Welcome to the home of The Florence Park Dub Almighty
The F.P.D.A. are an ever growing collective of like minded Reggae loving musicians and DJ's based in East Oxford, England (most of us live in Florence Park), who have come together and grown as friends over many years. We occasionally record a song or two in our very own FunkLab studio and like to give mp3 versions away for free on this site (copyright permitting of course).
We released our first song 'Revival' back in March 2002 to coincide with FunkLab studio being featured in the May 2002 edition of Future Music magazine. It's therefore, been 19 years of The F.P.D.A. as I write these words. The studio was already well established at this point and has been around since 1998.
This website has been put together with the intention of letting the world know about The F.P.D.A. and to give people the chance to listen to us and even watch us when we have done a YouTube video. You can now also check out/follow our instagram feed which was only setup at the end of June 2023.
If it ain't dope, don't mix it!
17th August 2023
We have just uploaded our latest single 'Careful' on our songs page (all songs here are always free).
It's been over 20 years since we have been giving our music away on this website and we have had to think long and hard about whether we can continue to do so. We decided in June 2023 that we wanted to start releasing any new music on Spotify, Amazon Music, deezer, Apple Music, napster, and YouTube Music and essentially you have to pay a distributer to get onto these platforms. At the moment, we feel confident that we are unlikely to even get the money back that it cost to put 'Careful' on said platforms and every musician we speak to tells us that we should stop giving away our music for free.
On the other hand, you have to consider that it's extremely hard to make any money from music this century and that all those musicians we speak to are not making any money, and can even fall out with each other over percentages of the jack squidly they might make. Is it not therefore, better to get your music simply heard, and is there more chance of that if you're giving your songs away on your own website?
It's a question that we are likely to ponder for some time yet...
Especially as it's certainly true that it does cost us a fair bit of money each year to keep giving our stuff away for free.
If you would like to support us financially, then please take a look at our donate page. If you would like to support us but don't have any money, then subscribing to the FunkLab studio YouTube channel or our instagram account and listening to 'Careful' on Spotify, Amazon Music, deezer, Apple Music, napster, or YouTube Music still helps massively.
Don't forget to check out the video for 'Careful' which you can view in the 19th June post below and on our videos page.
26th July 2023
The new single 'Careful' is 'really liked' by our distributer beatchain who have been in contact as they would like to do a social media feature on the new release.
It was therefore, time to hastily get a picture of the band together today and whilst we could not get everybody in the same place at the same time, we did manage to get (left to right) Ben, Mr .D and Cotty together on the Cowley Road for some photos.
It's a shame that AJ who sang the vocals on 'Careful' could not be there, and also our drummer Mikey D but it's really difficult to get 5 working men in the same place at short notice.
Don't forget that you can checkout the new single on Spotify, Amazon Music, deezer, Apple Music, napster, bandcamp, and YouTube Music now.
24th July 2023
We have released a 3 track EP on bandcamp called 'Be Careful but Don't Worry'' which is out now.
The EP is only available on bandcamp but it includes our new single 'Careful' which is also now available on Spotify, Amazon Music, deezer, Apple Music, napster, and YouTube Music.
Don't forget to check out the video for 'Careful' which you can view in the 19th June post directly under this one and on our videos page.
19th June 2023
We have just uploaded our new single 'Careful - featuring AJ Jones' to YouTube which you can watch to the left and on our videos page.
We have known AJ for many years often talking about doing a song together and it's finaly happened!
It's the first new song in almost 18 months but we hope to get a few more done before the end of 2023.
Be Careful!
3rd January 2022
We have been keeping ourselves busy over the Christmas holiday period so that we could have something new to release in early 2022.
As a result, the new single 'We Run The World' is now available to download on our songs page (all songs here are always free).
Don't forget to check out the video which you can view in the 1st January post directly under this one and on our videos page.
We have also posted the video on the FunkLab Studio instagram feed today.
Please help us out and subscribe/follow our YouTube channel and/or our instagram account.
Happy New Year to you all.
1st January 2022
We have just uploaded our new single 'We Run The World' to YouTube which you can watch to the left and on our videos page.
We Run The World features vocals from Deman Rocker and Flinty Badman aka The Ragga Twins.
The song will be available to download for free on our songs page in the coming week and we will also be putting the video on the FunkLab studio instagram feed.
2nd October 2021
As mentioned back in August, we have just added a new videos page to the website. There are now seven F.P.D.A. videos
on YouTube and whilst they are all on this home page, there is a lot of scrolling down to see them all. We therefore, thought it would be good to just have them all in one place on a single page for easy navigation.
18th August 2021
The new video for 'Tales of a Saturday Night' is now out on YouTube and you can watch it to the right.
The song is now also available to download for free on our songs page.
All the video of steevm was filmed in Vienna as that's where he lives and it's where the vocals were recorded. Huge thanks to steev for providing such a great vocals for us to work with.
Enjoy the Ska.
16th August 2021
The new single 'Tales of a Saturday Night' will be available to download for free on our songs page on Wednesday 18th August 2021. It's the third Ska tune we have made and Ska is always great fun for everyone involved.
The covid restrictions have meant that musicians have had to think about new ways to work and we were keen on doing a collaboration with steevm who Mr. D has been talking with on the FL Studio forums for many years. The song was recorded in three locations: Dove Street studio's, Vienna (vocals) Area 51 studio, North Oxford (guitars) and our own FunkLab studio in East Oxford (the rest).
The video was completed yesterday and you can see it on the FunkLab studio instagram feed already. We decided to let the FunkLab instagram followers have the music video premiere as it's normally the YouTube subscribers who get to see and hear our videos first. The video will also be up on YouTube by the end of the week and it will be embeded in the feed on this page as we normally do.
We are also thinking about adding a 'videos' page to this website as there are now seven videos from The F.P.D.A. and it's therefore, about time we did...
11th May 2021
The new single 'Nuttin to Worry About' is now available to download on our songs page (all songs here are always free).
Nuttin to Worry About was written, recorded and produced during a weekend away at a cottage in the Shropshire hills by The F.P.D.A.'s two founding members - Mr. D and Ben. The track also features vocals from Ras Kitchen's Rasta Mokko, who appears courtesy of the Ras Kitchen sample pack volumes 1 and 2.
This was The F.P.D.A.'s second 48 hour Dub challenge and someone on instagram has suggested that we do a 24 hour challenge next time...
We have not made any changes to the song after getting back from the cottage and have simply just mastered it at our very own FunkLab studio.
Don't forget to check out the video which you can view in the 7th May post directly under this one.
7th May 2021
The video for our new single 'Nuttin to Worry About' is out now and available to watch on YouTube.
The song will be available to download for free on our songs page on Tuesday 11th May.
Mr. D and Ben went away to a cottage on a second 48 hour Dub challenge and this is the result of a great weekend away.
We have not altered the tune after getting it back from the cottage and have released it as is after the 48 hours work in total seclusion.
Ras Kitchen's Rasta Mokko vocal samples appear on the tune courtesy of the Ras Kitchen sample pack volumes 1 and 2.
2021 has been another bad year so far but we hope dearly that these bad times will soon come to an end.
We also have another Ska tune almost finished that should be out in time for Summer...
6th November 2020
The new single 'From Creation' is out now and available to download on our songs page for free.
We have also uploaded the video to YouTube which you can click on to the right and watch here.
The video tells the story, but Mr. D and Ben (the two F.P.D.A. founding members back in 2002) went away to a cottage in Shropshire for a few days to write and record a new Dub tune and came back with 'From Creation'.
We have not altered the tune after getting it back from the cottage and have released it as is after the 48 hours work in total seclusion.
Ras Kitchen's Rasta Mokko vocal samples appear on the tune courtesy of the Ras Kitchen sample pack volumes 1 and 2.
Whilst 2020 has been a bad year for everyone including the whole F.P.D.A. collective, it's actually been our most prolific year to date... The studio has been a place of solace in these bad times.
14th August 2020
We have released a 4 track EP on bandcamp called 'Hiatus Holiday' which is out now. Don't get too excited though, as this is a compilation of songs from 2018 onward when we returned to the studio following a 9 year hiatus for the band. We are now on a Holiday from our Hiatus hence the title.
The main reason for putting the EP out is that we had noticed that none of our songs were in 'Discover' which is bandcamps webpage for discovering new music. Even when we used very specific search terms, there were no results. It transpires that bandcamp don't include single song releases in 'Discover' and that only Albums show up. We therefore, put the EP out as bandcamp does class this as an Album and we are now showing up in 'Discover' for people looking to find new Reggae music...
The EP can be downloaded for as much or as little as you like even if that's nothing.
We are currently working on more new music and will always continue to post new songs on this website and YouTube as each new song is finished. The experience has made us rethink our bandcamp strategy though and we will most likely save songs up to release as EP's on bandcamp in the future.
20th July 2020
The new single 'Hotta than Fire' is out now and available to download on our songs page (all songs here are always free) and on our bandcamp page (for pay as much or little as you like).
We have also uploaded the video to YouTube which you can click on and watch here and also intend to post the video to the FunkLab studio instagram feed if we can get it to upload to ICTV without any errors!
15th July 2020
The new single 'Hotta than Fire' will be out on Monday 20th July 2020, available to download on our songs page (all songs here are always free) and on our bandcamp page (for pay as much or little as you like).
Hotta than Fire was written, recorded and produced during the Covid 19 lockdown and has certainly helped to stem the boredom. We even managed to get our new/old £9 Glockenspiel from the local Oxfam superstore into the song.
The video is almost complete, so this will also be uploaded to YouTube and IGTV (uploading a video to Instagram) some time during the same week. The picture you can see on the cover is a frame taken from the video...
9th April 2020
We uploaded our new video for 'Rise Up' to YouTube yesterday evening. The song is also available on our bandcamp page (pay as much as you like) and on our songs page (all songs are freely downloadable).
Please also feel free to share the video on your social media.
You can see the video below:-
26th March 2020
The new single 'Rise Up' will be out on Monday 30th March 2020, available to download on our songs page (all songs are free) and on our bandcamp page (for pay as much or little as you like).
Rise up is the first Ska tune we will have released since March 2007, when what should really be our theme song 'Florence Park' came out. We like to think that we've added more of our own flavour to that classic Ska sound this time round though.
The song features our great friend and wonderful singer Rozz, who is on vocal duties for her second outing with The F.P.D.A. since our 9 year hiatus from the studio.
There will be a video on YouTube some time in the future but it's yet to be filmed, so no release date has been set...
The video should get done soon and we have several ideas brewing considering the current isolated circumstances we are living in and the fact that we're not meant to even meet up as a band. Whatever we do though, the intention will be to cheer people up with our own blend of Ska as much as possible.
29th November 2019
We have uploaded a new instrumental tune 'Jacqueline' on our songs page today.
The tune was written by Mr. D for his sister Jacqueline who recently lost her battle with cancer aged 49.
It was written on the piano while she was I'll and played on the hospital piano outside her ward just after she died.
She will be sadly missed by all of her family and friends.
There is also a video on YouTube but we've not posted it on this page as it's mainly family photos from over the years.
15th June 2019
The new single 'Are You Ready' showing our support for Extinction Rebellion is out now and available to download on our songs page (all songs are free) and on our bandcamp page (pay as much as you like).
The video is doing well on YouTube with over 200 views in it's first week. Lets hope it continues and helps to put the message out there.
We did promise more music for 2018 back in April 2018, and nothing ever came. Hopefully 'Are You Ready' makes up for it...
7th June 2019
We uploaded a new video 'Are You Ready' to YouTube yesterday to show our support for Extinction Rebellion. The song will be uploaded to our bandcamp page (pay as much as you like) and onto our songs page (all songs are free) in the coming week or so.
Please share this video on your social media and help to put this message out there...
You can see the video below:-
The video was put together using stock video footage provided by Videvo, downloaded from videvo.net
No excuses for not making a video these days!
13th May 2018
The Ifficial Video for 'Something Good' went up on YouTube yesterday and you can see it below:-
The video was put together using almost entirely free CC0 stock video footage downloaded from the internet. The only bit of the video that's not stock footage is the very short bit with the skeleton playing the guitar.
11th May 2018
The F.P.D.A. are now on bandcamp! Hopefully this will be a good way of getting our music heard and getting more traffic at our website.
Our bandcamp page has gone live today and 'Something Good' + 'Something Dub' are available to download (name your price even if it's 0).
All our music will always continue to be given away for free on this website, even though we do of course hope that many people will actually pay something to us on bandcamp.
4th May 2018
The new single 'Something Good' is out now and available to download on our songs page.
It will also be released on bandcamp and Youtube next week.
May the 4th be with you...
