Austin Chronicle- March 20th

http:​/​/​www.​austinchronicle​.​com/​gyrobase/​Issue/​story?​oid=​oid%​3A756217

8:30pm, Karma Lounge Dubb Sicks is a nasty motherfucker. The local rhyme slinger's 2008 release, Mind in the Gutter, is a hedonistic romp through Austin streets and Odessa trailer parks full of binge drinking, verbal beatdowns, and venereal diseases. Not exactly enlightening but entertaining as hell. – Thomas Fawcett

Boston Phoenix- March 20th

http:​/​/​thephoenix.​com/​BLOGS/​onthedownload/​archive/​2009/​03/​20/​sxsw-​day-​2-​reflecting-​eternally-​on-​a-​night-​of-​degeneracy.​aspx

My first evening stop was the Karma Lounge, where Austin degenerate extraordinaire Dubb Sicks and his accomplice Mumbles Skinny murdered their first ever official showcase. I’ve been checking these vagrants since I first came down here three years ago; and in the time since Sicks has developed iller than a fetus refusing to abort.

If I had a million dollars – after I hired a hit man to castrate every member of the Barenaked Ladies – I’d put it behind Dubb Sicks. America needs more MCs who can get people off their bar stools and into the crowd – even if it’s because they’re curiously horrified.

- Chris Faraone

http://www.oaoa.com/news/sicks_27981___article.html/texas_microphone.html

Motion Sicks-ness

Odessa native hip hop artist on the rise in Austin music scene.
March 16, 2009 - 3:35 PM

BY MATTHEW MCGOWAN

In West Texas - where God-fearing people live, work and don't want trouble, Justin "Dubb Sicks" White is the boogey man hiding under your bed with a microphone and a black bandana.

When you're not looking, his lyrics will kidnap you and take you to places you hoped never to go.

After all is said and done, you'll find yourself right where he wants you, standing in the aftermath of his seismic wit picking up the pieces of the inside-out and upside-down world you once loved.

And the 2002 Permian High School graduate will do all this with a clear conscience.

"If you're offended, it's not my fault," he said. "If you're offended, it's your fault. You don't have to listen to it, so if you get offended, that's your problem. The world is split up into people who disagree with each other, but if you truly get offended by somebody else, then that's something you need to check out for your own sake."

But then again, he said, he does sometimes say things that are over the top.

After four years of moonlighting as an emcee in the state's capital, scrapping for a fan base and carving a name for himself - not to mention touring on Greyhounds and an empty stomach and sleeping in bus stations all over the country on tours he financed himself - it seems the word on the Permian Basin's exiled son is beginning to get out.

The Austin Chronicle named Sicks as one of the city's Top 10 best hip-hop performers of 2006-2007.

And here he goes again.

The emcee said he is slated to take to the stage in Austin this month at the preeminent venue for southern acts, the South by Southwest 2009 music festival.

After rejection letters from the festival's organizers two years in a row, he said performing at SXSW probably won't catapult him to any immediate new success.

Instead, Sicks said, the acceptance testifies more to what he has done so far than it prefaces what he will do.

"It just shows that what I have done has paid off in a sense," he said. "There are a lot of people - my contemporaries - from around here who I admire and look up to but who didn't get picked to be in the festival. I guess it just shows a progression that I'm actually getting noticed."

Sicks celebrated the release of his newest album, "Music for Assholes Vol. 2," on March 7 at Odessa's Roadhouse after making the road trip from Austin the night before with two fellow emcees, including his roommate, Los Angeles native Zack "Cali Zach" Ingram, who knows what acceptance to the festival means to an aspiring artist.

"It's gotten so big, and there are so many musicians from all over the world that come to it, that it just shows that you're accepted as a professional in the industry," Cali Zach said. "It shows that people understand you're not just out there faking it. It's really a benchmark, to a certain degree."

Many aspiring rappers don't ever get the props they deserve, Sicks said. Unfortunately, many of the ones who achieve commercial success probably aren't as gifted as the underground "hip-hop heads" who toil long hours and strive for the intellectual and artistic authenticity.

"It sucks to see a 15-year-old kid from Atlanta just blow up huge and not really say anything," Sicks said. "That's better than him sitting in the street selling crack, but, for somebody like me who is trying to use this more as a type of art form, that's discouraging."

Hip hop, after all, is an art form that takes practice and a penchant for poetry, he said. Hip hop at its finest is the product of a poet with a grasp of the realities of the world around him or her, which is not to say there's not a little room for embellishment.

Admittedly, Sicks said some of his own lyrics aren't all fact, but they aren't all meant to be taken literally.

Many rappers who brag about their money and cars don't have nearly as much wealth as they purport. They put on the front to fit the living-large mold.

To Sicks, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's not really his style.

"There's room for embellishment," he said. "It can be as embellished as writing a nonfiction book or as embellished as writing a totally fiction book. You can go anywhere on the spectrum you want to. A good deal of it is embellished, but the good rappers are the ones who don't have throwaway music who touch people with reality."

Soon after his arrival in Odessa on March 6, he proudly recounted how their truck ran out of gas on their way into town. Their wallets being emptier than the tank, the trio pulled into a gas station, sold two CDs, and used the money to make it into town.

He told the story with enough enthusiasm to romanticize his starving-artist status. He's a rapper who's proud of his Hoover flags, not his Benjamins.

In other words, Sicks isn't raking in the cash on hip hop.

He's actually pretty broke, and unabashedly so.

Sicks, an avid reader, works at a sandwich joint to make ends meet while he attends classes and, as a backup plan, studies English - he talked about Jack Kerouac and Hunter Thompson with wide eyes and talked about "keeping it gonzo" with his lyrics.

What he will do with his English degree?

Beats him. That's not the point.

"I've got to keep a job on the side, because I'm not making enough money yet to just live off hip hop," he said. "Any type of piece of paper is going to give you a pay increase and more opportunities for work. Just having any type of degree is one step higher than one I have right now."

As an unsigned artist, Sicks said he has his plate full doing his own booking, promotion and the broad array of other tasks on the periphery of performing music.

But he insisted that selling his rhymes does not equate to selling out. First and foremost, he's an artist.

"I'm not necessarily trying to market it as much as I am just trying to make it as realistic as I want it to be," Sicks said. "I'm trying to stay true to myself in that sense."

http://www.urb.com/promotions/next1000/profiles/1296-Dubb+Sicks.php


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A white rapper in Texas? Yup, that's Dubb Sicks. Well known for his live stage acts, he's been called a "rockstar that spits sick over beats," a stage presence that gets the crowd hyped while still maintaining his hip-hop persona. Opening for acts like Jedi Mind Tricks, Cage, and Fatlip, this guy is not wasting any time in coming up in the underground hip-hop scene. He has already been named one of Austin's top ten hip-hop performers in the Austin Chronicle from 2007. Although it's not his stage act, you can get a feel for what he sounds like by listening to "Mind in the Gutter" below.

VISIT: jumptheturnstyle.com

http://jumptheturnstyle.com/?p=1106


Just last weekend Boston was lucky enough to get a visit from JTTS favorite Dubb Sicks, as well as his hype man, Mumbles Skinny, and their faithful blow-up doll, Peaches. The trio came from Austin, where Dubb is that motherfucker. Popularity aside, these are still some broke bastards who are currently eating their way across America on Subway coupons that Dubb stole off cups at his day job.
Below are his remaining tour dates, and I heartily recommend you go check him if you're in one of these cities. Dude has one of the most flagrant stage shows in the lower states - fully East Coast inspired but with that anti-Bible Belt slant that you can only hone growing up around that shit. Also check the track at the bottom of this post off his new disc, Mind in the Gutter.

October 11 - Philosopher's Stone (Charlotte, North Carolina)

October 14 - Dragon's Den (New Orleans, Louisiana)

October 29 - Flamingo Cantina (Austin, Texas)

Conservative Terrorist Threats II

DUBB SICKS "MIND IN THE GUTTER" Rating: 4.3
The First thing that caught my attention was the original production skills laced throughout the album. Producers include S. Killz, R1, Stability, Von Smear, and Charlie Johnson and they all did a terrific job of creating full songs rather than just simple loops that repeat for 4 minutes. Another thing that jumped out right away was the limited number of cameo appearances with only Foog, Judahfly, and Cali Zack. It's refreshing to hear a new sound that is dominated by the artist for whom the CD is titled. Now for the music. Mind In The Gutter is hot with some absolutely ill percussions and Dubb Sicks ripping the track with his grimy delivery. Throughout the entire album you need to listen carefully to the lyrics because Dubb delivers some of the funniest lines ever written. The nice thing is that he comes across with a true sense of reality. He's not trying to pose like he's king of the world riding on dubs and flossing diamonds by the pound. He's talking about drinking beer rather than Henney or Chris or Moet. Realism is refreshing. The 35 second intro to Conservative Terroristic Threats II was too much and had me itching to hit the skip button. If you make it through the intro, Dubb is dropping some heavy talk. I loved the beat and especially the repeated snare on Bloodshot Angel, but when the full beat kicks in with the bass line the song takes on a whole new feel. Dope is the best description I can offer. It almost reminded me of the old Paris songs from the 90's. There are a few tracks that I didn't like mostly due to the simplistic production when compared to the others. It seems like Dubb's delivery changes to match each song's production and that would be his one downfall. I Don't Dance is easily one of my favorite tracks. The production is ill like Wu-Tang style and Dubb rocks the mic with a fierce lean. Then we get to my favorite song from the entire album, which I am only guessing was meant to be a joke, but Let Me Put The head In is absolute fire! I keep that song on replay and each time I hear another line that cracks me up. The song is mad funny, but it's cool as hell. Dubb is a damn fool with some of his lines in the song, but I guarantee he will have people singing every word of this song. Queen of the Trailer Park is a dope groove and again Dubb delivers his comical vision of a trailer park ho. There are some hits and some misses, but overall I like the album. I'm still bumpin Just Let Me Put The Head In! Dubb's sense of humor I think is the number one reason why I fell in love with this album.

AHHS recently got a chance to sit down with Dubb Sicks after releasing his latest album, "Mind in the Gutter". Read on to find out why looking trashy is not such a bad thing.


AHHS: Can you give your fans a quick bio of yourself?

Dubb Sicks: I'm Dubb Sicks originally from Odessa, moved to Austin in late 2005 and have been smashing and grinding ever since. I go to everyones shows, enjoy women, alcohol, and the general night life. I'm out of line at times, but always handle my business. I'm a breath of fresh air to this scene and I'm doing my best to keep moving forward and expanding my horizons. Bang!

AHHS: Which is your latest CD? and how do you think it differs from your previous works?

Dubb Sicks: "Mind in the Gutter" is the new shit. It's a raw collective of storytelling tracks, anthems, introspective cuts, some comedy shit, and some of the most banging production this town has ever seen. With production from my regular producers S.Killz and R1 I've managed to keep it changing and moving musically while still keeping that eye popping boom bap shit I've been known for. My man Von Smear did a track and a little mixing, S. Killz did most of the mixing, and a highschool friend Charlie Johnson laced a beat for it that I love. The difference between this and "Sunrise Alcoholic" is simple: 1 word...Quality. I recorded on better equipment, used better mixed beats, had a better knowledge of what I needed to do recording wise, and knew my target audience. Gotta shout out my man N/A for recording most of the joints, Don Saltine for the cover art, and my man Nutter for the photog. It's just a really well rounded work in my humble opinion haha.

AHHS: What gives you inspiration and how does that transpire into your music?

Dubb Sicks: Everything. Bums, Cracked out mothers, bartenders, suicide girls, children, old bitter ass people, life stories, my environment and the relationships inside it, other music, other hip-hop folks and the way they conduct business, mainstream media, underground secret societys, massive alcohol consumption, riding public transit, fucking hot ass summers, shitty jobs, police brutality, sexual satisfaction with numerous partners, trying relationships with women, books, movies, strip clubs, the war, government...shit there's alot of things that get me ticking and itching to sit down and write. It all depends on my mood and surroundings. I don't write many songs, but when I do I have alot of shit to say in a small amount of space so it has to be meaningful to me.

AHHS: Which artists inspire you the most? and why?

Dubb Sicks: Bob Dylan- Creativity, raw truth, underdog mentality. He wasn't the best singer, but his lyrics made you think. I've been on psychedelic drugs many a times banging his shit and trying to decode his messages.

Hunter S. Thompson- Amazing writer. My album is basically a gonzo-style novel. Fucker was off his rocker and that's what made him genius.

Charles Bukowski- I never read him until I was compared to him in an album review. Since then I have dove face first into his shit and he is a wild ass dude. Really reminds me of myself.
John Lennon- Innovator. Genus. Ahead of his time. The motherfucking Walrus. Need I say more???

And theres a bunch of random hip-hop that I bang. Non Phixion, Cage, Jedi Mind Tricks, Rakim, Wu Tang, MOP, Dead Prez, Rass Kass, Devin the Dude, ODB solo!!!!

AHHS: What has kept you from moving to cities with larger markets? especially since it's only been recently that Houston has blown up.

Dubb Sicks: I have a lease until December 2008. After that I may explore a little. But I feel like I need to do a little more here before I smash out. Phranchyze and me have a tour coming up that should tell me alot about what I need to do. I'll be hitting the east coast in late Sept. early October and that should gauge my options and let me test Austin out alongside some other spots. I tell you, it's tough to leave a place with this much hip-hop and this many bars and young college chicks ahaa. Houston blowing up has nothing to do with what I do. Different shit. I respect some of it, they respect some of my shit. I feel like I'm doing shit in Texas that nobody has heard before and that's how I like it.

AHHS: How do you see the scene locally? and where do you see it going?

Dubb Sicks: There's mad talent. Alot of the cats with the most talent don't want to grind. They may grind in the studio, but why you gonna put out a dope ass album that only you and your homeboys hear? Why you gonna sit home and spend your paper on weed and video games instead of on stickers and fliers and be out on the streets meeting people and getting the name out. Go to someone else's shows!!!! You'll meet potential fans. There's a shitload of talent here, but everyone wanna act broke when someone else is having a show or an event. When I first moved here I felt a rift between the older cats and the newer generation, but recently I have seen some of the older wiser cats lending out advice and giving cats valuable info about this place. I can say there should be more unity, but thats cliche. People need to get serious about what they are doing. I know it's had when you got kids and jobs and wives and girlfriends and shit, but if this is what you really want to do and it's more than a hobby you gotta make some moves and guit waiting on the train to stop and pick you up.

AHHS: What is your favorite venue to perform at? and why?

Dubb Sicks: The one with the biggest crowd. I don't give a shit about a venue. I want energy. I want participation. Take PLUSH for example. It's a shithole of a bar. But when Table Manners have that fucker popping off it's a damn basement style house party and everyone is having a good time. It don't matter if you're in a parking lot spitting over a karaoke machine on top of an '88 Honda Civic...if people are getting rowdy and the crowd is apeshit; thats a party to me.

AHHS: Can you give us 3 of your most favorite local artists?

Dubb Sicks: No. I need more than 3...

Crew 54
DOS
GrimNasty
Smoke Jumpers
Phran and Zeale
Tee Dub
Vu
Flynn D
Brokebread
Cali Zack
Mirage
Poise

There's a LOT more. Like I said, there's mad talent here.

AHHS: What is the best piece of advice that someone in the industry has given you?

Dubb Sicks: If you perform for free too much, promoters are gonna expect not to pay for your service. This shit has value. There's no reason random shitty rock band gets paid and you don't. If all acts stop performing for free so much, we can start getting everyone a little paper instead of just promoters and the bars we bring people to.

AHHS: And a more light-hearted question: Have you seen a correlation between your level of success and quality of hoes?

Dubb Sicks: I'm not very successful yet. So I guess that's why only trashy broads like me. haaahahahahha No offense if you like me. You may not be trashy. You might just look a little trashy. And that's not always bad. Some people like trashy chicks. Suicide girls get famous too.

AHHS: Any parting words?

Dubb Sicks: Get "Mind in the Gutter" at Cheapo or Waterloo Records. Listen to it. Come to my shows. Buy me drinks. Check out www.dubbsicks.com or www.myspace.com/dubbsicks. I appreciate the interview.

Dubb Sicks :: Mind in the Gutter :: myspace.com/dubbsicks
as reviewed by Nervous

Guilty Pleasure – An activity or object in which the user enjoys, but feels a varying amount of shame and/or embarrassment for doing so. They are things that you do not want to stop enjoying, but you are not too crazy about anyone knowing about it.

The personal consequences an individual may fear if someone discovers their love for their personal guilty pleasure can range all the way from mild teasing, by a few friends and family, to a federal prison sentence, and an insanely popular clip on YouTube.

I have a few guilty pleasures of my own. One of my guilty pleasures is a love for unintentionally bad movies; the type where you can see there was an honest effort to make a quality flick, yet they managed to screw up almost every element of the filmmaking process. Some of my favorites in that category are Willie Dynamite, Dolemite, and the low-budget champion, Hollywood Cop (a film so hilariously bad, I'm surprised that it doesn't make more lists on the web).

Another one of my guilty pleasures is music that embraces juvenile humor and parody as core elements and RUN WITH IT. Frank Zappa, Weird Al Yankovic, and Bobby Jimmy (the EXCELLENT hip-hop version of Weird Al) fill these categories quite nicely.

However, I have to give up points to the Texas-based emcee, Dubb Sicks, for tossing his hat in the gross-out arena – and coming up with a winner.

The album begins with the song "Intro". The music is a slowed-down sampling of a flute-type instrument bubbling over the top of heavy bass and church bells. Over this nicely composed fine bed-of-noise, Dubb Sicks comes in spitting over a track, that lasts less than a minute, yet, does a gallant job of laying out the entire tone that you can expect from this album. Namely, a blend of comedic, gross-out lyrics combined with songs that portray a nihilistic, almost dystopian personal outlook on the world around him.

In simple language, you can surmise that Dubb Sicks likes nasty shit – and life sucks.

From "Intro", we move into "Mind in the Gutter", an incredible exercise in sample chopping. Using Bob James soul-jazz classic "Nautilus" as a sampling source, the producer creates a semi-classic, allowing Dubb Sicks to spit lines some raw and dirty...well, I'll let him do the dirty talking.

Moving forward, we run headfirst into what, I assume, Dubb Sicks considers an R&B ballad – but this one damn sure is not for any ladies that I KNOW. Mr. Sicks pushes the Autotune correction feature to its absolute limit while he sings lines like this:

"Just let me put the head in baby
If you don't like it, I can pull it out
Pull it out, no, no, no, no
I said, let me put the head in baby
You can feel it, all the way down your throat
Cause I'm so swole (swollen)"

I do not know about any of you guys, but I am NOT TRYING to put that one over the speaker when I am cuddled up with something warm in a room full of candles, a hand cooked dinner, and a couple of glasses of champagne.

However, this song is really just a set-up for the next track, a hilarious tome about one of his girlfriends (I am assuming), who might not have been the best choice of companionship. Over a soulful bass line and vibrating guitar plucks, Dubb Sicks precedes to talk in depth about his girl who was "Queen Of The Trailer Park". This is a young lady who fights apparently fights pitbulls with Michael Vick, leaves cigarette burns in the linoleum, does not take showers, yet she cooks in the bathtub (don't ask), and last but most certainly not least, leaves him with an unknown ailment best discovered by asking him to drop his trousers.

Yeah, she made it real HOT for dude.

On a serious note, he spits a great story song on "Peter Davis". It is a pseudo-autobiography concerning his relationship with a ethically, yet very effective, music manager who manages to make him a quasi-celebrity, but allows him to deteriorate to the point where he ends up an AIDS-infected junkie, begging for change on the streets.

Overall, "Mind in the Gutter" is a bipolar listen. He swings back in forth from dead serious to dead funny so often that it seems to be, at times, two combined EPs, instead of a cohesive album. However, taken on a song-by-song basis, it is an entertaining listen with nice beats, nice wordplay, and at times, a sick sense of humor.

You might feel a bit embarrassed to play a few of the songs in the street, but you will enjoy every second of what you hearing. There is no need to feel guilty about that.

Nervous Picks: "Intro", "Mind in the Gutter", "Just Let Me Put The Head In", "Queen of the Trailer Park"

Music Vibes: 8 of 10 Lyric Vibes: 8 of 10 TOTAL Vibes: 8 of 10

Hip Hop



1. BoomBoxATX
2. Bavu Blakes
3. MC Overlord
4. Dirty Wormz
5. Zeale32
6. Afrofreque
7. Dubb Sicks
8. Phranchyze
9. Tee Double
10. Braylon Wilcott

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2006-07-07/music_phases13.html

 

Legions of mostly obscured hip-hop artists continue to pride themselves on their adherence to the so-called true school. Typically this means enthusiastic renderings of DJ Premier-styled boom bap teeming with constant shout-out's to DJs, B-boys, and graffiti writers. Locals Mike Flo and Alpha 2020 resemble this description to the point that when they aren't sounding a little too much like Dilated Peoples, they're dredging up old memories of Houston's K-Otix trying to be A Tribe Called Quest. Nonetheless, Introducing Mike and Ike (Soul2020) packs a proficient wallop as it spars with the proverbial wack MC and ultimately champions its tried-and-true fight plan: "find a sample, chop it, and loop it." Sporting what they've dubbed "garage rap," WildCard and Sach transform past glories into futuristic mutations with the admission that "I used to break but now I bend." As former members of the Arctectonics rap group and punk rock outfit Engine No.9, these Smokejumpers embody the DIY aesthetics of California's Living Legends crew as the duo poetically trods on as "slaves to the shadows in a silicon paradise." An iconoclast of the most surly nature, Dubb Sicks spins Bukowski-esque tales of a Sunrise Alcoholic hellbent on railing against what the Odessa native calls a "Nazi conspiracy." While "Story of a Filthy Pig" breaks down the psychology of a racist cop, "Conservative Terrorist Threats" advances "the voice of people who can't rise up when they fall." Announcing that "we ain't trying to kill you, we just want to see you in that ICU a second term," twin brothers Sandman and Lowkey of SouthBound tear through a DJ Rapid Ric-mixed mosaic on The Come Up (2 Da Bone), made up of instrumentals including N.W.A's "Boyz N the Hood," Wu Tang Clan's "CREAM," and Lil Hawk's "You Already Know."

 

-Robert Gabriel

 

 

...So i had to figure out who "Bukowski" was. This is the small bio. i got on him off the first website i went to. Well, actually R1 found it. But it fits me. I'm gonna have to read up on the man.

 

He was a prolific (it isn't known how much he had written; much of it was sent off to publishers long-hand and never seen again), free-formed, humorous, and painfully honest writer. His topics included hang-overs, the shit stains on his underwear, classical music, horse-racing and whores. He was at home with the people of the streets, the skid row bums, the hustlers, the transient life style. His language is the poetry of the streets viewed from the honesty of a hang-over.

http://www.litkicks.com/Buk/bukmain.html