Sub Oslo
Stubb’s, August 17
Let’s not forget, it is a barbecue place. And certainly, wherever Sub Oslo plays, more than just the barbecue is smokin’. The Denton-based seven-man sound system gets the royal treatment from a unique live mixing process that captures the booms and beats as they filter down from the stage, knocking them off-course and giving them a swift KACK-kack-kack-kack-kack in the butt. Based on the thick, skunky aroma of the Stubb’s inside room, the rhythms were given a second, ganjified treatment as well. You see, in Sub Oslo’s world, rhythm is king, and everything else is subservient — including the choice of smoke. Including the series of heavy electronic farts beaming down from the stage. Including the buffet of shifty images behind the band (even if it was less than the usual cornucopia of moving lights that accompanies them when they play the Mercury). All of these things conspire to simultaneously enhance the thick grooves laid down by the group’s backbone, the heavy riddem section of drummer Quincy Holloway and bassist Miguel Veliz, and bury them in an avalanche of blips, bleeps, lights, echoes, and all-around mental static. If there’s a Sub Oslo formula, that’s it: Holloway and Veliz establish a deep-set groove, and no matter how loud the Jedi lightsaber-like electronics, how bright the swirling clouds of light, how much heavy contortion mixman supreme John Knuckles lays down upon America’s only all-live dub ensemble, the duo takes the challenge and runs with it, yanking the songs from the edge of the abyss every time with their thumping soul beat. When this heroic act is played out to perfection, it results in an awe-inspiring, life-affirming pulse. Like any epic composition, though, the nearly continuous three-hour extravaganza has its peaks and valleys. Sensory overkill and the sheer reality of 180 minutes spread the decadent dub party across the entire club grounds, from the hard-drinkin’ folks at the booths and bar upstairs to the scores of folks hangin’ outside on the porch and big outdoor stage. Out, in, up, down, wherever, the deep gut-rattling bass grooves were felt all over, stimulating thought, dance, drink, smoke, conversation, all of it. No wonder Sub Oslo is always in demand on the Texas party circuit, and now in Japan as well, after last month’s wildly successful tour. It’s a new kind of rave, if you will, but instead of cold, prerecorded beats, a full group of living, breathing musicians fill the air with their unique Dubs in the Key of Life.This article appears in August 24 • 2001.