Thing of the Week: Dub From The Roots & The Roots Of Dub, 'Paris, Texas,' Being In Love With Paul Westerberg

LJ'S THING OF THE WEEK: Dub from the Roots and The Roots of Dub by King Tubby

There's no way to tell it any better than how it tells itself. This song, from Dub from the Roots, is called "Double Cross," and I wish I could know how to describe what my own face looked like the first time I heard it but, sadly, you rarely get to see your own face. But I know what I felt, and I know my face did a crazy thing and my heart did a crazy thing and I had to stop walking for a second and stand outside a Starbucks pretending I was contemplating buying a coffee (I bought a coffee) and then the whole bit ended with me grinning wildly at a stranger walking a dog (a skinny beagle-mix in a plaid jacket) like because he was walking a dog and dogs are beautiful and good and I was listening to THIS SONG for the first time we were in on some sort of secret relating to the beauty of the Universe together. 

I guess it must have been a look of "elated surprise/ semi-religious hysteria." 

 

I think that what I love most about is dub is how it is like a story. The songs meander; you never know what's going to happen next. It feels like things are moving forward instead of back inside themselves like pop songs, verse/chorus/verse. I love how every single song on Roots of Dub has the word "dub" in the title, like a Solex or Delia Derbyshire album. This next one's called "Dub You Can Feel" and it's quiet, but he's right- I definitely feel it. I've been brought to tears by music more times this week than I have any other week of my life, possibly. 

My new self-reflective thing I like to think about is "being the dub version of myself"- like I used to be the regular song, but now I'm Laura Jane Dub, The Dub of Me. The words I most closely associate with dub are subtle, weird, and cerebral- I think that exclusively listening to dub is making me a smarter and chiller human on the whole/real, and more than anything I think I'm in so in love with dub because loving dub means that I'm capable of loving dub, that I'm beyond being buoyed by melody and flash, two great loves of my life which I now keep finding myself thinking are "trite," which sounds so lamely judgy of me, but fuck it. I'm not going to lamely judge myself for thinking something I'm naturally thinking is lamely judgy just because it happens to sound like something a person I no longer am would have thought sounded like something it isn't. Oh my God. I'm just so fucking happy to be alive.

JEN'S THING OF THE WEEK: Paris, Texas

I watched Paris, Texas this week for the first time. I loved it. I actually fell asleep during the hugely major confessional scene at the end. You know, just what the entire movie was building up to, no big deal. I was really tired, OK? I re-watched the last half hour the next day and have been thinking about it all week.  Walking onto the subway and just being struck by the heart breaking sadness & beauty of the film. Sitting on a couch thinking about how Nastassja Kinski is my current style ideal in it. I want to get giant cardigans and wear them backwards. Probably Netflix would categorize it as “Visually Striking”, because it’s really striking visually.  The landscape and the colors are gorgeous and super American (though it was made my Europeans, I know!). K, I’m going to go walk in a straight line at a slow pace, drink coffee, and cry thinking about it all.

LIZ'S THING OF THE WEEK: Being In Love With Paul Westerberg 

I stopped being obsessed with the Replacements for like three days and then Wednesday night I went to Verdugo Bar and wore my Replacements shirt with my fake-leopard-fur coat and drank some pumpkin beer and went home and slept and had a great dream. In the dream I lived in a loft that was in the middle of a parking garage, and the Replacements all lived in the actual garage, in the concrete stairwells, like stowaways. I was going home to my loft and ran into Paul Westerberg from 1984 and he asked if I wanted to hang out and I said yeah. So we went to my loft and climbed to the top bunk of my bunk bed and Paul had a guitar and was all, "I wrote a new song, wanna hear?" and then he started playing me "Unsatisfied." I helped him with the lyrics and wrote the lines "Everything goes/Well, anything goes/All of the time" (whoa, so good!) and this magic thing happened where we turned into a movie and real "Unsatisfied" started playing and we fooled around and it was beautiful. Then it was the next morning and we were going to breakfast and Paul put some beer in my bag to sneak at the restaurant. When we got to the restaurant there was a TV above our table and the Jeff Goldblum PayPal ad was on and we watched it and I loved it. Then I woke up and listened to "Treatment Bound" a bunch and now I'm 100 percent still obsessed with the Replacements. I love the Replacements and I'm in love with Paul Westerberg, even though in the dream he had these weirdly small hands.