Music and gardening certainly do mix!

 

Cheers to Spike from Morschen43 for sending over his latest track, ‘Résurgences’! It starts off with some guitar and vocals before going into a energetic, catchy punk groove. Big thanks, Spike!

Skybird, Shortwave and Soul

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

We love shortwave!

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’ve got those Car Boot blues

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!

Jumps and scratches free with every mix!

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

 

It all seems to have started up north

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!

In usual cases we are not keen on the dentist

Here’s a nice warped sounding (like when you get a off-centre jamaican pressing from the days of old) 80 bpm tune from Dentist called Kiss to warm you up for a day where it may be 20 degrees Celcius over here in SE23. Crazy weather eh?

We love interval signals

Further to our last post about interval signals, cheers to our mate John F for sending this interval signal over on Facebook from Radio Tirana, Albania (above). Simple but effective like all the best interval signals, and we’ve just found out it was a trumpet version of a tune called With Pickaxe and Rifle. Blimmin’ eck!

That got us thinking of another old one, this time from Radio Prague, which was recorded off the shortwave and put on an LP by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Here’s a live version with an orchestra, shortwave noise and a vocal through a megaphone.

Our friend Kit G5KIT from Bristol got in touch and mentioned this excellent one from Radio Berlin International “The one I heard most as a kid”. Cheers Kit, now that is a classic!

And a favourite tune of ours from years ago that had an interval signal sampled on it, was  Rephazer‘s Interval #1 from his excellent Interval Signals set here. Here’s a Madtone re-edit of the track with a Jasmine Tutum vocal over the start as a bit of an exclusive for a shortwave mix a few years ago.

Through researching this post we have rediscovered a clip of the late great Holger Czukay listening into shortwave radio from1984. It don’t sound like any intervals signals are contained here but it’s such a good clip it has to be aired again.

There’s a great collection of interval signals here from the SWLing Post article and on this classic site here. Have you a favourite interval signal? Do send them to us here.

Just to end, here’s a lovely classic musical box/ice cream van type interval signal from HSW Bangkok Meteorological Radio (supposedly a version of “Wandering The Plains” from the Nintendo game Super Mario World). Big shout to all interval signal fans all around the globe!

It’s nice today but not nice enough for ice creams

An excellent dub from Gregory Morris of Johnny Osbourne’s/Makka B‘s Cease Fire. A great tune for a sunny spring Saturday. And here’s the vocal.

A mix containing flowers from Bristol

Nice to hear from Kit, G5KIT this afternoon, he emailed “Spring has officially arrived over here in Bristol. Two random daffodils have sprouted in the garden!” Great stuff.

So, in celebration of this here’s a great mix he sent us, and we’ve never heard any of these tunes before. Cheers Kit, it’s great to hear mixes from our gardening friends. Keep them coming!

Track listings:
Spinal Tap – (Listen To The) Flower People
The Hobbits – Daffodil Days
The Syn – Flower man
Luscious Jackson – Water Your Garden
Derek and the Dominos – Keep On Growing