Category Archives: punk

Tulips from Lew-is-sham

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Yesterday we popped into that shopping emporium Lewisham Lldl and spied some gardening bargains. There were various variety packs of mixed summer bulbs and corms and we picked this one which was “Flower Masses Collection” for around £6. No idea if it is an actual bargain or not, but there’s 40 bulbs in there including one dahlia that went in a large pot near the house with a transparent plastic bag over it to keep any cold weather out. Also there’s some gladioli, lilly and african corn lilies that went in the ground probably a bit early but these things burn a hole in our pockets and we’re far too impatient to wait until the risk of frost is over sadly.

The bulb planting reminded us of a daft story from the Westminster City Council Gardening days that was covered in the Sounds From The South spot that we used to do many many moons years ago for the gardening programme The Dirt on Manchester’s Fab Radio International (show below). We wonder where Watford Mick is now?

There’s also a silly episode about when a gardener met some of his punk heroes in his council regulation Donkey Jacket here.

Best of luck with the weather and happy gardening over the bank holiday break!

 

The music keeps on coming

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It’s been four years since the passing of the great Andrew Weatherall can you believe. We saw on Facebook a link to this great mix from Outlaw Yacht Club, Leeds 2013 (from a great night presented by our good mate Chris Madden) and we just had to share it. The mix starts off with Big Youth, Ari Up, Dr Who in dub then goes into rockabilly and much more and you know what? It’s downloadable. RIP Andrew Weatherall.

The radio dial is a compass…

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This afternoon we were listening to a mixtape on Radio is a Foreign Country which is a wonderful radio show broadcast on WRMI (Mondays 0300-0500 UTC on 9395 kHz) also it’s own internet radio station and website. This is how they describe what they do, “An endless stream of obscure (and mostly retro) global music and audio ephemera rarely heard outside their home region.” This tune above by Los Zheros called Para Chachita was heard on the mixtape section called “Peruvian 45s” and is a corker! The whole mixtape is great in fact. Explore some worldwide mix goodness here.

Psychic TV meets Frederick Horniman at SE23

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We popped into Hornimans today and had a butchers at their garden and their collection of herbs and healing plants (well it was more about reading the plant labels as most of them were still in hibernation but very interesting all the same.)

After being outside we took a trip into the music room and saw the Yamaha DX7 synth in there with the Psychic TV sticker on it again. It’s been there for years but we forgotten all about it until today but does anyone know anything about its origins?

We must remember this is a gardening blog (or is it?)

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Another great tune found whilst researching a forthcoming shortwave radio mix, a very summery sounding tune from a little while back, complete with a backwards tracking part in it. Cornershop with England is a Garden. Wonderful!

And talking of backwards tracking, check the B side of this one which we’ve featured a few times here so why not again. Burt Walters on the vocals with Honey Love, the great upsetter on the mix.  Love the sound of the vocal track tape being rewound to start in the right place. Crazy!

Tunes for a Thursday

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Through all of the researching of the Abedare Rockers cassette a few great gems have come to the surface like this excellent track from Debra Keese and Black Five with Travelling produced by Scratch The Upsetter. And you want the toast, here it is! Top tunes galore!

Now this is what you call a tape!

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A big thanks to Debby H for getting in touch here about a tape called Abedare Rockers, an excellent reggae compilation from the mid 1970’s. There’s not much info about it and it doesn’t appear online either in digital form sadly but we did have a copy of it years ago which we picked up by mail order or somewhere on a London excursion and it was a bit of a much played classic.

From looking online the tape was available at the 1976 Deeply Vale Festival and as Michael Williams (who worked at Better Badges and Dub Vendor amongst other places and was one of the founders of the Dread Broadcasting Corporation, more info on that here) said on Facebook a few years ago: “‘Aberdare Rockers’ was a compilation made in my flat mid 1970s, can’t remember who compiled it, could have been ‘Nightdoctor’ founder Charles Wood, my brother or Joly MacFie. Joly and I did Better Badges and were reggae fanatics and so duplicated this compilation, to as one did in those days turn people on. It was thought of as a regular underground release but no just a compilation made in the heady days of the 70s amidst ganja fueled evenings pre punk.”

Well Debby has found said tape and sent us a pic of it and copy 64 is above. Brilliant stuff! We look forward to hearing a copy of this one day as it was a wonderful tape. Also she sent us some great pics of covers of other cassettes she has just unearthed and we love that DIY ethic of all of those. Brilliant stuff Debby and thanks for getting in touch!

By the way  this below is an interesting interview with Michael Williams about DBC featuring some good tunes too.

Festive tune of the week

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This excellent tune was found when compiling a shortwave mix, a great spoof of The Normal on a festive tip. We hope even Daniel Miller would have a chuckle at it while he’s listening to it around the open fire.

Keep this frequency clear

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It was very sad to hear about Benjamin Zephaniah who passed away this morning. Thanks to Gerry Hectic for letting us know about this great tune. RIP Benjamin Zephaniah.

Baby, it’s cold outside

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It’s cold as cold here and it’s time for a good tune to warm up those slippered feet. It’s the original version of Ijahman Levi‘s classic Jah Heavy Load from the grand old year of 1976.

We can’t find the dub of this but the tune in its full glory is played at 2 minutes in on this “recorded straight off the Medium Wave in glorious mono” of John Lydon on BRMB (261 Metres) in interview with Robin Valk from 1979 complete with a european station breaking through in the background with really adds to the recording. A great listen by the way.

Here’s a later released version of the tune with a excellent dub which we really want here. Keep warm out there!