Selector Dub Narcotic

Calvin Johnson, the indie rock legend, adopts Selector Dub Narcotic as his alias when pursuing lively forays into dub, disco, and hip-hop. Born in Olympia, Washington, he launched Dub Narcotic Sound System in the mid-'90s, drawing the name from the analog basement studio he called Dub Narcotic. A shifting roster of K Records stalwarts, among them players from Lois, the Gossip, and Tiger Trap, powered the collective through five albums—one a joint effort with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion—plus more than a dozen singles and EPs that ranged across funk, trip-hop, rap, and further styles. The 1998 K compilation Selector Dub Narcotic carried the same handle, which Johnson also applied to his wide-ranging DJ sets and to the dub versions he cut as B-sides for 7"s in K's Dub Narcotic Disco Plate series, among them releases by Atlas Sound, City Center, and Mount Eerie. Johnson issued Selector Dub Narcotic's first full-length, This Party Is Just Getting Started, in 2016.