News...
CHECK OUT THIS WICKED VIDEO FROM 1984 OF DUB VENDOR AND THE FASHION CREW
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DUB VENDOR RETAIL AT BM MUSIC REFIX!
Papa Face & Oxman are now located on the ground floor at BM Music. Larger selection, easier access and the same enthusiastic and knowledgeable service. Check us out!
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DAWN OF A NEW ERA! WE’VE MOVED!
August 2012.
We are now operating our online mail order business as normal from a new office, located within Wimbledon Film Studios. Our mission remains the same to bring you the best in reggae music, in all styles and from all eras. Our site is updated daily, so keep the link!
The Dub Vendor team in our new office. L-R Louise, John, Papa Face and Lol.
Catch us in the September 2012 edition of Record Collector which features the following interview...
Who are you, where are you and how long have been there?
We are Dub Vendor, the reggae specialist. We have been in business since 1976, both as mail order and as high street retail outlets in Ladbroke grove and Clapham junction. Our shops are now both gone, but the Dub Vendor vibe continues through our website
www.dubvendor.co.uk, which was established in 2007 and ships reggae music worldwide, and with our concession at BM Music in Soho run by Papa Face and Oxman.
What do you stock and what do you specialise in?
We stock strictly reggae music and its various offshoots- Ska, Roots, Rocksteady, Digital Roots, Revive Dancehall… mostly currently released or reissued stuff.
How do you source / track down rare / collectable stock items?
We usually source the harder to find reissued stuff ourselves, direct from the guys putting it out. We have good arrangements with the major guys in the business and are often involved in advising product to be released. We have plans to introduce second hand stock to our website later this year.
Its tough out there, what’s your key to survival
We work hard to get the hottest tunes up on our website and all orders turned around as soon as possible. We pride ourselves on our quick turnaround and our customer service, and our extensive knowledge and enthusiasm for the genre.
What’s the most collectable item you currently have available?
We are currently stocking five new 7” vinyl reissued titles from France’s only roots label, they are previously frighteningly rare 70’s roots gems including The IQ’s The Love We All Need Today and Generation Gap’s Music From My Mind, all on beautiful repro label’s. We are also stocking a superb King Tubby 10” dubplate called Let Go Jah Jah Children by Barry Brown, which is housed in a superb facsimile of an original King Tubby’s dubplate sleeve.
Who Has Been Your Most Famous Customer?
Quite A few, including legendary sound system operators Jah Shaka, Lloyd Coxsone, Saxon and David Rodigan. The late John Peel, Dr Alex Patterson of the Orb, Jerry Dammers of The Specials, Daddy G of Massive Attack…
What are your current favourites on the shop sound system?
We’re loving the records mentioned above, also Dub Store’s excellent Derrick Harriott’s Rocksteady reissues including Harriot’s own The Loser, one of the best Jamaican records ever made, and Digikiller’s recent reissues including Trevor Byfield’s Tell Me That You Love Me and its astonishing dub. Plus great new releases from Maximum Sounds and Necessary Mayhem.
Plans for the future?
To keep improving our service by redesigning our website and broadening the titles available. We also intend to get involved with pressing records ourselves, starting with reviving our Fashion label and then with repressing classic titles from other sources.
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September 2011
THE END OF AN ERA! DUB VENDOR RECORD STORE IS NOW CLOSED & DUB VENDOR CONTINUES AS ONLINE & MAIL ORDER SERVICE ONLY.
More pictures to be found on Dub Vendor All Stars facebook fan page, click here The final trading day for our store, on Saturday 7th September, was an absolute roadblock. Respect goes out to all who passed through and contributed to a fantastic finale. We left on a real high and rekindled that original record shop vibe which we will all miss so much. Looking forward though, we hope to give you as good a service online.
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Press...
News pieces about Dub Vendor looking forward to a striclty online future:
The Voice (published 10/09/11)
The Independent (published 30/08/11)
Clash (published 02/09/11)
Music Week (published 01/09/11)
John MacGillivray & Chris Lane interviewed for Menelik Shabazz film '
The Story Of Lover's Rock' (2011)
Recent Dub Vendor Events...
Big up everyone who made it to our 35th Anniversary Dance at the Music Bar in Brixton on Friday. The Dub Vendor All Stars totally smashed it and the place was rammed with music lovers, friends and Dub Vendor family. A true celebration of our 35 years in the business.
More pictures of the dance on the
Dub Vendor All Stars facebook fan page
click here
John MacGillivray, Dub Vendor's founder, featured on David Rodigan’s KISSfm show on Sunday 28th August 2011, when he played five of his favourite tunes and talked with David about Dub Vendor’s past, present and future.
Big up to everyone who attended our Sunset In The West dance on Wednesday night (25th June 2008). The dance was rammed, the queue stretching down the street, the whole thing kicked off and the Dub Vendor All Stars mashed up the session! Peter Hunnigale made a guest PA and trombone man Buttons accompanied many of the selections.
Though we are no longer a physical presence in the Grove, we will always feel a spiritual connection with the people there who supported us throughout the years. The dance was our way of saying “Thank You”.
About Us...
For 35 years,
Dub Vendor Records has had a peerless reputation as the place for reggae fans to obtain the hottest and very latest Jamaican imports. If Dub Vendor didn’t stock it, nobody did – and the throng of soundmen and discerning ravers that lined the counter at weekends testified to the strength of the selection that this London reggae institution delivered non-stop for three-and-a-half frenetic decades.The shop’s roots date back to Clapham Junction Saturday market, when reggae fanatics John MacGillivray and his schoolfriend Chris Lane opened a record stall at a time when the music was reaching a new, broader audience. Sure enough, hippies and punks stood shoulder to shoulder with London’s black youths at the stall in a search for hard-to-find pre-releases of the rebel music. A year later, in 1977, John and Chris set up the first Dub Vendor shop in Peckham, although this proved short lived, and Chris left the retail business soon after.
In 1979 John expanded the company’s reach, launching Dub Vendor Mail Order to cater for the growing worldwide reggae fan base, quickly recruiting another knowledgable fan, Noel Hawks, to manage that side of the operation. As the business flourished, John opened another shop in Ladbroke Grove, the Dub Vendor Record Shack, managed by Redman, for years a respected operator on the reggae scene. Reggae shops invariably end up releasing tunes and a couple of releases on the Dub Vendor label surfaced before John and Chris created Fashion records in 1980. The move proved highly fruitful. Fashion’s debut release, Let’s Dub It Up by Dee Sharp backed by local talent The Investigators, went straight to No 1 in the reggae charts. It was to be the first of many such successes.
In 1982, John opened the flagship store in Clapham Junction, Papa Face and Phillip ‘Godfather’ Wilks controlling the counter, its familiar Lion logo proving a lasting landmark at the Junction for decades. The eighties and nineties were the golden years for reggae sales in the UK and the shop has always been right there, representing the music’s manifold developments from roots to dancehall, ragga, to lovers and beyond.
The A-Class Studio, initially installed in the basement of the Clapham Junction store and overseen by Chris Lane, scored numerous reggae hits throughout the eighties and nineties with a roster of home grown and Jamaican stars. Fashion was swift to see the potential of the new wave of black British talent that flourished in the dancehall era, and the label’s biggest early successes were with the late Smiley Culture’s Cockney Translation and Police Officer, the latter reaching the UK national pop chart in 1984. Artists associated with Fashion and its Fine Style subsidiary read like a reggae roll call: General Levy, Cutty Ranks, Michie One & Louchie Lou, Winsome, Top Cat, Alton Ellis, Janet Lee Davis, Junior Delgado and many more. Fans will be pleased to learn that plans are afoot to make the classic Fashion back catalogue available again.
In the new millennium Dub Vendor launched
www.dubvendor.co.uk. The online store has blossomed under the stewardship of Lol Bell-Brown, respected UK roots pioneer, becoming the global go-to address for the latest reggae releases and reissues. Offering an unbeatable selection from all corners of the reggae world and catering to all tastes, Dub Vendor online is proud to deliver a fast, reliable and friendly service to its customers worldwide.
In the meantime, the
Dub Vendor All Stars, a pool of DJ talent including
Papa Face, Supa C, Oxman, Gaffa Blue, Warrior and
Russ Disciples, have taken the music on the road. Their selecting skills and ability to turn any session into a party were fully evident at legendary Dub Vendor events such as Redman’s Testimonial Dance at the Tudor Rose, Southall, and the sensational Sunset In The West, held at Ladbroke Grove’s 12 Acklam and which celebrated the closure of the Record Shack in 2008 after almost three decades of serving music fans in West London.
Dub Vendor celebrated its 35th year as a physical presence by holding an Anniversary Party on Friday 2nd September 2011 at the Music Bar, 144 Brixton Hill, London, SW2 1SD. This star-studded night was hosted by the Dub Vendor All Stars along with special guest, former Vendor staff member Roberto Allen of Vibes FM.
Dub Vendor has now become a strictly online business but the one thing that has never changed in our history is our commitment to the music and the customer. As Dub Vendor was created by music lovers for music lovers, our service is both knowledgeable and helpful.
Our prices are competitive, and we continue to source the best and latest stock for our customers.This website allows you to keep in touch with what is happening in the reggae world with updates of pre-release singles and new albums as and when they arrive.
We're proud to say that our founder John 'Dub Vendor' MacGillivray was honoured with an award for Outstanding Contribution to the British Reggae Movement.