March First Friday with Calvin Johnson from Big Car Collaborative on Vimeo.
Selector Dub Narcotic is the pseudonym of choice for Calvin Johnson when he is re-mixing records for the Dub Narcotic Disco Plate series, or engaged in spinning records at a party or other literary functions. Drawing largely from a stack of 45 rpm phonograph records, Selector Dub Narcotic is known to mix the genres dancehall, soul, punk, garage, R&B, rock steady, bubblegum and rockabilly with assorted curiosities of the current underground music scene.
Based in Olympia, WA, Calvin Johnson‘s work in underground culture started as a teenage fan volunteering at the local community radio station, KAOS-FM. Johnson moved on to writing for fanzines, organizing music and film events, playing music in various ill-fated bands. Calvin established K, a locally oriented media outlet, in 1982. In 1993 Calvin founded Dub Narcotic Studio in which he has documented the work of the Somehow Is and Never Was, such as Mirah, the Blow, Versus, Built to Spill, Fitz of Depression, Make-Up and Little Wings. The studio has also been the incubator of many Johnson’s experiments in collaboration and self-expression, such as Beat Happening, Halo Benders, Dub Narcotic Sound System, and Selector Dub Narcotic. The decade of the double zeroes saw Johnson set into the world, acoustic guitar in hand, as a solo artist of musical platitudes. Now that the one-zeroes have hit, Calvin is busy preparing a new album for the new decade.
