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:
Talking of RTM FM, a big shout to Jesse Yuen of the excellent North of the River Swan radio show (which is on a break for the time being) for sending us this morning some excelllent pictures of his parents garden in Bassendean, Perth, Western Australia where he is at the moment. It’s a brilliant space and has some out there plants we could only dream about having here!
It looks a wonderful space and a lovely place for chilling out in! He’s sent us some close ups of flowers from the yard too. Great stuff!
And here’s the last North of The River Swan (until later this year hopefully) as Jesse (as it says on the mixcloud) “is taking some time off to recalibrate the compass and recharge the radio batteries”. Take it easy and we look forward to your return to the radio and to your shortwave debut. Cheer for the gardening pics, do send us more.
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.
Thanks to everyone who’ve been sending us their accordion classics since last week’s transmission of WELK.
Thanks to John F. who alerted us to Kimmo Pohjonen. We had no idea that this sort of madness existed, talk about taking the accordion to the next level! We love Kimmo’s get up but don’t think the local allotment committee would allow this sort of gear to be worn on-site especially in this forthcoming heatwave. A great tune by the way.
And he reminded us about this great tune by Les Negresses Vertes a band we here have seen a few years ago but had well forgotten about.
He also mentioned the Grace Jones tune “I’ve seen that face before” a reworking of Astor Piazzolla‘s “Libertango”.
Steve Barker had also said about the maestro Astor Piazzola amongst lots of others (Clifton Chenier, Rocking Sidney, Boozoo Chavis and Amédé Ardoin and many more) which we’ll look into soon. He also mentioned Flaco JImenez and this tune with Ry Cooder.
And last and not least Mark Paytress who sent us this classic and called it “perhaps my fave squeezebox tune of all time” and he may be right! The Three Suns“Delicado”.
Keep on squeezing as they say and thanks to everyone who have got in touch with their recommendations.
A big thanks to our good gardening mate Gerry Hectic for sending us pictures of the story so far in his garden. Loving the runner beans in the pot with a trolley from Aldi at the bottom so it can be moved around to catch the maximum of sunlight. Our other good friend Phil Harmony in Berlin used to also use that idea on his balcony for his veg growing. As The Merton Parkas used to sing “You need wheels”.
The peas and tomatoes look great too! Just water them daily and add a weekly feed, all will hopefully be grand! More pics of your progress in a few weeks please Gerry!
A big shout out to all of our music/gardening friends from around the world! Thanks to Justin Patrick Moorein Cincinnati for an update of his Hugelkultur bed (above). It’s certainly looking great!
A few months ago it started off as the below (mentioned in the post here) and now has been filled with straw, soil, and underneath that, layers of compost and leaves and below that waste wood. It certainly looks like the plants like it! It may be worth having a go. Great stuff Justin! More on the practice of Hugelkultur here.
And thanks to our other good friend Gerry Hectic for sending a pic of his healthy looking pond. Is that watermint alongside that great lily Gerry? Brilliant!
Do send us pics of how you’re getting on with the garden this summer, we’re well up for receiving them!
Double whammy! Within half an hour after the Parakeet cheek we’ve got two squirrels on the Sunflower making a co-ordinated attack. That SE23 nature grapevine must be buzzing this morning!
A big thanks to Stevyn and Yukako Prothero for sending us pictures of their first journey into the world of gardening in Hokkaido, Japan. We know Stevyn from the excellent Iron Feather Journal fanzine (there’s loads about it here and here) and he was also behind the Towne Club RecordsAlan’s Psychedelic Breakfast remix project here which included a musical contribution from Madtone.
We at Weeds love a garden no matter its size or form and this is a neat little one. What makes it even better is that it’s the first time they’ve both had a go at growing stuff and in their own words with “little knowledge or experience.” That’s what’s gardening’s about, starting small, learning from any mistakes and see how you get on. You may get the odd failure but you’ll get successes too. Just being in the outdoors tinkering away with the many gardening jobs is healthy for a start and keeps your mind off the various lists and worries of the week.
The plot is compact “the earth is very rich, it’s excellent soil and get lots of sunshine and rain” says Stevyn. There’s a great mix of stuff growing including tomatoes, beans, peppers, zuchini, eggplants, shiso, carrots, lettuce, pumpkins, asparagus and onions! It’s right up our street.
He told us that the American orange pumpkins are rare compared to the green Japanese pumpkin and also jalapeno peppers are scarce over there too and cost a fortune.
As always we ask our contributors to pick a tune and Stevyn chose this one, a cover of a song from “a very touching sweet tv show about a man and two kids who live in a shack in Hokkaido trying to survive called Kita no kuni kara (From the North Country)”.
Also Stevyn sent us a pic of a rice paddy near his house “Many miles of rice paddys here, as the people eat rice daily” and how great is that scenery?
Also whilst we’re on the subject of Japan and gardens have a look here at a great garden they visited last year in Tomakomai. Here’s a sneak preview. A fun garden indeed!
Thanks again to Stevyn and Yukako for sending the great pics and we’d love to see more photo’s later on in the year to see how things develop!
Big shout to Gerry Hectic for sending us a pic of his dustbin fruit container conversion job which he did last year. It’s coming on a treat at the moment, look at those strawberries turning red! That’s a great idea Gerry!
And (below) here’s a few random flower pics from the Weeds garden taken this morning.
If you’ve got pics ofyour garden do send them in! Email them to onedeckpete (at) gmail.com and also send us a tune if you fancy it as well!
It’s been a while since we’ve heard about our friend (and musical collaborator) Paul Greenstein‘s garden in Melbourne, Australia. He’s sent us over a few pics and news of what he’s up to now. For around a year he’s been keeping bees.
“We started with a ‘nucleus’ hive, which is a small box with 5 frames. We’ve now grown to 3 full-sized boxes (supers), although we’ve packed the bees down into 2 boxes for the winter. For the bees, it’s about staying warm. From the beekeeper’s perspective, you want to make it easy for them to stay nice and toasty, and not to have to worry about heating a lot of empty space. Kind of like downsizing your house to save on the bills, except they keep warm by vibrating their flight muscles while keeping their wings still. Amazing little creatures.
We haven’t harvested any honey this time around, preferring to let the bees keep it for food during winter, building up a strong hive. We live very near a creek (basically a river, but not a very big one) – and there’s loads of stuff for bees to forage. Lots of Eucalypt trees, although there’s a particular type of Eucalypt called Stringybark or Messmate, which for some reason makes bees angry. Maybe they don’t like the way it smells. Hopefully they’ll avoid those and we won’t get stung by grumpy foragers…”
He also mentioned the subject of the last but one post about cicadas from Justin Patrick Moore:
“We get incredibly loud cicadas here – in fact they’ve been known to drown out conversation! Apparently the version we have here are called Greengrocer Cicadas, and can go up to 120 dB – louder than an ACDC gig. Our cats occasionally get fed up and swat them with a paw – they’ll go silent in shock for a few seconds, then start up again.”
Below is a pic of a Bramley apple that he’s put in as “You can’t get decent cooking apples over here!” We do like a cooking apple here especially in a crumble with custard! Do have a look at older posts about his garden here here and here.
And here’s a couple from Paul’s musical output, a lovely garden related tune called “Rose” that has a lovely ambient feel to it and one with a Jah Wobble type vibe called “White Blinds“, excellent stuff indeed!
As it says on his soundcloud “Sometimes inwards is the only way to go.” He and the bees are 100% correct! Cheers for the pictures Paul and keep us updated with how things are getting on!
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…
Weeds up to me knees 