A tune for a Thursday

We were first made aware of this LP earlier in the autumn and only today were reminded of it again. It’s by Stinky Jim who does the ace weekly radio show Stinky Grooves on 95bFM in Auckland, New Zealand. Have a listen to the show here.

The track we love off the LP here is Flingers & Flayers above but there’s some other great tracks on it and it’s an LP well worth exploring!

Reasons to be cheerful part 201

Big shout to our good radio friend across the pond DJ Frederick Moe for alerting us to this ace track (with an equally ace dub) from Roger Rivas called 10 Plagues on the Happy People record label. Turns out Roger is the organist from The Aggrolites, is from Los Angeles and also the A side is available for free here. Big shout to Happy People records for their altruistic ways! “What a tune!” as they say.

Who said shortwave is dead?

Big shout to everyone at Cities and Memory for organising the Shortwave transmissions project. Earlier this year they teamed up with The Shortwave Radio Archive and made available some shortwave recordings to remix and for people to tinker with.

One sample was from Radio Afghanistan recorded in 1976 which was the basis for the newest tune from Jazz’min Tutum & Madtone which is now up online on the Cities and Memories Audioboom site here alongside some other very interesting interpretations. Cheers again Cities and Memories!

Sleet is on its way

It was the best of weeks, it was the worst of weeks. The cold is on its way in and we’ve had the booster and the flu jab and been feeling a little rough. Now the heatings gone at Weeds HQ just as sleet is forecast for tomorrow but life could be worse.

The Cosmos is still in bloom which isn’t bad as it’s December next week. How good is that? We’re also actually getting some Brussel Sprouts. Okay the slugs, snails and pigeons have taken a liking to the leaves but there are some mini sprouts there!

Years ago we had something wipe their rear end on one of our Brussel stalks (we think it was foxes) and soiled the actual sprouts and even after an intense hosing down we couldn’t get the thought out of our head so couldn’t bring ourselves to use them at the Christmas dinner so bought a stalk from the supermarket.

We told a good few people about what happened as we were so dissapointed, we even rang into a gardening radio programme who told us, “If you hose them down well and cook them then cover them in butter, they should be great to eat.”

Also a chap at work said to us not long after our mishap “I had sprouts at Christmas and I was telling my visitors around the Christmas table about your home grown sprout misfortunes”. I doubt if that story helped the Christmas dinner go down well!

Also we’ve finally got some flowers on a dwarf blackberry bush we bought a few years ago after moved to a sunnier spot thinking it’ll do better. It’s always the way isn’t it, do wrap up and keep warm this weekend!

And finally we found it

We’ve been hearing this record for many months as a “sign on” tune for Sugar B‘s show on 4tuneFM and aways wanted to know what it was called. And lo and behold we heard it this morning on Vintage Obscure Radio one of our favourite shows at the moment. It’s Willie Lindo with Midnight. Tune in for more suprises here.

And now the end is near (possibly)

We gave the lawn its final cut of the year yesterday. It’s the second week in November and the grass is still growing strong. Hopefully giving the lawn the last run in with the mower so late in the year will make a it a little easier when the flymo comes back out next year.

We’ll still do the old council mowing trick of “two cuts in one” in the spring. We go over the lawn with the mover blades on the highest setting (giving it less of a cut). Then give it a quick rake over (even thought you may have a grass catcher on the mower) and then go over it again with the mower blade one notch lower. It takes longer but saves less effort on the blades. And can you believe the cosmos is also still going…

The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know

At the time of the passing of the great Lee Perry (“Our musical Papa” as the song goes) we posted up his very ahead of its time (1968) version of Burt Walter‘s Honey Love where he places Burt’s vocals played in reverse over the backing track. So bonkers it actually works!

We’ve just found the original version by sheer chance which was by The Drifters. Another case of “Well we never knew that”…

Rising to the top in a cosmos style

It’s near enough November and the cosmos (we assume they’re cosmos but we can’t remember where they came from as we didn’t sow any cosmos seed unless they were part of a beebomb or a wild flower mix) is throwing out some beautiful flowers and there’s a few buds still left to open. Let’s hope the cold weather and frosts holds off.Talking of weather, we’ve had a good few inches (feet even?) of rain over the last few weeks so the pond is near enough full to the brim (above). Who would have thought it looking at the pond at the start of this year below (before we relined it here).

And just to let you know This is a Music Show 138 is up on the cloud…

How we learned to stop worrying and love the bin

When we first moved in we didn’t really know that much about composting and stuck everything into the classic wooden compost bin like large twigs, sticks and evergreen prunings. No wonder years later they still hadn’t rotted down. We filled that wooden bin right up and also had a pile of cuttings and prunings that we piled up at the bottom of the garden and covered with a tarpaulin (below) for some strange reason.

We considered either burying it, having a monster of a bombfire (the neighbours would have loved that and so would’ve the fire brigade) or paying someone to take it away or hire a skip. None of those ideas were followed up as we had a brainwave: Why not get one of those brown refuse bins and fill it to the brim and within weeks the stuff will soon disappear. I mean they now cost £80 a year from the council but imagine how much it would cost if you had to get a skip or pay someone with a van to take it up the dump?

Now that brown bin has been a godsend with material that we can’t stick in the compost bin and every week we love filling it to the brim. We cut our branches as small as possible (except any Pyracantha as that’s a killer to break down), we jump up and down on the contents and also leave the top open and leave it in the sun so it can dry out and then load it with more.

Got any good tips on how to put the most in your weekly brown bin without having that lid open when the garden refuse people come and collect it? Do send them as we’ll use them don’t you worry!

This post was written with the latest This is a music show (137) on in the background. There’s some great stuff as per (including this lovely Jamaican Ballad above from Joe White and Chuck backed by Baba Brooks and His Recording Band) so if you love music via shortwave radio you’ll love TIAMS! Big up Daz Man for posting up the show and to Your Host for doing it.