Category Archives: Free Radio Skybird

Much more (than) music

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Big shout to our good friend The Rhythm Doctor for playing this excellent tune below by URBS called Ever Golden on this week’s Waiting Room radio show on IDA Radio (Tallinn). Tune in every Monday from 9-11am for a cross genre of quality breakfast classics from downtempo, funk, reggae and in-between.

Here’s a couple more radio shows this time of the shortwave variety this Sunday 9th July 2023 from the Imaginary Stations Crew. The first is at 2000 utc (9pm UK time) on 6160 khz where X-Raydio will be broadcast to Europe via the services of Shortwave Gold in Germany (whose motto is “Shortwave Radio is dead – Long live Shortwave Radio”).

The show will explore some audio from unusual musical formats and will feature a piece on Bone Music by Stephen Coates from The Real Tuesday Weld (also of the excellent radio show The Bureau of Lost Culture on Soho Radio, London) and also a flexi disc mix by Shane Quentin (from The Garden of the Earthly Delights radio show on CRMK, Milton Keynes). If you haven’t a shortwave radio, tune in here on Sunday evening at 9pm UK time.

A couple of hours later at 2200 utc (11pm UK time) is this week’s Imaginary Stations show which is KDUB v Radio Clarion via the services of WRMI. There’ll be some dub, some trumpets and then some dub with trumpets. Tune in for some blazing horns! If you haven’t a shortwave radio, tune in at 11pm UK time here. Remember, radio is where it’s at!

Crimson and clover

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Here’s the audio from last night’s Imaginary Stations show on WRMI, a tribute to all things Hippie/Hippy called WHPY. Tune in and turn on to some mind blowing sounds from the Imaginary Stations crew including at 18.50 a mix from One Deck Pete called “For all the wallies out there”. Here’s the tracklist:
Can – Vitamin C
Bongo Isaac, Itekted, Dread I Benji – Perfect Love and Peace Dub 1
Emma-Jean Thackray – Ley Lines
Richie Havens – Going back to my roots

Calling all Wallies, calling all Wallies

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What with all this great weather we’re having at the moment, we’re reminded of the old free festivals that used to be about. Festivals like Stonehenge and Deeply Vale where The Fall used to love to play and also where The Ruts were formed. If you love all that free festival business have a look at this site here. It’s a brilliant documentation of when festivals didn’t have 30 or so big name DJ’s/Bands playing each day and where you weren’t searched for cans of Carling Black Label on your way in. There were certainly no artisan bread stalls and WI tea tents selling home-made victoria sponges in those days though there was some alternative home-baking going on. RIP to Wally Hope (above on flyer) who was a part of getting the punk band Crass together and the nude dancer William “Jesus” Jellett. There’s a great bit in Paul Gorman’s blog where “Jesus” is pictured dancing at an early Sex Pistols gig here.

Sort of related to all of this Free Festival malarkey, Imaginary Stations bring you WHPY this Sunday 18th June 2023 at 2200 hrs UTC on 9395 kHz via WRMI. They’ll be broadcasting a special programme live from the Skybird mobile studio van parked up in a free festival in a car park in the hippy haven of Woodstock. They’ll be a mix from One Deck Pete called “For all the Wallies out there” featuring tunes by Can, Bongo Isaac, Itekted and Dread I Benji, Emma-Jean Thackray and original Woodstock artiste Richie Havens.

So don your best 1970’s long afghan coat even in this heat, grab something strong to drink if there is anything still left in the communal fridge and play your imaginary recorder or shake a home-made tambourine along to the far out sounds of WHPY.

 

Shut that (garage) door

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Now up online, last night’s Shortwave Garage Sale featuring some out there psych and garage from The Imaginary Stations crew of DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore and at 18.24 there’s a mix from One Deck Pete called “Live from the Psych-cle Shed 2″ featuring:
The Gaslamp Killer & The Heliocentrics – Brain Cell
Benyamin S. – Superman
Timebox – Beggin’
Texao – Swlabr
Gloria Ann Taylor – How Can You Say It
Los Raymi Zodiac – Lagrimas de soledad

Tune in and drop out as they say.

We of the other planets…

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It all started today when we heard a great tune from Ronny called Don’t touch my hand on an excellent show called Tarmes #4 by Mud Creeper on Palanga Street Radio. The show is available here and is a very chilled affair and well worth listening to.

For some reason it put us in mind of a Joe Meek production that our good friend Justin Patrick Moore told us about a while ago. It’s called It’s hard to believe it by Glenda Collins and it’s one hell of a tune.

We tweeted it up in a “presently listening to” type post and a big thanks goes out to Denis H from JoeMeekSociety who replied to us with a link to an earlier demo of the song. This includes the original lyric “flying saucers are here to stay” instead of the familiar “bombs and missiles are here to stay” and what sounds like to our ears (but we may be wrong) some shortwave sounds at the start and finish. It’s a wonderful alternative take.

Bargains, bargains, bargains

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We visited Lewisham Lldl again this morning as per to get some £1.99 peat-free compost and nabbed these seed bargains too. Looks like they were priced according to the numbering on the packet. Anything that was 1 was 20p but we couldn’t spot anything, 3 was 49p and 4 was £1.49. Not bad! Get down to your nearest Lldl and grab yourself a bargain and as they say “when it’s gone, IT’S GONE!”

And talking of bargains, tune into KMRT this Sunday 28th May 2023 at 2200 UTC on 9395 kHz via WRMI. Expect some blue light and centre aisle 45 specials. We will also have a special appearance of someone you don’t know off the television from the 1970’s cutting the ribbon to open the doors of the broadcast. So tune in and grab yourself a great “once in a lifetime bargain”! All radios are on sale at 25% off while supplies last! (Subject to availability of course).

Run, run, runaway

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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!

JNHK3 this Sunday

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This Sunday 21st May 2023 at 2200 UTC on 9395 kHz on shortwave the Imaginary Stations crew will be bringing you JNHK 3 via the services of WRMI. This is the third in the Japanese influenced transmissions and will feature tunes and mixes from DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore. There will also be mix from One Deck Pete called Big in Japan 2 featuring tunes from Casino Versus Japan, Gore, Solid Bronze and this corker fromTwo Lone Swordsmen. Tune in and turn on as they say…

Also a big shout to Takuji Sahara a long time listener of Imaginary Stations from Tokyo  for his contribition to last week’s JNHK 2 show. If you like recordings of radio in Japan you’ll love the show below:

Across the border

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We’ve had these plants in the soil for a year and a bit now and we are sure these are the penstemons we bought from QVC. Nothing happened last year and we were going to give up on them it now looks like they’re starting to give us a bit of a show. Here’s more about penstemons here. We’ve a few more of them dotted around the garden so hoping they all start taking off soon.

Here’s two tunes off the radio today. The first was heard on the excellent This is a music show (above) and it’s by Jackie Wilson and called You bought about a change in me and we don’t think we’ve ever heard it before even though it’s a bit of a classic and the B side of Reet Petite from a few years ago. It’s a tune! Cheers Your Host for playing it on the show. He’s right what he said that it put him in mind of The Supremes My world is empty without you.

And here’s something we’ve never heard before Sons of the Pioneers – Old Man Atom. Thanks to Justin Patrick Moore for linking us up to the Amsterdam Radio Collection (1991) on archive.org here. The track was played well speeded up on Maurice Di’s Happy Dirge Day recording at 19 minutes in. Crazy stuff!

And back to the garden, albeit the mad bit down the bottom, we’ve no idea what this wild plant is but it’s looking great and we reckon it came in on one of the Bees Bombs we got years ago or failing that a result of anarchic gardening, the scattering of seed from a random packet and hoping for the best.

Imaginary vibes all served in a Collins glass

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Below is the studio version of Sunday night’s Skybird Supper Club Imaginary Lounge Episode 2 live from Paris, Maine programme on WRMI for your chilled out, silk dressing gown wearing, listening pleasure.

At 39.49 in is One Deck Pete with a mix called “There’s someone sleeping in my lounge again” mix and here’s the tracklisting:
Opal Vessel – Libidine
Sounds for the office by コディ (Kodi?) – Clocking in
Godspeed – Night crawling

So enjoy your complimentary totally free cocktail possibly the “73” (Premium Vodka, Vanilla Liquor and half a Guiness), slump down on the sofa and chill out to the show. To apply for your free cocktail there’s more details of the offer at 1 minute into the transmission above (*Subject to availability of course.)