Category Archives: punk

Why ain’t plant varieties named after punk bands?

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s some pics taken around the garden in a week that has has some varying weather to say the least! What was funny was that last Friday the night of a torrential downpour, a couple of hours before that we were meticuously going around the beds with a watering can. Exactly the same thing happened this week across the pond to our good friend Justin Patrick Moore (just before an almighty storm).

The tomatoes (below) we think are the San Mirzano variety we obtained a couple of years ago at a seed swap at Glengall Wharf Gardens SE15. They’re fine tomatoes and wish we had some more! Now these tomatoes appreciate water and also a regular comfrey liquid feed.

And at the bottom of the garden (below) there’s a small bed that has a right mixture of stuff in the tiny space include chillies, some mini-melons and these peppers that we think we may have been given when we swapped some plants earlier this year.

And in the wild bit down there you can’t forget those proud cardoons that are as spikey topped as you like. Punk ain’t dead in that part of the garden, it really ain’t. Why in the world hasn’t anyone named a variety of cardoon Charged GBH or Charlie Harper yet?

Where were you in 1982?

Posted on by
2

Over the last few days the Cardoon up near the house has been expanding on its neat purple tufts. We don’t grow them to eat but for their great punk rock-like hair arrangement. Talking of the loveable spikey tops, the other morning on Bandcamp we read a great piece on Crass and Anarcho Punk (here) and there was a nice quote from Penny Rimbaud “Crass said that there is no authority but yourself… You know, live your life, find your own garden, and then share it.” We love that quote!

Crass played Birmingham once and the story goes they brought their own PA, support band, fanzine stall etc making it a great DIY event. The only let down of the night was that the beer at the gig was awful. That led to a rumour that the band took the DIY ethic to the nth degree and brought a load of their own home-brew to the venue. We doubt that very much as how much beer would they would have to transport from Dial House in Essex up to Birmingham to keep a few hundred punks happy? If only Crass did produce their own lager. Imagine how good the graphics would be on the bottles/cans too?Another plant we don’t use in the kitchen is Marjoram. We originally bought a plant from Shannon’s as we thought it was an alternative to Oregano and it’s spread like crazy. The bees and all the other winged insects that flock to it in the hot sun certainly love it and it’s well worth having in the garden to keep those insects happy and the masses of flowers look great too!

Shut that (garage) door

Posted on by
Reply

Now up online, last night’s Shortwave Garage Sale featuring some out there psych and garage from The Imaginary Stations crew of DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore and at 18.24 there’s a mix from One Deck Pete called “Live from the Psych-cle Shed 2″ featuring:
The Gaslamp Killer & The Heliocentrics – Brain Cell
Benyamin S. – Superman
Timebox – Beggin’
Texao – Swlabr
Gloria Ann Taylor – How Can You Say It
Los Raymi Zodiac – Lagrimas de soledad

Tune in and drop out as they say.

We’re talking numbers here

Posted on by
Reply

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!

What a difference a day makes (again)

Posted on by
4

We popped down to the compost heap just and the whole garden is well frosted over (above).  We wonder how those giant garlic bulbs are doing? Will a couple of days worth of a covering of polythene actually help save said bulbs? The foxglove plugs are still in pots on the windowsill waiting until we “build” a coldframe.

It’s funny as yesterday was a bright and sunny day and nowhere as cold as today. We went out with our good mate Mark B for a south London stroll which took in the only pedestrian railway crossing in London at Angerstien Wharf (here), Jools Holland’s studio and the Saxon Tumuli at Greenwich Park (top half of the above photo above). Even though in this John Rogers’ video here (at 20 mins in) the artist Andrew Kötting mentions Julian Cope told him they were pre-Paleolithic.The change in the weather today reminded me of many years ago when we went to Fordham Park Festival (here). We met an old punk bloke in his late 50’s wearing a biker’s jacket with a well faded Crass symbol on the back. He was ranting and raving about all of the estate agents, coffee companies and cupcake vendors who were fuming that they couldn’t have stalls at the site (“We don’t want all those capitalist b’s ruining our festy”). He reckoned they all got together the day before and with a bit of alchemy, influenced some bad weather to fall on the site (It was tipping it down all day even though it had been glorious sunshine the days leading up to the festival). We love that idea that with a bit of influence and getting around a table you can change the weather. Can we have some heat this week then?

Music for Eno’s waterlogged garden

Posted on by
2

A big thanks to our good friend Gerry Hectic who just forwarded on a couple of musical recommendations this wet Saturday morning. The first is on a KBUS tip from Psychic Temple with Music For Bus Stops. It’s a great jazzed out groove with a bassline that reminded us in parts of Human League’s Being Boiled. One for supping a large of mug of tea to whilst looking out of the window.

The next is a crazy dubbed out track called Strange Times At Roswell High Dub by the X Ray Cat Trio from “Leeds, England” (as Cowboy Joe would say, 6 minutes in here). Play this whilst putting on your gardening footwear when having to pop down the garden in the pouring rain when that kitchen waste container is well overflowing and a compost heap visit is a must. By the way supposedly better weather tomorrow.

Raking up the Hugel

Posted on by
Reply

Cheers to our good music/gardening/radio friend Justin Patrick Moore for sending us some great reading on Hugelkultur, this time on the greatly named Druids Garden (which has no affiliation to Ken Barlow sadly) site here. 

We’d never even heard of the system before he told us about it a while ago but it’s looks well interesting and if you can get your hands on some logs, you’re in!

It may be cold outside but inside there’s always music

Posted on by
Reply

There’s not much to see in the garden at the moment but the compost heap is still composting, the fish are swimming at the bottom of the pond and there’s protection all around the garden for the forthcoming cold snap(s). Apart from the odd bit of tidying up we haven’t done that much apart from visiting the compost heap with the odd teabag and veg peelings. When we can remember we always stick a small layer of already made compost on the heap from the dalek bin beside it which will hopefully help the whole process.

We’re also in the process of looking through our seed tin. Even if we can’t do anything in the garden at the moment at least we can plan for the spring.

And if you’re finding the cold is getting to you, get your stereo/headphones on and have a listen to the studio version of Radio Clarion for an hour of trumpet based delights, well worth listening to. It also features at 8.40 minutes in a mix from One Deck Pete called “Don’t blow your own trumpet” with tracks from The Conet Project, The June Brides, Goldmaster Studio, Jah Wobble, Jaki Liebezeit & Holger Czukay and Handbook.

And thanks to our good friend Gerry Hectic here’s a great trackfrom Telefís ‘Falun Gong Dancer’ with Jah Wobble – Donkey’s Gudge Dub. Excellent stuff with a nice video too.

Second Annual Report

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s the audio of this morning’s broadcast on WRMI of the KMTS End of year transmission. This programme features two shortwave radio themed mixes from us at Weeds up to me knees. The first mix opens up the proceedings from 00.00:

“Keep it chilled for KMTS”
Grey Frequency – Chimes (Rai Internazionale)*
Audiovert – Another Universe*
Lapa – 45th Parallel
U Roy talking about King Tubby’s pirate radio adventures
KUNTARI–Orchid
(*Both tracks from the Cities and Memory shortwave project, more info here)

Then follows some eclectic programming from our good friend from across the pond, Ye olde DJ until 42.10 and then:

“The Circles of your mind”
Upcoast Channel 5 – CODAR
Lullatone – Sunday Morning Shopping with a Stroller
liloieee – Train tracks
Paul Davidson – Midnight Ridim (from the Jamaican release of the single Midnight Rider)
Gats – Schneewittchen 
Love Unlimited – Under the influence of Love

Hope you enjoy the show and do turn it up loud. As the station says on their mixcloud:

“The KMTS transmission service winds down our 2021 activities with this fast radio burst of test tones, sounds and songs.

So click on the radio, turn out the lights, and let exotic sounds from distant mountain top towers, take you on a trip to a land that is far away…”

There will be more to come in the following weeks and months so keep ’em peeled!

What goes around comes around

Posted on by
Reply

Earlier this morning we passed on another container of home made comfrey liquid to spread the love/smell/word. The container this time was a well washed out non-bio Tesco washing liquid bottle.

On the way back from the exchange a massive plastic bag of daffodil bulbs were found sitting outside someone’s front wall with “Take me” on them. Is that what you call gardening karma? May be deemed a little late to put in but who cares!