An old friend recently returned to my life, or at least, to my listening habits. Lurking around the streets of Seattle’s Capitol Hill district was a reminder of times past because it was there I first played the late lamented online radio station Groovetech.
I came up in early noughties listening to Groovetech and its main competitor, Dublab. I’ve recently returned to the eclectic gloriousness of Dublab and it’s been quite the revelation.
Groovetech, which was based out of Seattle and later had a London studio, Dublab has always been an L.A thing and they continue to fly the flag of their home. Original lab rats like Frosty, Carlos Nino and others were in many ways the first wave of the L.A beat scene to come to prominence, one that’s much bigger and well known now in the face of the success of Flying Lotus and Dublab DJs Ras G and Dadelus.
You could also trust in Dublab to focus just as much on the art side of things with a series of gallery and film projects around L.A and other places. You can dig through their website and find just as much documentation of this as you can the podcasts, streamed audio archives and other bits and pieces.
In a day when there were few tastemakers, few stepped up quite like Dublab. Almost a decade in and they continue to keep it on, repping L.A from the heart of the sun.