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D U B T R I B E
by Jesse Fahnestock
Photos by Pedro Hanksalez
The Dubtribe Sound System project could hardly have been more independent in spirit. Started by San Francisco couple and creative partnership Sunshine and Moonbeam Jones in the early '90s, Dubtribe approached house music and the dance culture on their own terms, often butting heads with the prevailing attitudes and sounds of the underground. When rave became more hostile and withdrawn, they continued to champion love and community. 
When trendspotters pointed to trance and ambient, Dubtribe fused breaks, acid house and funk into the groundbreaking Sound System in 1994. With big beat (itself informed by early Dubtribe) and clinical trance dominating the international underground, Dubtribe dug deep into house, latin jazz and disco and in 1999 released Bryant Street, arguably the most important U.S. house LP ever.
And when that success pushed them too far from home, away from the people who understood their mission and into the hands of cynics and manipulators, they came home. On their own terms.
Finding Inspiration
"We had raves back in 1982," Sunshine Jones recalls when asked what led him to house music. "Warehouse parties thrived in San Francisco up until 1993. House was something that happened in the mid-'80s, and it was wonderful. Actually, when techno came along - Messiah and Altern-8 and that kind of thing - it was kind of like, ugh. Because you watched all the gay people leave the party, and the age dropped overnight from like, 28, to 16. And for the first time in my life -- I was 22 -- I felt old."
Contrarily enough, it was this period that would eventually give birth to Dubtribe.
"House kind of went away... there wasn't much dancing to be done. So we started a twelve-piece group that played kind of jazz/hip-hop, along the lines of Soul II Soul. That's how we met. Then we started finding parties like Wicked and Community, which were small parties then. And we discovered that the music we loved was getting played somewhere."
"Then Sunshine started writing songs," adds Moonbeam, "and he played them for the entire band. And I stayed (laughs)."
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S.F. in the A.M.
Since that time Dubtribe have been an integral part of San Francisco's dance community. The Wicked and Community parties have become legends and still thrive today, and the city is home to some of the most influential deep house artists and DJs in the world. When the history of house music is written, San Francisco may be remembered as a breeding ground to rival Chicago, Detroit and New York.
Unfortunately, if somewhat predictably, the value of this underground culture has been lost on overzealous authorities in San Francisco. The city stopped extending permits to raves in the early '90s, and now several of SF's most important after-hours clubs are under attack from the South of Market district police. With two permits already revoked and two more under fire, the dance community there has begun to fight back. Dubtribe, unsurprisingly, have led the way, forming the San Francisco Late Night Coalition to help raise awareness of the issues at hand.
"Look at it from this perspective," Sunshine says. "You're talking about dancing. Socially, in the scheme of things, what the fuck? And more than that, you're talking about discotheques. Stigma all the way, even now.
"But we understand that culturally, it's crucial, it's really important. It's positive, it's healthy, productive...there's so much that's good about it. Think about all the businesses in San Francisco that depend on there being after-hours parties. Think about all the record stores and clothing stores and taxi companies and whatever...there's so much industry. It's a deep cultural thing, but we're very separate from the mainstream of society."
If this sounds like something of a tempest in a teapot, consider some analogies. Consider The Marquee shutting down in 1966, or CBGB in 1976, or the Hacienda in 1989. These clubs were more than just places for young people to punish their ears and livers (though they served that purpose quite nicely as well). They provided fertile soil for genuinely new and valuable music, music that went on to radically change its host culture. Who's to know where that change will happen next? The thousands who turn up to see Deep Dish at San Francisco's 1015 Folsom may not know it, but their Saturday nights are worth fighting for.
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