In the Doctor’s garden of dub

A big shout to our old friend Dr Strangedub Radio DJ and Dub Gardener who presents the great show called The Echo Chamber (with DJ Baby Swiss) on KFAI from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis–Saint Paul. It’s on every Wednesday from 2:00 to 6:00 am (8am-12 noon UK time), if you love dub, reggae and all sorts of bass business you’ll love the show. Tune in live at the allotted time here

Thanks to the good doctor for sending over some snaps of what’s growing in his yard at the moment. We love the tomatoes (everyone else’s is doing better than ours, we are not jealous, honest!), the herb container and the raised bed and the stairs look like a good place to sit and chill on a summer’s evening. Cheers Dr Strangedub, keep in touch and update us through the growing season! Cheers for the plays of the One Deck & Popular, Madtone and Jasmine & Madtone tunes throughout the years.

Standing stones in a yard sale style

Cheers to our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore, for sending us the flyer for his yard sale that was on Saturday that featured some standing stones “Callanish Stones I think..” There’s some great standing stone coincidence vibes going on. Cheers Justin!

More Downbeat on Shortwave this weekend!

This weekend Imaginary Stations bring you the fourth episode in the Downbeat on Shortwave series with Jesse Yuen (from Perth, Australia) and One Deck Pete (from Catford Village, Londres).

Jesse and Pete bring you two 15-minute downtempo mixes each over the hour-long show. Expect some ambient, dub, reggae and downtempo tunes for a chilled-out weekend.

The show is broadcast on Saturday 13th June at 1100 hrs UTC (12 noon in the UK) on 6160 kHz and then again on Sunday 14th June at 1300 hrs UTC (2pm in the UK) on 6160 kHz and 2000 hrs UTC (9pm in the UK) on 3975 kHz/6160 kHz. Thanks to the great Shortwave Gold for beaming those radio waves skywards.

Don’t worry if you haven’t a shortwave radio you can tune in via an online Software Defined Radio here (pre-tuned into 6160 kHz). Just plug in at the right time(s) and experience that shortwave mono sound with all the fading and cross channel interference live.

Here’s the older shows for your listening pleasure!

Programme 1

Programme 2

Programme 3

Ball Hill calling to the faraway towns

We took a trip to Coventry the other weekend and popped into the Coventry Music Museum/Two Tone Village in Ball Hill Village. We spotted the lesser spotted Ded Yampy fanzine wedged between two King singles (one of them was even signed!)

They don’t half love their tomatoes up there as at the Music Museum we spotted a couple of plants outside, we would have loved it even more if the variety was called two tone or something like that. They looked healthy enough as well.

Also walking up Albany Road later on almost opposite Jerry Dammer’s old flat we spotted a table of tomato plants with “Free. Please help yourselves!” We do like a sign saying that, did they mean we could take the table thing as well we wonder?

And the tune for tonight is sadly not from Coventry but from Iceland from Leik with Toy center at night and a lovely little tune it is too. One going out to our Coventry and Birmingham friends around this gardening globe of ours.

Dubs of the day

Thanks to our good mate Gerry Hectic who recommended this piece of dubwise this morning from Jay Glass Dubs from Anthens, Greece. It’s very gardening related too what with the name of Narcissus. Very nice.

And one from us on this sunny but cold day, a nice Jazz type dub vibe from New Zion Trio out of New York with a 9 minute version of Ras Michael and the Sons Of Negus’ None A Jah Jah Children Dub. Wow, what a tune.

 

It is October and what is that tune?

Well things should be coming towards an end in a couple of week’s time and all that outside gardening fun may be slowing down but we still can grow stuff on our windowsill. The chillies we got in a plant swap are still going well. If it gets the heat and the protection from frosts it may survive and give us more hot chillies. Even the butternut squash outside is still cracking on.

 

Also the other day we relistened to the B side of a compilation we bought a couple of weeks ago and found (at 17 mins in on the above) a 1970’s Bunny Lee/King Tubby’s sounding cut of the wonderful Shirley & Lee’s – Lee Goofed. There’s versions out there by John Holt & Hortense Ellis (So long Baby) and The Love Children/The Marvels (Lee Goofed) on youtube but nothing sounding as heavy as the one on the Little Axe Compilation (A label which releases some wonderful tunes by the way and worth checking out). Any ideas on what the version on the compilation is? Any ideas appreciated.

The cut reminded us of those 1970’s old singles on the Grounation label like these two corkers below. Now there was a good label.

Getting over it

We’ve been out of the game over the last week and a bit due to catching the dreaded lurgy. We haven’t been able to do that much in the garden but look forward to being out there again once we feel a bit better and the great weather from last week returns.

Thanks to our good friend Justin Patrick Moore for reminding us of this Japanese ambient classic above from Haruomi Hosono – Talking. It’s a whole 15 minutes with a repeating motif not unlike a shortwave Interval Signal. Wonderful.

And talking of Interval Signals here’s a track we haven’t posted up in a while which is a favourite of ours from from Holland’s Rephazer. If you love a bit of ambient combined with some shortwave radio malarkey, you can’t go wrong here.

 

And here’s another one in a chilled out vein the very tripped out Green from Hiroshi Yoshimura. Here’s to getting back to some sort of health normality very soon.

Photosynthesis in dub

We’re just researching a gardening related mix and just came across a collective called Plants Dub “a project of inter-species music that inquire the communicative transfer between the human being and the plants”. Now you’re talking!

We’re going to dig deeper (no gardening pun intended) and do some finding out. Here’s one to start with “Phoenix carariensis” which is the Canary Island date palm. Who says gardening and music don’t mix?

And just to press home the point here’s a mix from the good Dr Strangedub from the excellent Echo Chamber on KFAI from a good few years ago. Well worth a listen.
Dub gardeners of the world unite!

A healthy dose of goodness and light

Here’s a  lovely piece of ambience from about : forest off their Bandcamp release The Land of Three Moons on Dewtone Recordings out of Vancouver, British Columbia. It’s called Calling Light and if all goes well will find itself on a forthcoming mix for Free Radio Skybird. A track to drift off to and dream about a return of some good gardening weather!

Greenhouse classics (revived)

Cheers for Justin Moore for starting us off again on the search for gardening related music with his recommendation for Mort Garsen‘s Cosmic LP “Mother Earth’s Plantasia” last week here. Also a big thanks to the good Dr Strangedub from The Echo Chamber on KFAI for his mix a few years ago below and Pete Haigh from the monthly Funkology radio show (on “On The Wire” on BBC Radio Lancashire) for his gardening-related chart here. We’re now looking for more. Know any deep house classics that mention “potting on”? Or some dubstep that mentions dephiniums? Or just some fine tunes you like to like to prune the roses to? Send us your nominations please. Remember music and gardening do mix!