Dubstar: UNDER MY THUMB

It wouldn’t be a Dubstar recording session without a cover song.

DJing at the Villa in Puerto Banús 2019

Sarah was back in contact wanting to reform Dubstar again after the debacle of 2008. As I’ve mentioned, I wasn’t keen but, in the spirit of never saying never, I started writing and recording. The sessions were productive, and include some of the best Dubstar songs ever. Yet we never recovered the same positive vibe, the team we’d assembled for the relaunch had drifted away and there was a latent sense of anxiety about the process. This dread lasted for years.

Despite this, it did feel as if we could start again, without the legacy commitments getting in the way. Hmmm...

UNDER MY THUMB

It’s an odd song for Dubstar to record though. I’m not much of a fan of The Rolling Stones, and there was something in the lyric that felt…, a bit dodgy? So the main reason we recorded Under My Thumb will remain lost to the ages. Sorry about that, but I can give my side of the story.

With the end of Dubstar in 2000, I started travelling abroad for work. A lot. This coincided with us having a family villa in Puerto Banús, where I kept many of the hard drives of the Dubstar Archive. I loved it there and spent the best part of nineteen years commuting between Spain and Brighton. I even picked up some Spanish. Te extraño, Puerto Banús.

There are many stories to share about this time, some of which are legendary. The weekend our next-door neighbour was arrested on the tarmac at Malaga airport and the entire Spanish media descended on us, complete with TV crews and microlights.

It was one of those situations where you quickly realise it's better not to get involved.

By way of contrast, one of my favourite stories is from 2015. Twelve (no exaggeration) Estonian soldiers arrived for a party weekend in the villa next door. They were as loud as a squad of squaddies could be. They were, to put it politely, having a bloody good time. I’ve not heard as much Reggaeton before or since.

So on morning number two at something like 4am, I went round to demand them to stop with the music, for pity's sake STOP. I was expecting some kind of standoff, one middle-aged Brit versus Estonia’s finest on leave from the Russian border. What I received was a polite apology and an instant cessation of hostilities. Silence. I didn’t hear from them again. The following day there were smiles and hellos in the street too.

I reflected and checked my prejudices after that incident. No problems with Estonians, I’ve had some great times with our Baltic neighbours. No problems with soldiers, I’d grown up around RAF staff. It was just…I was expecting a mouthful of abuse from a bunch of twenty-somethings. The kind of response I would anticipate getting in Brighton. Turned out the young adults of the 2010s could be perfectly civil…all you had to do was ask.

My ex-neighbour in Brighton: Take note.

We spent many nights in La Sala and in Puerto Banús marina (which British immigrants call ‘the port’, much to my annoyance) at the Atlas Bar. Around 2004 there was a trend for the bars to move from Ibiza House and play much more Latin-influenced music. This intrigued me.

I have a long-held theory: you can record any song in a reggae style and it will work. Living in Puerto Banús I developed an additional theory: you can also do any song in a Bossanova style. Check this out next time you’re in southern Europe. You’re bound to find a bar playing a modern Bossanova playlist where every song is a cover. Usually of a pop hit, often from the 1980s. I’ve even heard a Bossanova cover of A Flock of Seagulls’ I Ran. It’s not the worst A Flock of Seagulls cover I've heard.

I loved this development, at least when it was a novelty. Might there be something in it for Dubstar? I was a fan of Nouvelle Vague, and as Dubstar we’d already covered Stan Getz’s Bossanova classic ‘A Certain Sadness’. Latin covers are cool, why not revisit the idea? And there was something about Sarah’s voice and demeanour that reminded me of Astrud Gilberto. That was a good thing.

So we recorded Under Your Thumb. Not specifically for the upcoming album but as an experiment, a bit of fun. For use as a bonus track or something that would go up on the internet one day. And now it has.

THINKING BACK NOW

I didn’t notice the nasty lyrics in this song until we called them up to do the vocal. Had no idea of its role in the infamous film Gimmee Shelter and Altamont incident… it didn't stop us.

This is not the kind of lyric I would write. But it is the kind of song that Dubstar would record and not grasp its intent, much like Not So Manic Now.

Still, there’s a real charm to this version of Under My Thumb. It’s not really a Dubstar track. It’s more of a homage to someone else’s idea of a cover version. But it's a sign of where our heads were in the early stages of this, the second Dubstar reformation.

This article includes excerpts from DUBSTAR.COM. Want more? You can find the story behind every Dubstar song ever recorded including dozens of unreleased songs right here at Dubstar.com

And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter to be the first to hear new releases and up-to-the-minute news