{"id":316,"date":"2024-01-30T00:47:39","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T00:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaghettiwesterndub.com\/?page_id=316"},"modified":"2024-01-30T00:47:39","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T00:47:39","slug":"chopper-franklins-post-punk-dub-album","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/spaghettiwesterndub.com\/index.php\/chopper-franklins-post-punk-dub-album\/","title":{"rendered":"Chopper Franklin’s Post Punk Dub Album"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chopper Franklin\u2019s \u201cSpaghetti Western Dub Vol. 1\u201d Was The Post Punk Dub Album I\u2019d Waited Over 40 Years To Hear – by<\/span>\u00a0<\/a>postpunkmonk.com<\/a><\/h4>\n
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Mather Louth + Chopper Franklin \u00a9 Justin Rosenberg<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n

Let me begin the tale in the following way. It was 1981 when listening to WPRK-FM the college radio station that I kept my ear glued to in the holiest of musical years. Slipped into the playlists was a single by a band new to my ears: Theatre Of Hate. The single was the stentorian fusion of Post-Punk and Spaghetti Western ethos and most importantly, the 12\u2033 version was the song mixed into a massive dub concoction as produced by The Clash\u2019s Mick Jones. I\u2019ve had that 12\u2033 single and the \u201cWestworld\u201d album for over 30 years.<\/p>\n

Then a few years passed and at the decade\u2019s midpoint, I was enamored of the 4AD band\u00a0Colourbox<\/a>. I bought everything I could get my hands on. In 1986 there was a CD compilation simply called \u201cColourbox\u201d and it had another tantalizing glimpse of the mesmerizing fusion of Spaghetti Western music and Dub in \u201cLooks Like We\u2019re Shy One Horse\/Shootout.\u201d I couldn\u2019t help but think that the two disparate styles of music got on like a house on fire. So\u00a0when<\/em>\u00a0was someone going to\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0deliver the Spaghetti Western Vs. Dub goods that made all the sense on the world to my ears? As it turned out, I had to wait another 37 years, but ex-Cramps bassist turned Gothic Gunslinger Chopper Franklin has dared to venture in the dusty arroyos of the Spaghetti Western genre and has fused it with Dub to deliver a cinematic musical vibe chock-full of wild hybrid vigor. Ladies and gentlemen; we present\u00a0\u201cSpaghetti Western Dub Vol. 1.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Moreover, he\u2019s dared to create mostly\u00a0vocal<\/em>\u00a0songs in the styles we\u2019re talking about. I was astonished because the Spaghetti Western genre was primarily an instrumental groove. I love great guitar instrumental music, so I have a few Spaghetti comps I picked up in the 90s on the heels of the resurgence of surf rock I was enjoying at the time. These songs sported narratives every bit as evocative as the films of the genre itself, with antiheroes riding to their doom in a desperate moral vacuum not unlike the one in Film Noir\u2026 only set in the lawless West.<\/p>\n

As Mr. Franklin has been helming the Gothic Americana group\u00a0The Heathen Apostles<\/a>\u00a0for years, he wisely enlisted his vocalist in that group, the multifaceted\u00a0Mather Louth<\/a>, to sink her teeth into these songs. There were also male vocals courtesy of The Phantom Of The Black Hills, a Gothic Desperado band also on Franklin\u2019s Ratchet Blade Records label [the man is a one man industry unto himself!]. When I pressed the play button I was rewarded with an album that I had high hopes for that easily surpassed my expectations.<\/p>\n

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Ratchet Blade Records | US | CD | 2024 | RBR 752<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cBlood, Tears, And Thunder DUB\u201d featured the intro to the song rising in the distance like a cloud of dust as synth drones and reverberating vocal snatches came into focus like a whipcrack as Ms. Louth provided the omniscient narrator role to the tale of desperation and violence over the Dub Reggae rhythms that afforded Franklin a spotlight for his powerful bass work. Power which was absolutely matched by the verve of Ms. Louth who was blissfully, surprisingly, channeling the bold, brassy delivery of\u00a0Dame Shirley Bassey<\/em>\u00a0on these songs! It was not enough to merely mix Spaghetti Western and Dub in this cauldron, but the element X of the vocals came in at a third angle to create an absolutely spellbinding fusion of genres. Gleefully mashing up wildly disparate vibes from the sixties and the seventies. Listen here.<\/p>\n