So Jah Say: Unconditional Dub

It's #700 at last, and a worthy subject it is, accompanied by the sort of stellar rarity I try to supply.

We're also inaugurating the integration of my YouTube channel into here, with a track from whatever I'm sharing leading off the top of each post so you can get a taste before you paste.

Today's 64th birthday guy is someone I've wanted to cover since 9 years ago when I started this page.

Part of the original circle of British Punk, he transcended the limitations of 1977 and became one of the godfathers of Modern Dub.

The legend has it that he got his stage name from another, somewhat more primitive bassist: Sid Vicious, who was apparently too drunk to say "John Wardle".

Anyway he was the original bass player of Public Image Limited until 1980, when he voyaged out to a solo career that's featured all sorts of milestones and interesting turns.

His first adventure on his own, in 1981, was a band called The Human Condition.

That's THC for short.

They didn't make a studio record, as within a year they had morphed into this dude's signature group, Invaders of the Heart.

A group which he still leads to this day, by the way.

The Human Condition didn't make it into the studio, but they toured for a good part of 1981 and into 1982.

Lucky for us, they released two cassette-only live tapes, the first of which was the very first Instant Official Bootleg, which made it into the shops 48 hours after the performance.

These cassettes were gone from print almost as soon as they appeared, and to my knowledge have only since ever circulated from 128K mp3s that were at the wrong speed and sourced from chewed up tapes.

I've spent the last 10 days working on changing that.

Jah Wobble's The Human Condition
Live In Europe 1981

01 Apocalypse pts. 1 & 2

02 City of Gold

03 Neon

04 Sleazy

05 Reality

06 Tension

07 Oil Pump

08 Frantic

09 The Human Condition

10 Red Indian

11 City of Gold II

12 Waves

13 The End

14 The Human Condition II

15 Soundcheck

16 Condemned

Total time: 1:16:42

Tracks 01-11: Collegiate Theatre, London UK 9.13.1981 

Tracks 12-15: venue unknown, The Netherlands November 1981 

Track 16: unknown European date & venue, Nov. 1981 (audience recording included for completeness)

Jah Wobble - bass

Dave "Animal" Maltby - guitar

Jim Walker - drums

Annie Whitehead - saxophones

sounds like 1st or 2nd gen copies of the original, way out-of-print and allegedly never-to-be-reissued cassettes

Tracks 01-11 may have been remastered previously

declipped, pitch corrected and retracked -- with Tracks 12-16 remastered -- by EN, August 2022
547 MB FLAC/direct link

The London segment of this mis-circulates as "The Venue 1982," but it isn't, it's this. The Holland segment was only ever around from the mp3s, which ran so fast they sounded like a 170BPM remix... I'm completely woeful at pitch issues but I did my best.

So yeah, Jah Wobble -- born this day in 1958 and still a vital creative force -- makes 700 posts for this blog. I can think of no one more worthy, period.

We'll start the road to 800 next week, but this monster 76 minutes of bottom-driven madness oughta keep you funked for a good while.--J.