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Mission Critical: Dub Cowboy keeps the dance floor packed
Allen Amundsen / For the Times-Standard
Posted: 01/08/2009 10:29:18 AM PST
A recent cover story in The Economist magazine explored the timeless mystery of Why We Love Music. Neuroscientists, Evolutionary Biologists, and Linguists all seem to have different theories as to why music matters so much to billions of people on the planet. Is it an integral part of social grooming, community-building, and mating rituals? Was it just an accident of history that merely became a part of daily human activity? No one seems to know for sure.
I have no bias towards one theory over another. I do know one thing though: Music matters. It serves as vital lubricant for societies, groups, and cultures. It is certainly an important facet of everyday life in Humboldt County. Next to intense political discourse, the environment, and the visual arts, music is the pulsating spirit that keeps this slice of the world lively and entertaining.
The keepers of the sacred beat are the DJs. The local DJ culture in Humboldt County is thriving. Look no further than Dub Cowboy and Jsun, who hold court every Saturday night at Jambalaya on the Plaza. Every weekend they bring to the masses their latest project aptly named “Mission: Critical.” The name itself invokes a focused intensity whose mission statement is to set fire to the dance floor and inspire people to let loose.
At 10 p.m. the humble restaurant ceases to be a fusion-based eatery and becomes the hottest dance club in Arcata. A cavalcade of multi-media spectacle creates a luminous orb of good vibes
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and a massive throng of dancers pour into to bask in its giddy glow. Dub Cowboy and Jsun use their vast musical knowledge to open up an inter-dimensional portal to Planet Dance where a mesh of Top 40, Hip-Hop, Dubstep, and Dancehall becomes the vivid soundtrack for good times.
The name “Mission: Critical” quite literally came to DJ Dub Cowboy at the last minute.
”I was about to go on the air at KRFH” he tells me as we sit at a tiny table not 10 feet away from the stage at Jambalaya. “It was about two minutes until my show and I was thinking about how important this music is. I went on the air and the name just popped into my head and I said it. The response to it was instant.”
The gig at Jambalaya started merely as a fill-in thing. However, Dub Cowboy soon found himself with a new opportunity to build a weekly experience for the community. He called in his good friend DJ Jsun (also known as Jason Soto) to help him bring “Mission: Critical” into existence.
The two intrepid beat maestros are armed with the very latest in high-tech goodies in order to bring the best sound and visual experience for the audience. Recently, Dub Cowboy figured out how to wire their two laptops together via Bluetooth so that they can swap beats and set lists in real-time in order to keep that improvisational aspect to DJing alive.
They like to play with different song sequences in order to create maximum pleasure for the crowd. Lately, Dub Cowboy has found that a combination of Estelle/Sean Paul, John Legend/Buju Banton, and a Reggae remix of Lil Wayne creates an incredible stir on the dance floor.
The mission statement of “Mission: Critical” is simple but important -- to create an irresistible tapestry of beats so that people can let loose and dance into the wee hours of the morning.
”It's a foundation for a Saturday night” Dub Cowboy tells me. “Dancing is a natural part of life--if we don't have that, everything just builds up. Dancing is medicine.”
DJ Jsun whole-heartedly agrees, adding that the ultimate point of “Mission: Critical” is “getting your work week started right.”
”People come in and just sweat” he says with a satisfied grin of a young man who has seen hundreds of faces and has successfully ushered them into a realm of feel-good vibes.
Recently, Dub Cowboy has made a few crucial contacts with artists and promoters and his E-mail in-box is constantly crammed with new information on the latest tracks.
”For instance” he says, “after Obama was elected an artist created a song called Black Man in the White House. The technology is so amazing that I can get these brand new songs almost instantly. I am able to get the MP3s and then I can DJ it the very next day.”
They have also incorporated video into the mix, a hot new addition to the DJ world that has slowly been taking off all over in clubs across the country.
”We balance the music with the message by including everybody” Dub Cowboy said. “We have a consistent crowd; as soon as the music is up, they are here until it's over. We give them an experience. It's exactly what I would want when I go into a club: The sound is just right, the mood is live. I want to give it to them.”
Is music inextricably wired into our DNA? Was it just a freak occurrence that happened tens of thousands of years ago in the misty halls of pre-history? Frankly, it doesn't matter. Biologists and Neuroscientists may bicker about where music came from but no one can argue with the fact that it means the world to a lot of people. The eternal beat is instinctual. Dancing is catharsis. DJ Dub Cowboy and DJ Jsun are scientists in their own right--splitting the atoms of infectious beats every Saturday night at Jambalaya. Go ahead and check out their ongoing experiment in the flesh.
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