What have Jean-Michel Jarre, Ken Barlow and King Arthur all got in common?

Happy Winter Solstice! From tomorrow, days will be getting longer which is great news to us gardeners. If you want to celebrate the great day in style without having stayed up all night in the pouring rain and cold, shivering by the heel stone, why not tune in via youtube (above).

So turn up the heating, put on your best solstice suit, pour yourself a glass of warm mead and pretend you’re at Stonehenge with the best of them. Happy Solstice and a big shout to that yellow round thing we call the Sun.

Reggae is outernational

Big shout to Thomas from Dub Explorations for letting us know about this excellent tune by Professor Skank from Greece entitled Jah Jah Is Coming (The rootsman version). This has taken a couple of days to worm its way into our brain here at Weeds and now we can’t get it out of our heads. A must have tune!

Gardening in the echo chamber

A big thanks to our good friend across the pond Dr Strangedub for playing part 2 of One Deck Pete’s An introduction to Dub Gardening on last Wednesday’s Echo Chamber at 84.00 minutes in here.

The show is a excellent listen for a Wednesday morning from 8-12am UK time if you love all things dub, downbeat and everything related all played by the good Doctor Strangedub and DJ Baby Swiss play all sorts of reggae annd downbeat related tunes on their 4 hour show. Live link to KFAI from the twin cities here.

A wonderful tune was played on the show from Femi Kuti with a song called Politics Don Expose Them, wonderful stuff! Thanks again Dr Strangedub!

Live good in your neighbourhood

Big shout to The Rhythm Doctor for playing this wonderful tune by Johnny Cool on his excellent IDA Radio show Waiting Room earlier this week (at 49 minutes in with extra dubbed out bits by RD himself) called Long Time Ago and what a great tune it is!

Also reggae related, by accident this evening we found two hours of The Rootsman talking to the late great Augustus Pablo. Welll worth listening to, all on pirate radio WKLR Radio in Bradford from 1992. Reggae (like radio) never disappoints. Ever.

We are not going to complain

We’ve just heard from our good friend Rich R in the Lake District about the weather tomorrow morning up there and it looks like it’s around minus 4. We will not complain about the supposed cold weather here in SE23!

Rich has just come back from a trip to Scotland around Oban and sent us some brilliant pictures from his highland adventure. The above makes of us think of what Mars would be like if it had water. Wonderful looking place.

And the above photographs too look like a special place even though we wouldn’t want to be doing any skinnydipping in the water there at this time of year. We’ve saved a great one until last, a majestic looking sheep from Kerrera. Wonderful stuff Rich and thanks again!

Scotland pics © Rich R 2024

It’s frosty up north (or will be soon)

Cheers to Mike & Julia from just outside the fair city of Coventry for letting us know that the frost covers are out and fine looking ones they are too.

It’s been a bit funny when it comes to weather here in SE23. We had a frost the other week and then last weekend it was quite mild. I’m sure we seen some blossom on a couple of trees in the week too, it’s so crazy is this current weather. Cheers for the picture and we look forward to more of your great photographs next year!

Waiting for gobbo

Was feeling in need of a cheer up this week so we went to the theatre to see that feelgood classic Waiting for Godot...(!) Yesterday we got into conversation with someone and asked “If Beckett was into punk what would have been his favourite band?” (Samuel Beckett does look a bit on the punk tip in some photographs). We came to the conclusion it may have been Wire. What do you reckon? Would he have liked the Pork Dukes, Sham 69 or The Stranglers? Answers on the back of a postcard (preferably one with a pink haired mohican punk on it) please.

The Blue Peter Garden at the grass roots of dub

Here’s a new mix from One Deck Pete called “An introduction to Dub Gardening” and goes out to all dub gardeners everywhere and we welcome contact from (dub and non dub) gardeners wherever they may be. Dedicated to the late Percy Thrower.
The mix features:

Augustus Pablo – Melody Dub
Soulware – Augmented Seed (Dub Version)
Biggabush – Beat Dem in Dub
Jasmine Tutum & Madtone – Return to the Branches (no hams mix)
Vassell Meka – Flowers Dub
Madtone – Compost your mind

We’re not completely sure where the Dub Gardening phrase originates from but it may (or may not and we apologise if it was somebody else) have something to our good friend across the pond Dr Strangedub (alongside DJ baby Swiss) who brings you the The Echo Chamber which is broadcast on KFAI every Wednesday morning from 8 am-Noon UK time here.

A good few ago the good doctor put together a gardening related mix called In The Garden of dub which is below and has also been featured up on Weeds a few times but well worth posting up again! Features lots of artists inluding Singers & Players (ft. Prince Far I), Earlyworm, Madtone, Finn The Giant, Juno Gad Allstars meet Earlyworm, Leroy Sibbles, Jah Wobble, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Bakshish, DubXanne (ft. Ranking Roger) and lots lots more. Big shout to all dub gardeners.

Gathering a beat for a cold thursday morning

Cheers to Gerry Hectic for sending this over, a track with nice vibes for a cold Thursday morning here in SE23. It’s Leaf Erickson with The Gathering (featuring John Robinson, D Strong & Wildelux). Great stuff Gerry!

There’s a cat in me firebowl what am I gonna do?

We had a bit of a burn up in the firebowl last night alongside £30’s worth of Lldl fireworks thet seemed to go in about 5 minutes. We got rid of a lot of old tree prunings and the side of an ancient shed that was plonked by the compost heap for the last year or so (below).

The top picture was what we woke up to this morning! Our cat had been there for hours we reckon and spent a lot off today there too. It must have been warm at one point…