<>Over the last couple of years, the Salinas reggae band, Dubwize, has played some big shows. Last summer, the group opened for what seems like almost every important contemporary reggae act, including Midnite, Culture, Burning Spear, Israel Vibration and Yellow Man. This summer, the band performed at the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival in Angel’s Camp, Ca., with artists like Burning Spear, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Femi Kuti and Maxi Priest. And the band has played the 5,000-square-foot main room in the Catalyst in Santa Cruz six times.<>

Last week, as the band practiced in a friend’s house in East Salinas, Dubwize was far from those spacious stages. Crammed into a tiny 10-foot-by-10-foot room, five of the band’s eight regular members and a three-person horn section known as the Bubonic Brass (which has played with other local reggae groups including Boom Mystic) practiced for the band’s upcoming show at the Monterey Bay Reggaefest, among boxes of equipment and random junk, like a lamp without a light bulb or lampshade. Whenever the Bubonic trombone player fully extended his instrument’s sliding bar, he was forced to face the floor to avoid hitting any of the other musicians.

Despite the incredibly small practice space, the band was focused on the task at hand: fine-tuning the ending of a dub reggae instrumental called “La Perla.” So far, the band has played the last minute of the song three different times, but Skinner Dread, who plays melodica and synthesizer, is not satisfied yet. “Let’s do it one more time,” he says.

This time, the band nails the ending as the drums, bass and keyboards meld perfectly into a powerful close. After the music ends, bassist and lead singer Mony Lujan simply says “yeah,” and the rest of the band knows that the song is done for the evening.

Before launching into their next song, titled “Love,” Lujan starts talking about how the avocados in Puerto Rico are much bigger than the California version of the fruit. For Dubwize, which spent three weeks touring around the island and performing this past February, their trip to Puerto Rico is a favorite topic of conversation during last week’s practice.

After the short digression, drummer Rasta Jon taps his drum sticks together, and the bands starts playing the catchy reggae original. A couple of minutes later, the tune turns into Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry,” with the lyric “in the government housing in Salinas”  substituted for Marley’s lyric about Trenchtown. Then, in the unadorned white room, Lujan delved into a few minutes of Rick James’ “Mary Jane” before steering the band back into “Love.”

The short detour into Rick James territory is proof that the band is more than just a reggae group. In concert, Dubwize and a constantly changing group of guest musicians are known to play hip-hop and salsa in addition to dub reggae, roots reggae and dancehall reggae.

“We’re not just a reggae band,” Rasta Jon says. “We’re a band.”

The band, whose members are all from East Salinas, started playing music together in 1997. Their first gig was at the Firehouse Recreation Center on East Alisal. Lujan and Sagrero remember that they were pretty well received by the crowd. “It was mostly friends and family,” Lujan says.

“So they were nice to us,” Sagrero adds.

Though one might not associate reggae music with Salinas, the band insists there is a reggae scene in the city.

Rasta Jon compares the current gang warfare problem in Salinas to the rough atmosphere in Trenchtown, a slum in Kingston, Jamaica where Bob Marley grew up.

According to Lujan and Rasta Jon, the violent climate of East Salinas ends up being fodder for their original reggae songs.

“For me, I write about how it is growing up,” Lujan says. “About the struggle.”

Rasta Jon also believes that the violence in East Salinas gives the band plenty to write about.

“We have terrorists in the street here,” he says. “This is Baghdad.”

With what they estimate is around 50 songs, the members of Dubwize look forward to getting into a studio sometime soon when they can scrape together the money and time for recording. If they are able to create a recording with the energy of their live show, this Salinas reggae group will no longer have to practice in a room the size of a big closet.