by ERIN MACLEOD

Taking the concept album to the next level, the folks from the New York-based Easy Star All-Stars collective thought that doing a complete dub version of Dark Side of the Moon was a good idea. Sure, some might say this is a little nuts, but 90,000 copies of Dub Side of the Moon later, it’s no surprise that they’ve embarked on the next refix, Radiohead’s OK Computer. Michael Goldwasser (aka Michael G), Victor Axelrod (aka Ticklah), Eric Smith and Lem Oppenheimer, who perform alongside an ever-growing cast of characters, form the core of the All-Stars. The Mirror spoke to Smith about doing the rock-to-reggae translation.

Mirror: What gave you the idea to do this?

Eric Smith: One day, my partner Lem was just walking down the street, listening to Dark Side of the Moon, and thought, “Hey, this would make a great dub album.” We didn’t go with any expectations. We wanted to make a good album using Dark Side as a foundation. I don’t think any of us were really sure if we’d ever release it. Once we started working on Dub Side of the Moon and doing the translation into reggae, it just snowballed from there. When Dub Side came out, we didn’t realize the hit we had on our hands. It was received so well, so of course people were asking us what we were going to do next.

M: What do you think it is about OK Computer that allows it to translate?

ES: It’s a hard question. We had a simple answer for Dub Side, because it translated very easily. There’s a lot of space in Dark Side of the Moon for interpretation, there are very few chord changes. One of the things about reggae is that the chords don’t really change. When Michael started dissecting it, he was like, “Wow, this works easily.” Moving to OK Computer, on the surface it’s a much more dense album. A lot of chord changes and time signatures—most people would say that there’s no way it can translate into reggae. I think when you have great music, if you treat it right, that music will hold up, and that’s what we found.

M: Have you had anyone who really thinks that this is a travesty?

ES: Jamaican music has a long history of doing covers—versions—and that’s why this isn’t as hokey as it sounds. But we were really prepared for a lot of backlash from Pink Floyd fans, and were surprised as to how it was received. We even got e-mails that said, “I hate reggae, but this I like.” There were, of course, all the older hippies who saw Pink Floyd live and were open to reggae, but we weren’t sure how open the Radiohead fan would be. But again, we were surprised. We know we’re walking a fine line with these albums—the whole cover genre has some stigma to it. We tried to have some fun, but we do take this seriously.

M: I have to ask: If you listen to Dub Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz, does it still work?

ES: We tried. We were actually going to try and make the album sync up with that! It turned out that it worked—we were surprised. As much as Dark Side works alongside any agent you might use to make that synergy happen, Dub Side does to.

With Panic & the Rebel Emergency at le National on Saturday, Nov. 11, 9 p.m., $17.50, all ages

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