DJ Spycatcher

Last night the latest edition of Imaginary Stations KSPY took to the ionosphere thanks to WRMI. Thanks to all agents who tuned in to the spy-laden broadcast via the shortwaves but if you didn’t, the studio audio is now up on mixcloud (below).

At 7 minutes in is a mix from One Deck Pete.
Here’s the tracks:
Zeb – The Spy from Cairo – Qanun in Dub
Top Secret…shhh – Winding the time
Edwin Starr – Agent Double O Soul
Secret Nuclear – Coded messages
Ax Martz – Mensaje en codigo (Coded Message)
Nat King Cole – The Blue Danube (Excerpt)

Enjoy the hour of all things KSPY but please don’t forgot to look over your shoulder as you never know who’s watching.

On a seed swapping tip

We’ve just heard of a great seed swap from Incredible Edible in Lambeth next month at The Garden Museum, 5 Lambeth Palace Road SE1 7LB on Saturday 18th February 2023 from 12-3pm. Get those spare seeds in a packet and get on down there and see what’s available to swap.

Know of any good Seed Swaps in the London area? If so do get in contact and we will post up the details as we love a seed swap here.

If you’re missing the sunshine…

Summer seems a million miles away but thanks to our good friend Paul Greenstein once of SE22, here’s a taste of the sun. Paul’s been based in Melbourne, Australia for some years now (we’ve featured his garden a few of times here and here) and here’s some recent pics.

Here’s a fine example of the Bramley Apple he put in his garden as he said “You can’t get decent cooking apples over here!” and here’s the fruits in all their glory (above).

The Artichoke (above) is looking fine under the Sunflower and it looks like it’s appreciating the shade. And (below) look at the Sunflower!

And he keeps Bees too and he tells us he may be getting a nice harvest of honey this year. Brilliant Paul, the garden is making us think of summer even more and it’s looking great!

And below is some of Paul’s musical output. This was his contribution to the Cities and Memory Shortwave Transmissions project last year called Another Universe. Like he says on the C&M site “Like the narrators, I have a fondness for all things space, astrophysics and the big questions like: is the Universe going to end, what are black holes, and why does Surf Guitar sound dangerous?”

Love the garden Paul and send us more pictures of the Bees please!

The compost heap at minus one

We popped down the compost heap with some tea bags and kitchen peelings this morning. Even in this freezing weather, it’s a chance to stretch the legs and see what’s happening in the garden.

There ain’t much going on at the moment so we decided to give the heap a turn with a garden fork, not sure if it’s the right thing to do at this time of year but fork it we did. The brandling worms are still at work and the decaying waste is looking good. Work never stops for the worms (unless perhaps a giant fork appears from above).

We felt sorry for the worms (who will just return to the heat of the lower part of the pile we hope) so we covered the heap with some sheets of cardboard and to hold them in place we stuck a plastic tray and a jug on top. There was no specific reason for the jug apart from it was the only thing we could get our hands on at the time. Perhaps we could start a new trend in the gardening mags of “household items on top of compost heaps”. You saw it here first!

While we were writing this piece we’ve had on the excellent new bandcamp set from Jah Wobble – The bus routes of south London. To say it’s good is an unstatement. It’s great that the 35 and 12 routes have been represented on here as they are ones we’ve been on often and in the direction stated. Two buses which weren’t featured on here are the P4 and P12, they are not bad buses when they do arrive but they certainly have their moments and we just don’t know how inspirational they’d be musicwise. 35 Towards Clapham Junction is our favourite tune at the moment and we’d love to know what the instrument/sample is at 3.30 on the track as it’s one mad sound especially when it goes up a pitch. Top stuff!

All about the weather

And we’ve been complaining about the weather today. A big thanks to our good music/radio friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore for getting in touch. Here’s what his back garden in Cincinnati looks like at the moment. Now that is cold. Thank goodness there’s no elephant garlic been planted in his garden lately as they wouldn’t stand a chance. Cheers for the pic Justin.

What a difference a day makes (again)

We popped down to the compost heap just and the whole garden is well frosted over (above).  We wonder how those giant garlic bulbs are doing? Will a couple of days worth of a covering of polythene actually help save said bulbs? The foxglove plugs are still in pots on the windowsill waiting until we “build” a coldframe.

It’s funny as yesterday was a bright and sunny day and nowhere as cold as today. We went out with our good mate Mark B for a south London stroll which took in the only pedestrian railway crossing in London at Angerstien Wharf (here), Jools Holland’s studio and the Saxon Tumuli at Greenwich Park (top half of the above photo above). Even though in this John Rogers’ video here (at 20 mins in) the artist Andrew Kötting mentions Julian Cope told him they were pre-Paleolithic.The change in the weather today reminded me of many years ago when we went to Fordham Park Festival (here). We met an old punk bloke in his late 50’s wearing a biker’s jacket with a well faded Crass symbol on the back. He was ranting and raving about all of the estate agents, coffee companies and cupcake vendors who were fuming that they couldn’t have stalls at the site (“We don’t want all those capitalist b’s ruining our festy”). He reckoned they all got together the day before and with a bit of alchemy, influenced some bad weather to fall on the site (It was tipping it down all day even though it had been glorious sunshine the days leading up to the festival). We love that idea that with a bit of influence and getting around a table you can change the weather. Can we have some heat this week then?

Calling all agents

Whilst looking for some tunes for a forthcoming shortwave mix we found an excellent tune from Ax Martz out of Mexico City called Coded Messages which samples a couple of well known number stations. It’s an uptempo tune as well and one that will bring a smile to you face!