Heavyweight Dub Champion and Sly & Robbie – June 18th
June 26, 2009
If you know of Sly & Robbie (and god help me if you don’t), without ever hearing Heavyweight Dub Champion, you’d probably assume that based on their name they’d be a perfect match to tour together. While it is true they are a perfect match, it isn’t immediately apparent when HDC drops the beat. They’re more of an odd couple – HDC playing Oscar their party-rockin’, loose and layered style and Sly & Robbie as Felix with their we’ve-been-playing-for-years-and-have-a-super-tight-sound, consummate professional and always classic riddim onslaught.
For their homecoming show, HDC featured the backbone of the group, Grant Chambers (aka Resurrector), working the console onstage, Totter Todd on a midi guitar, sax, in addition to tossing in a healthy dose of effects, Stero-Lion holding down the toasting and adding verses to a few tracks, and finally Jillian Ann not only providing beautiful vocals but the good looks as well.
Despite being a hometown affair, it took a couple songs for the crowd to warm up to Heavyweight’s warped, bent, filtered, and flipped-on-it’s-head flavor of dubstep/dub hop. The positive grooving of the crowd spread like the smoke from the numerous joints and/or blunts that lit up throughout the crowd. During the first song there were 15-20 people really getting down, but by the third song of their set they had damn near the whole building swaying and bobbing. In an awesomely awkward moment I noticed a 50+ year old couple who looked like they made the trip from Russian Hill grinding…yes grinding…and making out on the dancefloor. Most definitely awkward, but awesome seeing the music transcend ages both older and younger.
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Show Preview: Heavyweight Dub Champion @ the Independent, Thurs Jun 18
June 17, 2009
Coming to the Bay Area by way of Colorado, Heavyweight Dub Champion is not a sound, is not a band, and is definitely not a mere collection of human beings making inspiring music. While HDC ecompasses all of these things, it is a mantra.
The mantra is simple: make public the paintings, poetry, music, and other artistic incarnations of the human and spiritual response to the disintegration of truth and spiritual awareness in a world gone mad.
08-Dawn-1.mp3
Heavyweight Dub Champion – “Dawn”
These are, no doubt, some lofty goals, but with a supporting cast including KRS-One and A.P.O.S.T.L.E., among many others, HDC is definitely on the right track. Their vision and intent may be intense for some, but these guys back it up with some of most super dank, heavy, and at times trance-inducing, dub hop you will hear.
With their modest beginnings in a log cabin in Colorado, you wouldn’t expect core members Resurrector, Patch, and Totter Todd to be so adept at bringing such an electronic heavy sound to life with a remarkably inviting appeal, but they pull it off.
Touring in support of their new album “Rise of the Champion Nation”, Heavyweight will be coming back to their home in the bay for a special show before the summer festival circuit hits.
If you’re looking to catch some great reggae, especially that of the dub/hip-hop blend, swing by the Independent, on Divisadero between Hayes and Grove, Thursday night to catch Heavyweight Dub Champion opening for Sly & Robbie. Doors at 8:30pm, $25.
