Category Archives: “Radio connects us all”

A passport to beer and nuts

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We’ve just listened to this weeks Great Lives on Radio 4 with John Cooper Clarke about one Johnny Green (once hippy, driver, writer and the road manager of The Clash and Tour De France fan). It’s a great 27 minutes with contributions from his kids, Topper Headon and Chris Salewicz. It’s nice to hear old JCC’s distinctive voice again. To listen to the show click here.

On the subject of Johnny Green, here’s something about him on blackmarketclash.co.uk (here) about The Clash’s Bury St Edmunds gig in 1978 (where we were also in attendance). We love the line at the end which makes us smile “I considered the Camden Town rockabilly as my friend and a passport to beer and nuts”. We all love a passport to beer and nuts.

WNTR in dub

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This weekend just gone saw the broadcast of WNTR by Imaginary Stations on Shortwave Gold. As they said on SWLing Post: “Winter vibes abound as per with the show, and the temperature outside may only a few degrees, but we will be transmitting as much winter warmth as we can!” Enjoy the warm vibes of WNTR.

At 43.19 in is One Deck Pete presents a festive dubwise mix.
Here’s the tracklistings:
Kohei Yoshii – Cold Ice Dub
Forgotten employee – The backroom tapes – A Merry KMART Christmas (excerpt)
Mal – Powder Snow dub
Michael Powell – Christmas Dub

In a blink of an eye

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It was bitterly cold here this morning at around the minus 2°C mark. We had a couple of bags of bark mulch delivered from B&Q, which the delivery blokes left by the back gate. From there, we dragged them down the garden, sliced the bags open with a pair of scissors, and topped up the garden path with a flinging of a rake to level it all out.

We were only out there for ten minutes at the most but we still came in chilled to the bone. Little and often but perhaps a little less often in this type of weather. Anyone else “braved” the weather today?

Happy New Year’s Eve from Hokkaido, Japan

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A big thanks and a massive shout goes out to our good friend Stevyn from the excellent Iron Feather Journal fanzine in Hokkaido, Japan. He sent us a 5 tune mix which was put together earlier this evening at 11.45pm on New Years Eve (Japan Standard Time). It’s wonderful stuff and apart from the Hendrix intro, we’ve never heard any of the tunes before and we could imagine the late great Jose Padilla playing the Kitaro track on one of his “Cafe Del Mar” cassettes.

Here’s the tracklistings of Stevyn’s mix:
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – “EXP”
Hall & Oates  – “Wait for Me” [Recorded live at the Montreal Forum in March 1983]
Space Battleship Yamato – Planet Shalbart
Kitaro – Aqua
Godiego – Flying

And additional notes about the mix: “Space Battleship Yamato AKA Star Blazers was my favourite anime when I was a kid, watching it on Boston US TV in the 80s” and “Kitaro was a customer when I was a college student in Boulder and clerking at the bohemian cafe Penny lane”.

A happy new year to you and yours out there in Hokkaido Stevyn! Cheers for the first mix of 2026!

Signing off on Boxing Day with a great tune

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An excellent cumbia-inspired track from Seattle-based Terror/Cactus titled Descalzo. We originally picked this up on the Names You Can Trust Bandcamp (here) earlier this year and recently rediscovered while putting together an upcoming shortwave mix. Ace stuff! Over and out for Boxing Day.

A view from Perth, yesterday

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It’s a mildish 6°C on Boxing Day in London today, but thanks to our Downbeat on Shortwave collaborator Jesse Yuen, here’s some pictures of summer in Australia at the moment.

These photos of his parents’ garden in Perth are full of some great plants and landscaping ideas and we’re particularly loving that shaded retreat in the bottom picture. Their garden is looking great Jesse and thanks for the update!

Crying on boxing day

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Heard on the radio this morning, one we didn’t know about by The Heptones with a tune called Crying Over You, production services by one Lee Perry at The Black Ark studios. Wonderful stuff!

And here’s a version with Jah Lion on the microphone.

Coming through a chimney’s a whole lot of stupidness

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A big season’s/holiday greetings to all our gardening, radio and musical mates from everywhere around the world. A big thanks to everyone for supporting the blog and whatever you celebrate at this time of year, make sure you have a great one!

And for this time of year, here’s a wonderful tune from Lord Nelson (from Trinidad & Tobago we reckon) called A party for Santa Claus. It’s a brilliant 7″ on Camille Records with some very funny lyrics and a great tune too.

“Christmas is here and we’re all having fun
Santa brought presents for everyone
But he had to squeeze through a chimney Poor Nicholas
What a horrible place to pass

Why not open your window
Or your front door
So Santa could bring his gifts?
I find that climbing on a rooftop and coming through a chimney’s
a whole lot of stupidness.”

Christmas ain’t that far away

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The festive season ain’t that far away and thanks to searching for a Christmas shortwave mix we found the above the other night. It’s a tune from 1983 by Michael Powell called Christmas Time and has a nice subtle dub.

Today we were at a school’s Christmas fair in Blackheath and witnessed a very young DJ on the wheels of steel. He was playing the obligatory “All I want for xmas is you” etc and inbetween was putting in a few rewinds, taking out the vocal and adding Shaka type syndrum FX. At one point he went into a reggae selection including a tune off the Jacob Miller & Inner Circle Natty Christmas LP. Wow, it’s been a while since we’ve heard that one out, if ever. How the world turns so quickly.

And here’s Basement 5‘s excellent Last White Christmas single but played much slower, recorded for a John Peel session. Dennis Morris, now there’s a forward thinking bloke (anyone remember his other band, Urban Shakedown?)

And this one we heard on pirate radio a good few years ago from Carlene Davis. Yes Christmas is coming…