical territory. “Echo Mountain High” sees them experimenting with some heavy psychedelics and finds the band playing some hard classic dub anthems along with some wild experiments, showcasing the band’s free spirit & fearlessness to venture into the unknown. Joining the Dub Allstars on this mind-altering musical journey are Chris Dowd (Fishbone), who adds his trombone flavor to a track, some sweet vocals on another and some of his iconic keys on 2 others. Devin Morrison (Expanders/Man Like Devin) and Jesse Wagner (Aggrolites), lend some singing on a few tracks. Philieano (Doobie Raider) jumps on two tracks to rap and sing some harmonies, and local Long Beach ripper, Travis Goertz, plays a little slide guitar on one track. Today’s generation of reggae-rock fans may not fully understand how critical this group was to the reggae-rock genre, following Sublime’s conclusion in 1996. They played at a time when social media was non-existent. Live-videos of their early performances are mostly of grainy VHS quality, while most live-photos shot by fans were with those cheap throw-away cameras. There was no Youtube, Facebook, and this was before Myspace or even iTunes. They were the torch bearers of a genre that Sublime introduced and the original ‘Dub Allstars lineup included most of the players who were involved in cultivating that Reggae-Rock sound with Brad Nowell. 25 years later the band has found its resurgence with Opie Ortiz(vocals), Miguel Happoldt (guitar), Tim Wu (horns) joined by Roger Rivas (keys), Ed Kampwirth (bass) and Gil Sharone(drums).
I have to say, when Sublime and Long Beach Dub Allstars first made their way to me I found both to be a something I never heard quite like that before. Maybe it was that West coast flavor that adds its own something to it, but I dug it. I was happy to see that LBDAS are heading to Madison on September 19th along with The Movement at the Majestic to give us some of that West coast good time. I had the chance to chat with Ed Kampwirth to go through what the event will godown like. I wanted to get more insight on the latest album, ‘Echo Mountain High’, so we dive in seed to flower, talk a little about a couple of the tracks and from what went from a session in the yard to this finely assembled group of interesting & diverse tunes. For me this is soul’s music. Taking risks and getting the rewards should be how this album plays out for this band. We do touch a little on how the 562 (Long Beach) plays into the way the music grooves and grows as well as the lineage of the band from the then to now and all points between. HR is definitely an important figure in many a life, our included so we chat briefly about a tune he is actually singing on on their 2020 self titled record. Of course, no time would be complete without building some kind of setlist and that is just what Ed did. Some kind.
Photo by: Matt Farrington @maxfarenhite
