It’s cold as cold here and it’s time for a good tune to warm up those slippered feet. It’s the original version of Ijahman Levi‘s classic Jah Heavy Load from the grand old year of 1976.
We can’t find the dub of this but the tune in its full glory is played at 2 minutes in on this “recorded straight off the Medium Wave in glorious mono” of John Lydon on BRMB (261 Metres) in interview with Robin Valk from 1979 complete with a european station breaking through in the background with really adds to the recording. A great listen by the way.
Here’s a later released version of the tune with a excellent dub which we really want here. Keep warm out there!
Blimmin eck, it didn’t half come down in the early hours today in London, so much so that the water in the pond is quite close to the top. If it rains any more those goldfish will be touching the pea netting which is there to keep the Lewisham Heron out.
Talking of showers or “music like shower” to be exact, a big shout goes out to Steve Barkerof the excellent long running On The Wire radio show for getting back to us on the name of the mystery tune on the compilation from the Little Axe label. It’s called So long baby/An Irie Version by Derrick Morgan & Paulett/Prince Trinity and it’s a heavy tune!
If you want to hear a top show full of reggae and all sorts of great records tap into the latest shows of On The Wire on Totally Radiohere or have a look through the archive on the blogspot here. You will enjoy it! Cheers again Steve!
Big thanks to Jesse Yuen for his last post here and for sending us this tune recommendation. As he says in his own words: “My last few months have been soundtracked by this release from Cousin. Downtempo, dubwise, low-end and percussive!” Sounds great and well up our street Jesse!
The other evening found a different cut of this fantastic cover version of the reggae classic “Queen of the minstrels” by Mr Day and we now love this happy snappy mix. It’s very soulful and upbeat with still a hint of the original in there. A tune and a very catchy one at that.
Whilst looking for suitable tracks for a forthcoming shortwave mix this week we found a couple of good tunes. The first is Anomie with Tradisi Urang (Anomie psychedelic reggae version). Excellent reggae related stuff out of Indonesia.
And out of Indonesia too here’s a wonderful tune from Benyamin S with Superman. This is just something else, it really is!
It isn’t officially winter anymore yet it still doesn’t feel like spring all the time does it? We’re getting some lovely days then a few days of cold.
Perhaps April is always like this but here’s an excellent set of dubs to cheer you up from Mad Calypso & Apocalypse Dub Faction called Winter Skank. We’ve a soft spot for Winter Dub 2 here. If these tunes are Winter, we don’t mind it!
Tune in to Imaginary Stations this Sunday 26th March 2023 at 2200 UTC on WRMI on 9395 kHz for KZOO a show which is all about kazoo’s, kids piano’s, güiro, washboards and all sorts of home-made instruments which weren’t encouraged by the music teacher. Tune in and enjoy!
A big thanks to our good friend Gerry Hectic who just forwarded on a couple of musical recommendations this wet Saturday morning. The first is on a KBUS tip from Psychic Temple with Music For Bus Stops. It’s a great jazzed out groove with a bassline that reminded us in parts of Human League’s Being Boiled. One for supping a large of mug of tea to whilst looking out of the window.
The next is a crazy dubbed out track called Strange Times At Roswell High Dub by the X Ray Cat Trio from “Leeds, England” (as Cowboy Joe would say, 6 minutes in here). Play this whilst putting on your gardening footwear when having to pop down the garden in the pouring rain when that kitchen waste container is well overflowing and a compost heap visit is a must. By the way supposedly better weather tomorrow.
Big shout to our good gardening friend Gerry Hectic for sending us a pic of what he harvested from his garden this week. Looking great! We are nearing the end of the main growing season but there’s still some time left. Send us your growing pics as we love them here and find them inspiring and send us a tune too!
Gerry sends us a great dub poetry recommendation from Lil Obeah Meets Isuru called Chaos Is Dub, a lovely bit of reggae from the excellent Romanian label Sound of Art to Come. Cheers for the pic and musical tip Gerry!
We’ve been away for a few days to sunny Sudbury where the only stress was making sure a couple of cats, the garden birds and the guest ducks were fed and cat treats administered. It was nice to get away for a break after the last couple of years of the on and off madness of lockdown.
When we returned, the garden at home had certainly grown even after 5 days. The spuds we put in early (in February under cover here) were looking well happy and flowering like anything and so was the courgette seedling we put in a big pot (above). One tip, don’t even consider consuming the fruits that may appear on the potato plant after flowering as you’ll certainly keel over. This is how one website put it “…if you are feeling adventurous, you could try tasting a ripe berry, but don’t swallow it unless your health insurance is paid up.” We always knock them off if we see them growing just to be on the safe side.
Now it’s back to that age old “When do we pull the spuds up?” conundrum. It’s all confusing, as far as we can remember these were Golden Wonder maincrop potatoes which you supposed harvest in August/September, but we put them in earlier than they should have been so that’ll make a difference won’t it? If you want to find out more, there’s a good article about the various potato types explained on the Gardener’s World website here.
We usually wait until the flowers and foliage have well died down before we go in with a fork (remembering what Joe Maiden used to say about going in a few times so nothing is left in the ground. “Volunteer” potatoes can muck up an OCD laid out vegetable bed the year after if not) but there’s nothing stopping the impatient digging around in the compost earlier seeing if there’s anything small to harvest. If you’ve got raised beds filled with general purpose compost it shouldn’t take much effort get in there with a trowel and be like a careful archaeologist. If there’s nothing of a decent size just cover them back up and let them get on with it. We’ve read online some people enjoy spuds when they’re marble sized, each to their own we say.
Another thing we actually got around to doing was “side shooting” our tomato plants. This is simply taking out the side shoots that appear between the leaf joint (making sure they’re not the fruit bearing trusses that grow from the stem not on the junction between leaf and stem). The whole idea of doing this, is the plant will put all of its energy into making the fruit rather than into making leaves. If you have a butchers at this video below though the great Bob Flowerdew suggests growing Tomatoes on a couple of main stems. We love the bit that starts at 2.25 “I thought you were a good gardener?”
But the big question here isn’t if he’s a good gardener or not, it’s is he a reggae lover or a Kraftwerk fan or both, we need to know! If anybody knows please tell us.
Weeds up to me knees 