Thanks and praise for some of the most challenging and innovative dub music of the '80s and '90s should go to Adrian Sherwood. From his label, On-U Sound, spring the likes of Tackhead, African Head Charge, Bim Sherman and a host of other dub renegades.

Producer/DJ Adrian Sherwood during his recent visit to Japan.

The U.K. producer/DJ was in town Nov. 4 as part of the Echomaniacs event held at Liquid Room. With a bill filled with live acts like Japanese roots rockers Dry & Heavy, 3-Head from the U.K., top DJ Andrew Weatherall and reggae veteran Dennis Bovell, the unenviable task of warming up the crowd when doors opened at 10 p.m. fell to Sherwood -- a challenge he accomplished with his usual nonchalant flair and rough-and-ready approach to DJing.

Utilizing tapes and self-recorded CDs, he treated the crowd to a good couple of hours of dub, starting with rare cuts from the original dub master King Tubby then testing out a set of his own as-yet-unreleased productions on a willing crowd -- rough rhythms, hard beats, with a strong roots feel.

"There were a couple of tracks in particular that I could see went down really well, so I was getting a good idea of the kind of thing they like," he said afterward.

Sherwood started out selling imported Jamaican reggae records from the back of his van, and running his own label, Hit and Run, in the late '70s before moving into production in the early '80s, working with, among others, New Age Steppers (which sometimes featured a young Neneh Cherry), Creation Rebel and Mark Stewart and the Maffia.

He not only has a fine-tuned musical sensibility that has allowed him to work with an inspired selection of musicians, but also the imagination and knowhow to create original musical concepts and assemble studio musicians to realize them.

One of his most commercially successful projects was the mighty funk/rock/dub monster Tackhead, which he created by taking bass player Doug Whimbish, drummer Keith LeBlanc and guitarist Skip McDonald from the Sugarhill Gang, the legendary house band of the New York hip-hop label Sugarhill, who together with Sherwood's production skills simply detonated when playing live.

At the height of the On-U empire, there were 40 people (including the musicians) earning money from the label. But the pressure of running an essentially independent label on such a scale proved to be more difficult than he perhaps envisioned, both musically and financially. Musically, once he had assembled certain units and given them a framework to work in, things would go well "until the musicians started thinking of themselves as a band," and keeping a coherent vision to the music became problematic.

As for losing touch with reality through fame, drugs and egos, Sherwood recalls things getting a little out of hand with Tackhead. "They were flying in pianos from America and all kinds of stuff," he said.

Ironically, later it was Adrian himself who had to pay for the excesses of the times.

"In the end we owed a lot of money, so I was left with two choices -- declare myself bankrupt, which would have meant not paying our debts to small retailers, distributors or do the honorable thing and pay off my debts, which is what I chose to do. I lost my house but I don't regret it."

Sherwood closed the studio and folded the label, but didn't give up working in music. Since that time he has been concentrating on producing artists outside the On-U stable, like Sinead O'Connor.

Although at this point he has no concrete release plans, he is busy in the studio once more. "I have started cutting rhythms again, and am quite excited by it all," he said. "I have realized it is about time I started releasing under my own name. After all, the previous projects were really my ideas."