A nice bit of dub from Madmax Hifi (ft Sir Jama and Couleur d’Opium) out of Peypin D’Aigues, France. As it says on their Bandcamp, “the track moves away from war, greed, and the chase for money, reminding us that true wealth lives in love, peace, freedom, and the heart.” Too right mate! Wishing a good weekend to all the dub gardeners out there! (Above: crazy shapes by the pond this morning)
Thanks to Rich in the Lake District for sending us this great picture of a hanging basket he has there with a Lewisia in it. He said they had forgotten all about them, “these popped up while we weren’t watching.” We’ve never seen them before, but they look great! Possibly a plant to acquire here we reckon.
Following on to our potato post the other day, here’s how Debby H‘s in north London are doing. As she said “They were supposed to be earlies, but I think we planted them too early as they took nearly two months to show any shoots. However, in the past week, they have shot up!” They are looking great, we always think if you can protect the plants from the frosts (under fleece or plastic), it’s worth getting them in early as you can (within reason of course).
She also sent us a picture of one of her tomatoes (above), which is looking well healthy. Also, a couple of pots of dwarf sunflowers and the two right at the bottom what we think are a phormium tenax, which is about to flower! Thanks for that Debby, do keep us updated as we do love those reports from the other side of the Thames.
Last night and the Monday night before, Skybird Soul on Shortwave was broadcast to Europe thanks to Shortwave Gold. It’s a bit of a nice spot for special Imaginary Stations projects on a Monday, and shortwave radio is ideal for getting rid of those Monday night blues.
The show has DJ Frederick and One Deck Pete going through their record boxes and playing some special soul tinged tunes. Tune in via Mixcloud and enjoy some great soul and soul related tunes.
Here’s the tracklist for the first half of the show from One Deck Pete.
Slowe – Too much to ask (Instrumental)
Tim Maia – Over again
Brown Spirits – Sunshine soul
Isaac Hayes – Ike’s mood
The Spinners – Message from a blackman
Freddie Scott – You got what I need
The Chosen Few – I’m so daggone mixed up
Lamont Dozier – I’m so glad (part 1)
Ty Karim – Lighten up baby
Jasmine & Madtone – All day all night
Below is the studio version of this morning’s Imaginary Station’s WWLS – We Love Shortwave transmission from Radio Miami International featuring tunes and mixes from DJ Frederick, Justin Patrick Moore and Kit, G5KIT. If you love shortwave you’ll love WWLS!
At 22.45 there’s a mix from One Deck Pete called We love Shortwave. Here’s the tracklistings:
Radio Sweden Interval Signal
Triptica – Mysterious Radio Signals
Jasmine Tutum & Madtone – This Frequency
Shortwave Sounds – Reflections
Madtone – Spoken Words from Ibiza
Holger Czukay/Jah Wobble – Hiss n Listen
Gregory Morris & The 18th Parallel – Dub In Your Stereo (dub of Message in your radio by Kumar)
We recently attended a car boot at a South London car park at 6.45 am early doors, after gaining special “VIP Early Bird Dealer only access”, which basically meant handing six quid cash to a bloke on the gate while he chatted with a school boy on a pushbike.
One of the sellers was a vendor who looked like something out of Only Fools and Horses, battered Crombie, pork pie hat, two dinner plate sized badges and trousers hitched up a little too much showing some shin. He was pitched up next to an angry Millwall looking bloke selling large packs of bin bags and knock off perfume.
On the Crombie guy’s stall sat a Hohner Melodica. “Thirty quid,” he chirped. “Sixties original mate. It’s a beauty but the case is a bit bxggxred” Charming!
A “serious” muso type (so we thought) stepped up. He handled the instrument like he knew it inside out. “Mind if I play it?” he asked. “No bother, son,” came the reply from Del Boy.
We hesitated, bracing ourselves for some Augustus Pablo-style dub business. He took a breath, pursed his lips, looked around as if he was playing to a large crowd and proceeded to give a very bad short rendition of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Even the Millwall guy selling the bin bags put his eyes up to heaven. It certainly weren’t Pablo…
Good luck to all for some great weather tomorrow for a spot of Sunday gardening!
Here’s a brand new (old) mix from One Deck Pete with tunes obtained from car parks in this big city of ours, out of various boxes, vinyl strewn over blankets from stalls next to “geezers” selling fake perfume and bin bags. No returns please and cash only, Okay?
Here’s the tracklistings:
Bob Marley – Mr Chatterbox
Willie Lindo – Midnight
Bob Andy – You don’t know
The Revolutionaries – MPLA + Version
I Roy – Cow Town Skank
Augustus Pablo – Cow Town Version
John Holt – Stranger in love
The Tennors – Pressure and slide
John Holt – Moving Away
The Revolutionaries – Revolution dub
A big thanks to Debby H. for sharing an update from her north London garden! While we sowed ours directly outside this year and are still waiting for them to pop up, Debby’s cosmos are already starting to flower even though the plants are still small (see her photos above).
It’s great to see that her seed potatoes are finally breaking through. There’s some really healthy growth on them already.
Elsewhere in the garden, the rhododendron is also blooming beautifully.
As she mentioned “The bluebells are still lovely, although unfortunately not the native ones” (above).
The garden is looking great at this time of year as well, what’s it going to look like later this year? We can’t wait to find out, keeping sending us the updates Debby!
Cheers to our good friend Justin Patrick Moore for sending us this musical recommendation by The Lost called Violet Gown and it’s a wonderful tune! On a psychedelic soul tip, and there’s some nice coconut shell sounding percussion in there too!
The tune sounds like something that should be on the excellent Andrew Weatherall – Live at Antenna Studios mix from years ago. Lots of interesting stuff on The Lost here. Cheers Justin!
Thanks to our Downbeat on Shortwave collaborator and gardening friend Jesse Yuen who was out and about in his garden in Perth last weekend and sent us some pictures. (Top Picture) “It’s about 4.30pm in the afternoon, but there’s beautiful light because there’s a bush fire burning somewhere, so the smoke is giving everything a bit of a golden hue.”
He’s just acquired a new plant, a yellow flowering kangaroo paw. “I salvaged them from a house down the road about to be knocked down as I was on my way to DJ at a bush doof. I’ve been keeping it alive in a pot in the backyard until the weather cooled down and I had a chance to plant it.” That’s a find! More on the plant here.
He also got himself a eucalyptus macrocarpa for his garden. As he told us “This one is an absolute beauty. We’ve been on the waiting list at our local nursery for about six months, but some people wait for over two years. It’s a native, but it’s rare to buy it at a nursery. Check out pictures of it in an adult form to see how it gets.” See pic below, blimmin ‘eck!
And related to the kangaroo paw, here’s some pictures of the bush doof Jesse was DJing at and it looks a looks a great one!
He also said, “I’m gardening to the sounds of the preview of an amazing sounding downtempo album by local Australian artist Freda” and here’s a track from it.
Cheers for keeping us updated Jesse and the garden (and the bush rdoof) looks great!
Weeds up to me knees 