Dubstar: WEEK IN WEEK OUT JESMOND DEMO

Week in Week Out is one of Dubstar’s first and oldest songs. This demo was among the earliest recordings I made in my flat in Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne, on a tiny Tascam PortaOne cassette machine. The equipment was very basic, some of it from second hand shops dotted around the city and all played through a domestic hifi. And lots of synths, more about them in a moment.

As I mentioned on dubstar.com, WIWO is a portmanteau of pre-existing songs stitched together to make a new composition. The chorus comes from a song I wrote in 1987 called Not You (what is it with all these songs about what something isn’t?). The verse was taken from a song by The Joans called Mikaela, the first song we recorded in a studio in 1992, and the spoken-word parts come from Sarah’s book of poetry. Add in a bass line nodding towards Wolfgang Press, plus a general aesthetic shaped by the then-emerging career of Thieves, and you’ve got the perfect “end of side one” moment for a Dubstar album.

The Toys…

So what do we hear here? For a tune recorded in a flat on jumble sale equipment there’s some surprisingly sophisticated early-90s techniques on display. The opening sound is frozen reverb—almost certainly a guitar chord captured and suspended in my Zoom 9050 effects unit. I had the optional floor controller which was very cool indeed. Shame I’m not much of a guitarist, I had all the toys!

Ceci n'est pas un jouet, it’s a Zoom 9050

Next comes the descending sample, which I think is a tiny lift from James Brown Is Dead. Or maybe another hardcore track doing the rounds at the time.

The drums are a mix of analogue hits I made on my Korg Mono/Poly and samples from my record collection. I’m fairly sure the snare came from the 12-inch of Nitzer Ebb’s Hearts and Minds. You can also hear my ancient Alesis Midiverb splashing across the percussion. It sounds like the gated reverb setting that I had a habit of putting on everything.

On Chris’s guitar you’ll hear the Roland GP-16 rack unit adding those swirly Robin Guthrie overtones. Special mention, too, for the lovely swelled chords drifting through the start of verse one.

And of course, the recording’s real highlight is the vocals—some of the earliest Sarah laid. There are the close harmonies in the chorus, inherited from my original late-80s recording, and Sarah’s spoken word sections where her West Yorkshire accent really shines. Lovely stuff.

Thinking Back

There’s not much more to say about the song itself, I’m more taken with the overall sound. I’ve recently been discussing over bottles of Allendale Beer how great music is about catching lightning in a bottle, by which I mean how it’s very hard to predict what’s going to work and when. The balance between something excellent and, er….wonky, is fragile and tenuous. I’ve long observed how something can be utterly beautiful (Depeche Mode with Alan Wilder) but you change one seemingly trivial component and the magic disappears (Depeche Mode without Alan Wilder).

WIWO is an example of that lightning, at least in terms of its sound. Excellent vocals, rolling rhythm that complements the chiming guitar, and a selection of dynamic events that mirror the dance music styles of the time. This is Dubstar, let’s do more of this sort of thing but in 4:4, right?

And even though WIWO is a jumble of different ideas jostling for attention over five minutes of chorus and reverb, maybe that’s its charm? It’s the sound of a trio getting its act together—literally. And in some ways WIWO is the sound of a band at a crossroads, both culturally and creatively.

The decision: Do we stick with this 1990s, guitar-based indie identity, or fully embrace the techno-driven world opening up in front of us? In true Dubstar fashion, I’m not sure we ever actually made the decision. We simply patted ourselves on the back and went to the pub. And then on to the club. Hooray!

I’ve said before that this isn’t one of my favourites because I know where all the bits come from and I can hear the joins. But now, I find its naïveté rather appealing. It’s the sound of a band thinking, “We need to do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do it.” Pure politicians’ logic—which, in Dubstar’s case, lasted for the next six years.

This article includes excerpts from DUBSTAR.COM. Want more? You can find the story behind every Dubstar song ever recorded including dozens of unreleased songs right here at Dubstar.com

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