Big shout to The Rhythm Doctor for playing this wonderful tune by Johnny Cool on his excellent IDA Radio show Waiting Room earlier this week (at 49 minutes in with extra dubbed out bits by RD himself) called Long Time Ago and what a great tune it is!
Also reggae related, by accident this evening we found two hours of The Rootsman talking to the late great Augustus Pablo. Welll worth listening to, all on pirate radio WKLR Radio in Bradford from 1992. Reggae (like radio) never disappoints. Ever.
Thanks to Rob C again for a few more pictures from his trip. As he writes, “Japan is obviously famous for its cherry blossoms in the spring, but the changing leaves are also a popular attraction in the autumn. It was a little early when I was there, but as the days passed, there were clearer and clearer signs of the leaves turning from green to gold to vibrant red”.
And to say we are in awe of the greatness of Tokyo Tower above, (officially Japan Radio Tower as it says on Wikipedia) is an understatement. It puts our local radio/TV landmark at Crystal Palace to shame. It would be nice to have a little crystal set rigged up to a MP3 recorder and see what can be picked up from the photo location!
Thanks a million Rob, well interesting photographs and we may even have a part three to this series!
Japan pics © Rob C 2024
We’ve just heard from our good friend Rich R in the Lake District about the weather tomorrow morning up there and it looks like it’s around minus 4. We will not complain about the supposed cold weather here in SE23!
Rich has just come back from a trip to Scotland around Oban and sent us some brilliant pictures from his highland adventure. The above makes of us think of what Mars would be like if it had water. Wonderful looking place.
And the above photographs too look like a special place even though we wouldn’t want to be doing any skinnydipping in the water there at this time of year. We’ve saved a great one until last, a majestic looking sheep from Kerrera. Wonderful stuff Rich and thanks again!
Scotland pics © Rich R 2024
Was feeling in need of a cheer up this week so we went to the theatre to see that feelgood classic Waiting for Godot...(!) Yesterday we got into conversation with someone and asked “If Beckett was into punk what would have been his favourite band?” (Samuel Beckett does look a bit on the punk tip in some photographs). We came to the conclusion it may have been Wire. What do you reckon? Would he have liked the Pork Dukes, Sham 69 or The Stranglers? Answers on the back of a postcard (preferably one with a pink haired mohican punk on it) please.
Cheers to Rich R up in the Lake District for sending us some rather bonkers aurora pics from the other Thursday. Crazy, crazy stuff indeed!
Seeing this cosmic coloured sky, we wouldn’t be suprised if there’s also reports of a Gort-like robot out of The Day The Earth Stood Still seen walking down (carrying a large tote bag of course) to the Village Shop to get some lovely home-made confectionery before he starts his night-shift guarding flying saucers and the like. Cheers Rich for the wonderful pictures. All we can say here is wow!
Weeds up to me knees give a big shout to Chris The Rhythm Doctor who was interviewed on this week’s Gilles Peterson’s breakfast show on Worldwide FM. After a while of waiting for the show to go up online yesterday, the show is now finally up in all its glory on Mixcloud.
At 1.37.00 on the show is the interview featuring Chris chatting about his early days in Birmingham and Coventry, a good bit about the Jazz Funk days and bit on his involvement in the early days of House music. Trouble is, there’s loads more that can go in there! Any chance of a part two or three, Gilles?
At 2.33.00 in there’s an exclusive mix from Chris. Cheers to him for playing two Jasmine Tutum & Madtone tracks alongside lots of great eclectic stuff including the brilliant Don Cavalli “Fire Fire”, Arina Singh and the crazy dub of The Detonators “Lift Off” (which as the legend goes, after hearing it, Jerry Dammers contacted the tune’s producer John Collins and got him to produce The Specials’ Ghost Town).
Do check RD’s label Almost Unknown on Bandcamp here and expect more releases on the label. And as we keep mentioning, do check out his Monday morning show here on IDA Radio (Tallin) which has a fine mix of tunes for the start of the week.
Here’s the full tracklistings of the mix as it’s a bit sketchy on the Worldwide site at the present moment:
01. Uku Kuut – Visions of Estonia (PPU)
02. Collage – Uni,Tule Silma Peale!/Sleep,Come On The Eye! (Melodiya)
03. Treee vs Hüpnosaurus – Suveöö/Summer Night – Rhythm Doctor Rub (Umblu)
04. N.Ae. – Fatum/Fate (Polskie Nagrania Muza)
05. Arina Singh – Persian Glitter Carpet (Unreleased)
06. Jasmine Tutum & Madtone featuring Lee “Scratch” Perry – Livicate (Unreleased)
07. Maarja Nuut – Kutse Tantsule/A Call To Dance (Self Released)
08. Gunars Rozenbergs – Disko Roze (Melodiya)
09. Konstantin Orbelyan – Vocalese (Melodiya)
10. Medey – The Hunter Suite (pt 1) mix Stanton Davis (Melodiya)
11. The Detonators – Lift Off (Special Request)
12. Jasmine Tutum & Madtone – What Is Man (Unreleased)
13. Don Cavalli – Fire Fire (Rag Records)
14. The Outlaws – Crazy Drums (His Masters Voice)
15. Chyskyyrai – Khara Tüün – Rhythm Doctor radio edit (Indigenous Lifeforms)
16. Vladimir Tarasov – Monotipijos 45 (Melodiya)
17. Skeet – Meathouse (Almost Unknown)
18. Mad Musician – Jazz In (Tribe Recordings)
19. Ajukaja & Ats – Signal (Mida)
A big shout out to our good friends across the pond Dr Strangedub and DJ Baby Swiss of the excellent radio show The Echo Chamber on KFAI. As we’ve said before, if you want to hear reggae, dub, downbeat and beyond, tune in from 8 – 12 UK time on a Wednesday morning here for a cracking good show. At around 37 minutes into the 24th of July show you’ll hear Madtone‘s “Who’d be a pirate” just before a lovely garden related tune from Sister Julie called Garden Binghi.
Have a listen to the whole show here as it’s wonderful stuff! Thanks again the good Doctor!
This came up in our youtube feed just and we’d forgotten how good it is. We love it even more as we imagine that the blokes in the band are standing on a platform at the Elephant & Castle railway station with the old London College of Printing building at the back of them. This is such a good tune! £25 on discogs and worth it, we reckon! Love a 12″ with an extended mix and a dub version too.
It’s going absolutely crazy in the vegetable patch at Justin Patrick Moore‘s back yard in Cincinnati. Our good friend from across the pond and author of the fine book The Radio Phonics Laboratory (out now from the Peckham based Velocity Press here) has sent us some pictures of his vegetable plot. Look at the monster zuchinni plants (above) and the present harvest (below).
And as for the green beans and the corn (and the current harvest in the fridge) look at the below. It’s funny as our zuchinni (AKA courgette or baby marrow over here) and green beans didn’t get past germination stage or if they did, the “no holds barred” Forest Hill slugs had them.
Usually with zuchinni/courgettes we have a glut and there’s only so much you can do with them. There are ways around that glut though, we’ve tried this chocolate courgette cake here and here’s a great idea from Justin’s wife Audrey.
An open sandwich called Yvonne.
Put sauteed mushrooms, tomatoes, zucchini, and spinach, black olives if you like them, seasoned with garlic, pepper, basil and melted swiss cheese on top that you ladle over toasted bread. Add a splash of soy sauce to your taste. Sounds great for those zuchinni gluts and your own gut too.
And (above) look at this for a self-seeding/volunteer zuchinni in his garden too! What went on with our seedlings I wonder and usually our normal plants don’t even get as big as this.
And as for a tune, Justin picked this one from Tim Curry funnily enough called The zucchini song. Cheers again for the pics and recipe idea Justin and here’s more on his great book here:
Wow we didn’t even know it was a cover version! We prefer The Fall‘s interpretation but this ain’t bad though. While we’re there, we’re sticking this one below from The Fall as we love the Lee Perry original but this is great too.
Weeds up to me knees 