Thanks to Stevyn Iron Feather Journal for sending this tune on to us via Facebook messenger late last night. “Some wicked japan dub” he told us and rightly so! Cheers Stevyn.
Japan in dub
Reply
Category Archives: Dub Gardening
Off the rails in dub
While looking for music on Bandcamp, we found these two great locomotive related dub tracks. The first is Chu Chu Train Dub by Ras Teo. Nice stuff!
The second is Train Dub from Vin Morgan Meets Lone Ark and as David Rodigan would say “Give me some Signal!”
From pirate ships on the North Sea to the French countryside
A massive thank you to Spike from Morschen43, who is located near Le Puy-en-Velay in Southern France. He sent over some snaps of his house and garden yesterday, and a nice slice of the world it is.
You might remember Spike from his track “MV Ross Revenge (For Ever!)”, a tune we love and featured in a couple of our shortwave mixes. As well as making music, he loves a bit of horticulture too!
As well as growing flowers he grows vegetables as well, and we’re loving the veg patch below. For those who know us, you know we have a soft spot for a good runner bean cane! The long row of canes and that classic wigwam structure to the left are right up our street. We’re already looking forward to seeing how the vegetable garden progresses as the seasons change (more photographs later this year please Spike!)
Spike spent yesterday giving his roses some attention. As he said, “Roses need concentration and attention for cutting.” He’s right there! When we worked for the council, many years ago, there was no love for the craft. No one cared about achieving that classic “rosebowl” effect or making sure the cut was just above an outward-facing bud. They’d just hack them all down to a uniform two feet! It’s good to hear that there are people who still care.
To go along with the photos, Spike picked out a track from his Bandcamp, a duet titled “J’Aime Les Brunes Sans Filtres”
Cheers for the photographs of your great house and garden, Spike! Keep those pictures coming as the garden grows as we’ll be well interested in how you get on in that great vegetable patch.
Have you ever seen a rubber plant pogo?
A big thanks to The Rhythm Doctor and Gerry Hectic who both told us this week about Brian d’Souza (AKA Auntie Flo) who makes music with plants. He says on his website: “I entered the world of biosonification which allowed me to listen to nature’s internal rhythms – analysing electrical biodata and converting it into sound information that in turn can be subtly manipulated and heard as a type of generative music. I created bioelectrical music for vertical farms, mycelium pavilions, mushroom dens and even Vinnie Jones’ vegetable patch!”
The above is a live ambient set on the My Analog Journal channel where he hooks a modular synth to the plants and combines the sounds harvested with some ambient tunes. We don’t know that much about his stuff but will research more on this artist as he sounds well up our street!
More on his Plants Can Dance project here. Thanks again to RD and Gerry Hectic for this.
Wednesday night dub
A nice track from the Partial Records Bandcamp from King Tubby called Rising Dub, the dub of The World Has Just Begun (The Children Rise) by Earl Sixteen and The Heptones.
A passport to beer and nuts
We’ve just listened to this weeks Great Lives on Radio 4 with John Cooper Clarke about one Johnny Green (once hippy, driver, writer and the road manager of The Clash and Tour De France fan). It’s a great 27 minutes with contributions from his kids, Topper Headon and Chris Salewicz. It’s nice to hear old JCC’s distinctive voice again. To listen to the show click here.
On the subject of Johnny Green, here’s something about him on blackmarketclash.co.uk (here) about The Clash’s Bury St Edmunds gig in 1978 (where we were also in attendance). We love the line at the end which makes us smile “I considered the Camden Town rockabilly as my friend and a passport to beer and nuts”. We all love a passport to beer and nuts.
In a blink of an eye
It was bitterly cold here this morning at around the minus 2°C mark. We had a couple of bags of bark mulch delivered from B&Q, which the delivery blokes left by the back gate. From there, we dragged them down the garden, sliced the bags open with a pair of scissors, and topped up the garden path with a flinging of a rake to level it all out.
We were only out there for ten minutes at the most but we still came in chilled to the bone. Little and often but perhaps a little less often in this type of weather. Anyone else “braved” the weather today?
Happy New Year from us at Weeds
A big Happy New Year 2026 to all of our gardening/music/radio mates from around the world of ours. May all your gardening/music/radio wishes come true this year!
Happy New Year’s Eve from Hokkaido, Japan
A big thanks and a massive shout goes out to our good friend Stevyn from the excellent Iron Feather Journal fanzine in Hokkaido, Japan. He sent us a 5 tune mix which was put together earlier this evening at 11.45pm on New Years Eve (Japan Standard Time). It’s wonderful stuff and apart from the Hendrix intro, we’ve never heard any of the tunes before and we could imagine the late great Jose Padilla playing the Kitaro track on one of his “Cafe Del Mar” cassettes.
Here’s the tracklistings of Stevyn’s mix:
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – “EXP”
Hall & Oates – “Wait for Me” [Recorded live at the Montreal Forum in March 1983]
Space Battleship Yamato – Planet Shalbart
Kitaro – Aqua
Godiego – Flying
And additional notes about the mix: “Space Battleship Yamato AKA Star Blazers was my favourite anime when I was a kid, watching it on Boston US TV in the 80s” and “Kitaro was a customer when I was a college student in Boulder and clerking at the bohemian cafe Penny lane”.
A happy new year to you and yours out there in Hokkaido Stevyn! Cheers for the first mix of 2026!
A view from Perth, yesterday
It’s a mildish 6°C on Boxing Day in London today, but thanks to our Downbeat on Shortwave collaborator Jesse Yuen, here’s some pictures of summer in Australia at the moment.
These photos of his parents’ garden in Perth are full of some great plants and landscaping ideas and we’re particularly loving that shaded retreat in the bottom picture. Their garden is looking great Jesse and thanks for the update!
Weeds up to me knees 