While doing a shortwave mix the other night we came across this duo we’ve never heard of before called The Secret Whistle. It’s a great name and turns out they’re from Portland, Oregon and they make some fine tunes. Here’s two here.
Here’s the audio of Imaginary Station’s From Beatles to Bigfoot broadcast last weekend via Shortwave Gold, a show full of the songs of Lennon/McCartney covered in a way you’ve never heard before. Also beatles soundalikes, plus UFOs, flying saucers and a Yeti Choir (*subject to availability). It’s a odd mixture but a very nice odd mixture featuring contributions from all of the Imaginary Stations crew.
At 14.04 mins in One Deck Pete brings you a UFO themed mix called “A pint of lager please Earthman”. The tracks are:
Tena Stelin – UFO
Jah Warrior – Unidentified Flying Dub
The other self – Men from Venus
The Psychedelic Aliens – Blofonyobi Wo Atale
Meridian Brothers – Guaracha U.F.O (No Estamos Solos…) (excerpt)
Here’s a wonderful track (complete with the classic radio being tuned in intro) from a forthcoming shortwave mix that’s called MV Ross Revenge (For Ever!) and it’s by Morschen43 from Le Puy, France. The Ross Revenge was/is the home of the great Radio Caroline (and Radio Monica) from 1983 which once nearly became a cropper on the infamous Goodwin Sands. More on Goodwin Sands and the irregular cricket matches and utter lunacy that sometimes happened there (and still does), here.
Talking of pirate radio stations here’s a snip from the Radio Nordsee/Radio North Sea International film and for years we’ve always wanted to know what the track playing for the first ten seconds was and tonight we’ve found out what it was thanks to the powers of the internet. It’s the start of a song called Big John is my name by Rare Earth.
In the clip does the DJ Leo van der Goot just play the first 30 seconds of the tune and then fades it out or is there another version where the start ends the track so to speak? We would like to know, any ideas?
And if you want more of Rare Earth in a percussive style this one below is crazy! Uncredited edit allegedly by the great François Kevorkian.
Here’s a couple of cuts of the classic tune MPLA, the first from The Revolutionaries on the Channel 1 record label and a lovely horns cut it is too.
The second is a banging dub cut of Freedom Blues (aka MPLA Riddim) on 1st Rasta Records out of Camberwell SE5 7ZJ. We’d love to know more about the label as the location of 1st Rasta Records is in an area (with a bus garage) that is very close to our hearts There’s next to nothing on the label on Discogs except a few records by artists including Frankie Paul, Tommy Trouble (great name) and Johnny Rodgers.
Many moons ago we had a PO Box at the same place and used to collect records every Saturday, in the days promo companies would send out those things called vinyl records. One cold winter’s morning, a 12″ promo in a very warm card envelope was handed over to us by a whistling postman (wearing shorts of course) from said SE5 sorting office. When we took it home we found it was warped as anything and had been left next to the radiator for a couple of day we reckon. As the song goes “What can you say, who can you blame?” Anyone know more on 1st Rasta Records?
And here’s where it all started:
A big thanks to DJ Frederick and Imaginary Stations for broadcasting Downbeat on Shortwave last weekend via the transmitters of Shortwave Gold. The show featured two 15 minute mixes in a downtempo style back to back from Jesse Yuen (Australia) and One Deck Pete (London, SE23).
We’ve posted up two recordings of the show. The first is the stereo studio recording and below that, the off-air recording via the shortwaves recorded in glorious mono. Fading and extra noises thanks to the ionosphere/groundwave.
Big shout to Jesse Yuen for getting involved and into the spirit of this shortwave radio project of ours.
We’ve had Bargain Bin DJ (an A5 24 page fanzine) for a couple of weeks now (“print in the old fashioned way” as the song goes) produced by our good friend DJ Frederick from Groveton, New Hampshire.
If you love those bargain bin finds, this publication is for you. We don’t want to give too much away but issue number 1 has a review of Record Time magazine (the newest edition of said publication has all sorts of musical features from Polka to Sex Pistols inspired novelty records), Lawrence Welk, Kado Wilson, Forgotten 45’s from 1955, Sounds of Synanon, Moondog and Surf-Punk New Hampshire hero, Jonee Earthquake.
An excellent read if you love music found in the cheapo section or in a box hidden away under some damp smelling jumpers and coats in a charity shop. Cheers to Bargain Bin DJ fanzine for alerting us to the tune above under “sound-alike or plagiarism?”. A great track off an LP called Mood Indigo by Jean Jacques Perrey, “influenced” possibly by a tune called Telstar. We reckon it’s more than likely to be a tribute to the great Joe Meek. It’s a great one and we love the run out which we want it to go on forever.
If you want to find out more about obtaining the fanzine drop Fred an email at radiothriftshopnh@gmail.com
And here’s two sides a Bargain Bin classic of ours. An excellent single from Jamaican singer Jimmy James (he of Jimmy James and the Vagabonds later in his career). Wonderful stuff.
Below is the recording of last weekend’s WARM show from Imaginary Stations. It’s a great show featuring an hour of tunes to raise the temperature including a mix at 3.57 from One Deck Pete called Feeling hot, hot, hot. Tracklistings are:
Cass. – Ethan Veerbek
Bunny Wailer – Love Fire (Version)
Blundetto featuring Courtney John – Warm My Soul
Mice Parade – Warm Hand in Farmland (Stereolab remix)
Tune into the show and forget about the cold weather here at the moment.
A few days ago we heard from our good friend from Japan, Stevyn from the great Iron Feather Journal fanzine who is away on holiday at the moment. He said “Hokkaido is minus 10 and there’s tons of snow so we took a mini vacation and flew south to Okinawa (pic above) and now relaxing by the sea side”. He sent us this picture below from his holidays of part of a jungle with a genuine viper warning! That’s brilliant Stevyn. We hope you had a great Christmas and that you’re having a great holiday, cheers for the pics.
Big shout to Thomas from Dub Explorations for letting us know about this excellent tune by Professor Skank from Greece entitled Jah Jah Is Coming (The rootsman version). This has taken a couple of days to worm its way into our brain here at Weeds and now we can’t get it out of our heads. A must have tune!
A big thanks to our good friend across the pond Dr Strangedub for playing part 2 of One Deck Pete’s An introduction to Dub Gardening on last Wednesday’s Echo Chamber at 84.00 minutes in here.
The show is a excellent listen for a Wednesday morning from 8-12am UK time if you love all things dub, downbeat and everything related all played by the good Doctor Strangedub and DJ Baby Swiss play all sorts of reggae annd downbeat related tunes on their 4 hour show. Live link to KFAI from the twin cities here.
A wonderful tune was played on the show from Femi Kuti with a song called Politics Don Expose Them, wonderful stuff! Thanks again Dr Strangedub!
Weeds up to me knees 