Monday, July 14, 2025

RIP Keith Dobson






















RIP Keith Dobson of World Domination Enterprises, possibly the most exciting live band I have ever seen still to this day, and creators of the immortal "Asbestos Lead Asbestos".

Lovely bloke and he had the gift of the gab so fun to interview.


Keith - who once went as Kif Kif le Batteur - had a long  history with countercultural music going back to the ebb days of the actual counterculture - he drummed in the Gong-like festival band Here and Now





Then Keith plunged into the whole DIY culture with the cassette label Fuck Off  Records and his band The O12, when the credo was "bad music is soul music".



Then, using the same fell-into-its-own-weird-unique-tuning-stayed-there guitar as in O12, he formed World Domination Enterprises with himself snarling at the mic' and hacking at his axe, Digger pummeling the drums like a caveman, and Steve Jameson (who died six years ago) on dub rumbly bass.  

Big up to Chris Scott of Monitor who turned me onto World Dom in the first place.



World Domination Enterprises were on the cover of Melody Maker at least once - David Stubbs did the honors. 




Here's some of my own Melody Maker ravings about WDE























World Domination Enterprises featurette
summer 1986






















live at The Underground, Croydon

Melody Maker, early 1987































with their pals MUTOID WASTE COMPANY
100 Club, London
Melody Maker, November 21st 1987















Let's Play Domination
Melody Maker, April 16th 1988


World Domination live at Hungarocarrot, Budapest summer 1988

The photo catches Keith's gold tooth nicely

















Here's Stubbs remembering a jaunt to the Soviet Union with WDE


And a piece at the Quietus by Wyndham Wallace about Keith's whole story 








Well, you learn something everyday and I didn't know that the O12 did the original version of "Asbestos Lead Asbestos" in 1984



off this album Let's Get Proffessional










2 comments:

  1. Sad news, this. WDE were about the noisiest band I could still respond to in a traditionally "musical" sense (tapping a toe, nodding a head.) One of several acts of the era, along with Screaming Blue Messiahs and Charles Douglas, to fold not long after getting an endorsement from David Bowie. So much for the Bowie Bump.

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  2. The first time I heard "Asbestos Lead Asbestos" was by The 012, back then, on the radio, here in Portugal. Blew my mind. Still does.

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