Dub Reggae for Holidays with Black Market Dub

This week's guests are Black Market and Wise Owl (or Nate Bridges
and Brandon Niznik) of the Los Angeles-based duo Black Market
Dub. On their Bandcamp page, they introduce themselves with a
series of questions: "What would happen if The Beach Boys had The
Wailers as their backing band instead of The Wrecking Crew? What
if David Bowie spent the summer of 1975 in Kingston, Jamaica with
King Tubby instead of Philidelphia? Michael Jackson meets Scratch
Perry?"


Many of their releases give us the answers to those question by
wiping the backing tracks to some of the most famous songs from
the '60s, '70s and '80s and remaking the songs with dub-wise
reggae instead. Their tracks with The Clash caught the ear of
music critic Tim "Napalm" Stegall, who wrote about them on his
Substack, and that's where I found out about them. 


Those tracks are fun but a little too respectful of the source
material for my tastes. I prefer their true dub projects
including their Christmas album, A Black Market Christmas,
from 2022. It honors dub's naturally psychedelic nature without
selling out the Christmas classics. 


We talk about their journey into dub, through a music teacher who
introduced Brandon to the Trojan Box Set (we hear "The Death
of Mr. Spock" by the Roots Radics Band) and Grand Theft Auto III,
which introduced Nate and Brandon to Scientist and his 1981
classic, Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the
Vampires (we hear "The Voodoo Curse)."


Nate and Brandon have also started a podcast, Playback, that
features the two of them discussing albums and artists who are
important to them. This summer they interviewed Scientist, and we
talk about their debut episode from December 2024, which focused
on Bob Dylan's 2009 Christmas album Christmas in the Heart.


The vinyl Black Market Dub releases are available on Escape Hatch
Records. Nate says there aren't many copies of A Black Market
Christmas left, so if you want one, get one.