Category Archives: Madtone

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.

 

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:

We’re talking numbers here

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Big shout to Sam O for letting us know yesterday about this great video by Ringway Manchester of numbers stations used in popular culture notably ones used on musical tracks. To get around the issue of copyright Lewis (Ringway Manchester), lists the actual tracks and plays and names the sample used in said track. We didn’t know half of the tracks chosen and we do love a tune with a number station in it here.

Big thanks to Lewis for featuring two tracks from Madtone at 2.21, Calling Live on Channel and E3 both from the Garden of Earthly Delights session from 2006.

He’s done some great research with the video and above are a couple of tunes featured in it. He has many a good video on his youtube channel about number stations and radio based stuff as well, so do yourself a favour and have a good root about here. We’ve got a good bit of discovering to do ourselves there. Cheers again Lewis!

Do not buy this album as it has no commercial value

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Big shout to the Institute for Alien Research in Bath for letting us know that the Nocturnal Emmissions Tribute LP is now out and about. It features Madtone with the track To all of our friends across the pond and our good radio friend from across the pond Justin Patrick Moore with Transcranial Emulsions. Big shout to Cowboy Joe and all our friends in Leeds, England.

Is your cocktail glass half empty or half full?

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Put on that silk dressing gown, plonk an imaginary cigarette into a long and stylish cigarette holder, mix yourself a cocktail of what’s available in the fridge and sit back and enjoy the studio version of last night’s Skybird Supper Club Imaginary Lounge programme on WRMI. There’s some great chilled lounge tunes and a nice relaxed vibe as they say.

At 11.55 in is One Deck Pete with his Lounging on the shortwaves mix and here’s the tracklisting:
Godspeed – Nightcrawling  (Excerpt)
Monodrone – Solitary feeling
Dub Addiction – Ecological Dub (Calm Down Remix)
Gore – 06
Godspeed – Nightcrawling  (Excerpt)

Enjoy the show!

Tune of a Thursday lunchtime

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Cheers to our good mate Gerry Hectic for sending this deeply dubby recommendation (above). It’s from Aspartate and it’s called Apart (Version). All we know about it is produced by someone called Mark Bailey and it’s on the D.Construction label out of Germany and their Bandcamp is here.

And talking of chilled out dub, here’s another lovely example. It’s by Dub Addiction and it’s called Ecological Dub (Calm Down Remix). It will be featured on a lounging mix on the shortwaves very very soon.

Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na, get a job

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Here’s last night’s broadcast of WORK on Imaginary Stations on WRMI on Shortwave. There’s an hour of work related tunes from DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore and at 7 minutes in there’s a mix from One Deck Pete called “Work (The old fashioned way)”. Here’s the tracklistings:

Eric Coates – Calling all Workers (excerpt)
Willie Hutch – Brothers gonna work it out
The Blue Orchids – Work
Culture – Work on Natty
Chairmen of the Board – Working on a building of love
The Silhouettes – Get a Job (Extract)

So ditch the sarnie box, kick off the Toetectors and interview slacks and tune into WORK.