They took the sun away but these bring warmth

Here’s a couple for a Saturday night after a bit of a cloudy day, the first will be coming on a forthcoming shortwave mix soon and it’s from Herman Marquis & David Madden, a heavy version of Take 5. Previously stuck at the back of a load of twelve inchers and found by pure fluke the other week.

A few weeks ago we bought a handful of singles from Lorenzo’s Records in Brockley including one by Ezz Reco And The Launchers With Boysie Grant (more about the band here) called King Of Kings. Turn’s out the song hit the UK charts before Millie’s My Boy Lollipop and was a cover version of a Jimmy Cliff song. Here’s a wonderful video of some dancefloor action featuring a very young Jimmy Cliff at The Sombrero Club (More on that venue here).

Even more from north London

Just before we go away for a few days at the south coast, here’s some great gardening pictures from our friend in north London, Debby H. The cosmos patch is still going strong (above) and bright and colourful. The next is the cana lilly, now flowering for the first time this year (below).

“Then there’s the wonderful Ornithogalum (below) with four flowers now clearly visible.” it does look wonderful Debby!

Then there’s the sedum (above) and the great Zephyranthes Lilly flowers (below).
“And just up the road from here is a great front garden with a wonderful array of tomatoes all along the front border. There’s also sun flowers and other plants I don’t recognise.” That front garden is crazy! Love those climbing tomatoes! Cheers for sending those Debby.

What a difference four days make

It doesn’t take long, just a few days of dryness to ruin what you have in your garden. Our good friend Gerry Hectic came back the other week from Gilles Peterson‘s We Out Here festival and his tomato/strawberry experiment in one of those strawberry pots was looking the worse for wear. It is totally sad to see the before (above) and after (below).

Please tell us there’s a happy ending Gerry!

And to change up the vibes on this sad event here’s a wonderful number from Cyril Diaz Et Son Orchestre with Feeling Happy. May this tune lift spirits and sad dry plants everywhere.

 

A drive-in Sunday

Next Sunday Imaginary Stations will be bringing a cinematic treat to those shortwaves. On Sunday 1st September 2024 at 0900/1300 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then at 2000 UTC on 6160 kHz and 3975 kHz they’ll be presenting Skybird Drive-in Radio via Shortwave Gold. They’ve got the matinee and evening spots booked for you so there’s no need to arrive early in the motor. Make yourself a tasty snack (hot dogs, tacos, ice cream, a burger or perhaps some popcorn?) and turn on the shortwave radio, it’s as easy as that. Then imagine you’re in a cadillac or whatever car you fancy, tilt your seat back and enjoy all sorts of cinema related tunes as you would in an outdoor experience.

There’s all sort of cinema related tunes and at 38.39 there’s a mix by One Deck Pete called Crash course for the ravers featuring tunes by Trío Noctámbulo, Count Lasher, Charlie Binger & his calypsonians, 3kuad and The Fall. Enjoy the evening’s programme but before you leave please could give the management back the in-car speakers as they are expensive.

The programme will be repeated Wednesday 4th September 2024 at 0200 UTC on 9395 kHz via WRMI.

Ball Hill calling to the faraway towns

We took a trip to Coventry the other weekend and popped into the Coventry Music Museum/Two Tone Village in Ball Hill Village. We spotted the lesser spotted Ded Yampy fanzine wedged between two King singles (one of them was even signed!)

They don’t half love their tomatoes up there as at the Music Museum we spotted a couple of plants outside, we would have loved it even more if the variety was called two tone or something like that. They looked healthy enough as well.

Also walking up Albany Road later on almost opposite Jerry Dammer’s old flat we spotted a table of tomato plants with “Free. Please help yourselves!” We do like a sign saying that, did they mean we could take the table thing as well we wonder?

And the tune for tonight is sadly not from Coventry but from Iceland from Leik with Toy center at night and a lovely little tune it is too. One going out to our Coventry and Birmingham friends around this gardening globe of ours.

Big shout to apprentice dentists everywhere

Big shout again to Dr Strangedub of the excellent Echo Chamber show on KFAI for the debut play of Jasmine Tutum & Madtone‘s newest tune called “Times and Tings” at 47.00 mins in after the classic track “Apprentice Dentist” from the great Lone Ranger. Tune in here.

As you know the good Doctor S with DJ Baby Swiss presents the show every Wednesday morning (available on archive here too) featuring the best in reggae, dub and downbeat and well worth tuning into from 8 am.

Allotments and auroras

Cheers to Rich R for two brilliant photographs from his locality up in the lake district. The first is the night sky from his front garden when he went outside to see the meteor shower but caught this beautiful aurora borealis instead!

And the above is the view from his allotment. Best view from an alllotment ever, you reckon? Cheers for the pics Rich!

 

And the boss don’t mind sometimes if you act the fool

Early this morning we walked past the Brockley Best Hand Car Wash and saw a chap (the owner of said car wash) watering his prize tomatoes, corn and aubergines with a hosepipe on the bit of land on the corner. What was mad was when we were walking past 20 minutes later he was still there happily watering away.

We spoke to the chap who was a lovely bloke and he said “Everyone can have a patch like mine, isn’t yours like this?” pointing to the vegetable bed. I think the Weeds garden would be like that if we watered it with the same amount he used on them but we’re too afraid of Thames Water. Talking of which, we’d hate to see his water bill!

Much more music…

News just in! There’s a new EP release from Jasmine & Madtone and it’s up on Bandcamp here featuring the two tracks that were on The Rhythm Doctor’s excellent mix on Gilles Peterson’s Breakfast show on Worldwide FM. Expect more new music from Jasmine & Madtone soon!

More from north London

Cheers to Debby H again for sending us an update on her garden. It’s looking great by the way! These two pictures of the ornithogalum are brilliant. You can see on the picture below that four flowers are now clearly visible. They are something else.

Also the cosmos (below) are still going strong and the flowers are still well colourful.

As Debby wrote “Finally, the zephyranthes bulbs are blooming. We have never managed to get more than one or two flowers in a year. Now we have four coming at once! Amazing what a change of compost will do!” That plant is great. We’ve never grown those before but probably will now as there’s all sort of varieties out there. We were influenced with the cosmos and will look into these bulbs too. That’s what gardening is all about, being inspired by what other people grow in their garden. Cheers Debby!