"Oh, they don't feel threatened at all. They think because radio is free they have an edge and always will. It's like network television thinking cable was never going to go anywhere because people wouldn't pay for it. Radio people are falling into that same trap and they're going to get out-programmed by a bunch of smart kids out there."

- Quincy McCoy, radio expert and author of No Static: A Guide To Creative Radio Programming, when asked if the powers that be fear Internet broadcasting (April 2000 Cosmik Debris). Note that Dublabs owners are twentysomethings.


It's approximately... daylight as I stumble out of bed and fire up the computer. Coffee's on, ice water is in the sports bottle, I'm ready to start work. As I always work with music on very loud, I click on the newest link on my browser. A few seconds later I've got my new main squeeze streamin' audio for my trancin' pleasure. Right now I'm a dubhead. That means it's just the audio. Mmm... "Midnight Sound" by Flanger. I'm at peace and typing 45 WPM. Yeah, I can type faster, but I don't want to, and the music doesn't call for it. It all gets done.

[Pictured above: Hoseh]

As the song fades out, Hoseh, my favorite DJ, gives a shout out to the people hanging out in the chatroom, several of whom are people I like to hang out with, too, so I pop into chat mode, losing my dubhead designation. I am now proud to be a labrat. Molly's here, along with Skills, Hank (if that IS his real name), somebody named Nobody, a handful of people I haven't met, and Hoseh himself. The topic? Food. Coulda been anything. The labrats scurry to the beats as the dubheads work to the beats and so it goes the world over.

Welcome to Dublab. The musical flavors of Los Angeles on your computer.

With a high speed connection Dublab is a little slice of heaven at 80 kbps. Not quite CD quality, but soundin' a whole lot better than the boom box sitting to my left. If I may make a suggestion: hook your computer's sound card up to your stereo system. Viva la difference. And with the high speed connection you also get to watch the DJ at work, setting up the records on the turntables and the CDs on the high-tech players, working the mixers, and typing to the labrats. It's not a particularly clear picture, but clear enough to make it all fascinating.

Dublab was supposed to be an assignment. I figured, what, maybe three visits to get an idea of what they do. Uh uh. Dublab is now an everyday jones. They have five DJs who are on five days a week, and then they have 45 more that fill all the gaps with all kinds of shows. This morning I went through six cups of java desk drumming -- yeah, and working, get off my back -- to DJ Gremmy's garage show. He was spinning things I'd never heard, and I thought I knew my surf and garage. I finally gave up trying to guess when he played something I later learned was The Jefferson Handkerchief's "I'm Allergic To Flowers." Where do they find these things?! In the middle of the song, Gremmy ran toward the camera, loosed it from its perch and ran around in circles with it. This guy's nuts! Can he please have a few more shifts? When the next DJ came in and played incredible Afro-Cuban music, Gremmy took off with the camera again, this time running all over the studio, back rooms, front rooms, and, it seemed, most of Los Angeles, special effects flashing all over the screen. You never know what'll happen at Dublab.

It's daylight again. Coffee. Water. Dublab. Hoseh. What's he playing? Mmmm, Twilight Circus Dub Sound System. Gotta talk to this Hoseh guy. By this point, I have an addiction, and I should be asking questions. Like what's the philosophy here? "The main thing that we have," says Hoseh, "is a positive music-driven lifestyle, which is sort of our motto."

That's it! That's why I never stopped going to Dublab! Nobody sang about smacking bitches up and killing each other and gangs drawing lines. Positive. I like positive. And I interrupted Hoseh. Sorry. "What we do is explore all music that seems to have the same soulful root, whether it's hiphop or electronic or dub or whatever, as long as it has soul and it's positive and it's forward moving." I asked Hoseh what he meant, in this case, by "positive". "That's a tricky question," he said. "Music that touches people in some way, whether it's their soul, their mind, their butt or whatever. It's music that makes people feel good.

Wait, THAT'S it! THAT'S why I never stopped going to Dublab! Some of that music touched my butt! And other places. I just know I wanted to dance. The vibe at Dublab is always very nearly visible. And it's a good vibe. "Overall," says Hoseh, "the vibe of what we're trying to do is always positive, whether it's the music itself, the way the shows are presented or the way the DJs handle themselves behind the turntables and on the mike." Unlike the vibe at so many modern stations, where chest-thumping is louder than the music. "You won't ever really see that bravado feeling that some DJs have," says a confident Hoseh, "that 'I'm better than you' thing. It's a coming together of styles here."

It's Saturday night and I check in just for a bit. A DJ I've never seen is working. She goes by the name Salty Solution. I'm thinking it's not her real name. Salty is playing French house music with a great beat, and on the screen you can see her really getting into it, grooving side to side pretty fast while changing a record. Doesn't this thing have instant replay? Salty! Salty! Salty! The cry goes up from the labrats. Salty isn't one of the five full timers, so her time at the turntables is especially precious. I'm fascinated by the sheer joy she takes in what she's doing, and I type a message in the chat room saying so. A moment later comes the reply "Salty: Yes, I just love playing music for people." Seeing how the music affects her, I realize it's more than that. It's about the music itself.

It's approximately...hmmm... weekday o'clock and my dogs fought so I'm awake and swilling coffee and Dublab's up and blaring. Hoseh's in top form. No deadlines today so I'm gonna labrat my ass off. Just a handful of us today, but plenty of lively discussion as Hoseh plays a sneaky mix of hypnotic music so we won't see it coming. But little by little, things start to slip in. A little jungle with a beat that matches the coffee for wakeup power, then a garage tune! Now, you have to understand that this is very strange because I've never heard Hoseh play a garage tune, so being in labrat mode I say "Hoseh, have you gone mad?" to which he says "Wait'll you hear what I'm playin' next!" And damn me if it wasn't "Strawberry Fields" by The Beatles. Yeah, yeah, I know, ten times a day on every classic rock station in America, but never on Dublab. This, kids, was a happening. And the thing is... it fit. It fit perfectly, not just with the song it segued from, but with the flow of the entire show.

What are the odds? Who's doin' that out there in Arbitron-ruled, computer-scheduled, conventional radioland? Nobody I know. Dublab's kickin' their behinds.

Wanna know why? Lean in close... Because Dublab doesn't tell the DJs what to play. Ask Hoseh. "We have full artistic control," he says. "No set playlist. All the deejays are allowed to come in and do what it is they feel they can bring to the Dublab vibe at any given time."

Just like the good old days, when a station was defined by its on air talent. Long, long gone. At least on the traditional radio dial.

Dublab's strength comes from its people and their musical tastes and diversity. "For the most part," claims Hoseh, "we're known as an electronic music station, overall, but you'll have a lot of DJs who'll play a lot of hip-hop, a lot of reggae, dub, some house, we have a show on Sundays that plays two hours of garage music, and we have a show, also on Sundays, that plays a Latin vibe." And on any of those shows, anything can pop up.

Even "Strawberry Fields?"

"Sure," Hoseh chuckled, "we'll play the Beatles. Anything goes, pretty much." So will it be "Penny Lane" tomorrow? "You won't hear me play The Beatles for probably another five or six months, but we're not afraid to play the Beatles, or Beach Boys, or Byrds. Those are some of my favorite bands, as well as some of the other DJs we have here."

Hoseh gives a shout out to the labrats in the chatroom as the pulses of a tune by Jessica Bailiff with the Dithering Effect bubble up from the turntables, his show nearing an end. His shows are always eclectic. This show was one for the books. "Since the show is 3 hours," he says, "it's my duty to present a spectrum of sound and time." He sure did that, but what about the shows that are genre-specific? "We have four different drum and bass shows," he says, "but even within those different drum and bass shows they have their own take on things. If we have three or four house-specific shows, each will have a different take. But overall, they'll have the same postive, soulful sound to it."

These are the sounds that are being spun in the clubs of LA. The idea is to log into Dublab and get a taste of the LA music underground. That doesn't mean the music is all made in LA, it just means it's being played there, it's being heard there, and it's part of the heartbeat of the city. One DJ recently hinted that there might be some international shows coming in soon to offer tastes of other locales. When I tried to get confirmation from Hoseh there was just... silence. I saw All The President's Men. I know what Non-Denial Denial is. But then again, you can already sit at your computer and click into whatever country you want and hear music. But I'll tell you what: so far, none of it has been presented with the creativity and energy of Dublab. Someday it will, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Dublab being part of continued movement forward.

Meanwhile, the labrats and dubheads and DJs coexist happily in their designated places; the labrats in the chatroom, the dubheads between the speakers doing whatever else it is they do and the DJs making magic in that strange little checkered room. And everyone seems to know everyone after a while. "Yeah, they do," agrees Hoseh. "And that's the kind of atmosphere we're trying to create. It's very rare that you'll come into the chat room and find someone being rude and mean, even if they don't like a particular artist or track we're playing. They'll just let it be, because they know the chances are within the next track or two we'll play something they already like, or something they've never heard that will take them somewhere else that they'll want to know more about. And that's what we're about."

www.dublab.com

(C) 2001 - DJ Johnson