Category Archives: Radio Shows

It only takes a minute

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Reading the latest article on SWLing Post here about BBC interval signals, it reminded us of the wonderfully simple and direct “B–B–C” in the tonic scale used on shortwave for the BBC World Service and other transmissions to Africa.

We’ve always loved it and recently used it in a one-minute slightly odd piece from Madtone called “It Is AI, but we created it” for the 60 Sec Radio 2026 contest here, where “anything is possible as long as it’s 60 seconds long.”

The piece is below and features the said BBC interval signal alongside an excerpt of an strange ham radio conversation on 2 metres about AI generated music. We’re not that keen on AI generated music here funnily enough.

The contest is still open, so if you have 60 seconds radio collage, send it to the website here.

A report from France

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A big thanks to Spike from Morschen43 for sharing more photos of his garden in Le Puy-en-Velay, France. As you can see, looking at the pictures (aboove and below), a hell of a lot work has been done over the last couple of weeks and there’s a nice new fence up as well. Sterling work Spike!

If you can remember what the garden was like (below) before the pickaxe, fork and shovel were applied and when it was full of couch grass and dandelions (here), all we can say is “Wow!”

And there’s been a massive bit of pruning on his Granny Smith’s apple tree (below)). Spike was gifted the tree by his grandmother for his 13th birthday and it’s now 35 years old. Here are the before and after pictures of the big cut. It does look a bit severe, but it did need it and we are sure it will grow back fine.

We found out the gardening runs in the family as Spike’s father was a market gardener and swore by gardening using the moon. It’s been a long time since we used the Biodynamic method and Maria Thun‘s Book here but perhaps we will revisit it and give it a try. What have we got to lose?

Cheers for the great pictures of your garden again Spike and keep them coming!

And thanks a million to Spike for playing Jasmine & Madtone’s “Open up your heart” at 50.08 minutes in on his Vampire Freaks radio show here (N°365) here.

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

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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.

So nice we had to play it twice

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We’re just researching another shortwave radio mix and remembered this wonderful track from Triptica out of Alajuela, Costa Rica called Mysterious Radio Signals. This was recorded off air from One Deck Pete’s “Interval Signal Tea break” mix which was broadcast on KMTS on December 17th 2000 at 2300 UTC on 9670 kHz. We do love the track and its cut and paste video.

Destination: all over the map

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This weekend there was a edition of Skybird Radio International featuring DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore, who journeyed all over this globe of ours in an all genre style. You don’t need a passport, or carry over-packed suitcases to go on this international musical coach trip as itwas transmitted over those shortwaves and now on Mixcloud:

 

At 3.38 there’s a mix from One Deck Pete and here’s the tracks:
Madtone – Diamonds in the sky (excerpt – full track here)
Les Maîtres Fous – La Mort d’Icare
Aselefech Ashine & Getenesh Kebret – Wegenne
Narcy – Nehaya
Wilmoth Houdini – Blow Wind Blow
Unknown Track off “Cantos Oscuros” from Little Axe Records

And Justin Patrick Moore played this obscure one from Jodie Foster, released in that heady year of Punk, 1977.

A mix containing flowers from Bristol

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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

A heavy duty gardening report from France

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Thanks to Spike from Morschen43 for sharing photos of the back-breaking work he’s undertaken in his garden in Le Puy-en-Velay in France this week (more on his great garden here). Seeing the couch grass dandelions and the pickaxe, fork and shovel, we’re breaking into a sweat just looking at the pictures. As he told us “The most used tools used in the work were a fork and a spade”. You’ll all agree he’s done a great job to say the least after looking at the “after” pictures at the bottom of this blog post!

Cheers for keeping us updated and we’d love to see how the garden progresses throughout the year. You’ve done well this week Spike and we are never going to complain again about working hard in our garden looking at these pictures!

Getting on the right track

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Here’s the Imaginary Stations tribute to the humble locomotive, CTRN. All the crew were aboard this week including DJ Frederick, Justin Patrick Moore and Marc from Belgium with all sorts of interesting train stuff crammed into the one hour show which was broadcast thanks to Shortwave Gold.

After a great story from Marc from Belgium at 7.50 mins in is a mix from One Deck Pete called “This one’s for the trainspotters out there”. Here’s the tracks:
Saiko – Traintrack
Jah Wobble – Turner, Whistler and Blake
The Hardy Tree – Railway tracks
Vin Morgan meets Lone Ark – Train Dub
Otis Rush – So many roads, so many trains

Here’s a few more train related tunes.

And we don’t know nothing, and we don’t really care

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We just heard on the Craig Charles show Nobody but you by Clarence Reid from 1969 and were shellshocked by the intro. We just didn’t know! Have a listen…

We remember a good while ago spotting this intro from James & Bobby Purify from I’m your puppet which is adapted on the excellent I am the toughest from Peter Tosh. We heard both songs a good few times and just didn’t make the connection.

That’s what we love about Reggae, you think you know a little about the genre and you know next to nada. We are always prepared to be educated and suprised, a bit like gardening!