Category Archives: Reggae

Serving up the subsonic stew

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A big shout to Dr Strangedub who alongside DJ Baby Swiss hosts the great Echo Chamber on KFAI. If you love Reggae, Dub and Downbeat you must tune in live here or to their archive show here. The programme goes out in Minneapolis + St. Paul on a Wednesday from 2 to 6am and that translates from 8 to noon here in the UK. It’s a wonderful show and one to listen to live if you’re an early starter. Tune in for some serious good tunes from the reggae spectrum and associated genres. We also thank our good mate Will J for originally informing us about the show many many years ago.

A big thanks goes out to Dr Strangedub for playing at 18.13 minutes in on this week’s show here for an early mix of Madtone‘s “Replace the soundcard” (though “Replace the hard drive” is a good title too Dr Strangedub!) amongst some great tunes over the four hours including this one from Dry & Heavy and that one from The Frightnrs. There’s also some tunes which were left over from last week’s Dread Western show here as well. A show to tune into. Big ta to our mates from across the pond!

Something very special from far far away

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A big shout to Jesse Yuen (of RTMFM’s North of The River Swan) for letting us know that he’s moved into a new house in Perth and that in the garden they have a wonderful looking Foxtail Agave (above) that’s actually flowering! As Jesse said “Flowers are rare for the plant and each one only flowers once in their life, after 10-15 years.” and he also said “It’s like ours is welcoming us to the new house.” We agree with you there! What a great housewarming present.

Jesse also said “All over Perth you can see them flowering, and the members of local gardening Facebook groups are speculating that because we had a really dry, long summer, they are in shock which has bought on a mass flowering season.”

He was saying the bees are going bonkers for the flowers and told us “Apparently once it finishes flowering the big head dies off and these smaller “pups” take over” (above and below).

Absolutely wonderful stuff Jesse and best of luck to you and the family for the new house and hope everything goes well with the move and getting settled in! More on the wonderful plant here.

I don’t want to be the prisoner

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A few weeks ago at 7.30 am on a Sunday morning we were strolling around Brockwell Park in the parish of Herne Hill with extreme toothache (don’t ask). It was a lovely sunny morning at the height of festival season and the council workers were out in force on an overtime spree collecting litter (Sunday morning working is double time aka “Double Bubble”). A mini-moke passed us with a balloon tied to the back of the cab and Patrick McGoohan and The Village immediately came to mind.

On catching up with said vehicle when one of the operatives was taking a leak in the bushes we excitedly said to the driver “We love your truck with the large balloon attached to it. Please tell us you have watched The Prisoner.” Sadly he didn’t know what we were talking about but it did make us smile and made us forget about the toothache for a while.

Pic above: The Prisoner mini-moke with Rover on a beach which looks very much like Camber Sands. The same place where reputedly Public Image Limited ended up on a “Punk Jolly” when they should have been at Birminghams ATV studio’s for their debut appearance on Mickie Most’s Revolver show.

And it’s summer solstice next week you say?

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How changeable has this weather been this weekend? It was tipping it down and windy as hell on Saturday and this afternoon we had clouds in the morning and then a nice bit of sunshine in the afternoon. This mad weather is going to send the garden crazy.

The picture above is on the side bed of some pots on a home-made old coat hanger type thing found in the street a few years ago. We’ve been trying to grow runner beans and sweet peas up it with no success over the years so attached a couple of pots near the top to see what happens. We’ve got cut and come again lettuces in one and poppies in the other in an attempt to stop the slugs from getting at them. What do you reckon, will it work? We very much doubt it.

And we’re trying to disguise the 1980’s crazy paving slab surrrounded pond with some pots and in between the broken paving stones we’ve put in some soil and going to sow california poppies and the like. Anything to disguise those crazy paving we lifted from the top of the garden to make way for some grass. How’s the weather been like around your way this weekend? As bad as ours?

Tune of the night

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As we were looking for some tunes for a shortwave mix the other night we came across this track. It’s from a few years ago and one we hadn’t heard of before. It’s by Chancha via Circuito called La Victoria featuring Lido Pimienta & Manu Ranks and it’s a winner! It’s from the LP Bienaventuranza.

And as one of the comments on the Bandcamp says “I don’t think there is a better album cover. Frame worthy, and the music matches its brilliance!” Excellent stuff!

News on this week’s Imaginary Stations broadcasts here.

A message from the south of France

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A big thanks to Debby H who is out in the south of France at the moment enjoying some nice weather of around 28 degrees and there’s only been the odd day of rain since May. Picture above is the front garden with mainly self seeded/volunteer plants in the bed which looks great especially with the rocks/stones around it.
The other night she had a visit from some wild boar and as she said “They are complete vandals. They trampled down the vine (pic above), destroying a dozen bunches of tiny grapes that were just beginning to grow in the back garden. The poor thing is now a shadow of its former glory”
“They also destroyed one of the bird feeders, which was about 5 foot off the ground in a bush.” Here’s a pic of some lavender in the garden after being trampled by the boar. And we thought we had it bad in Forest Hill with the parakeets, the Ladywell heron and the foxes!
“What is good though is that the front garden is unharmed including the little lilac tree that is only about a foot tall, after about 5 years of growing (above). The soil here is like concrete and most plants die. Anything that self seeds, I allow to stay and it’s those that usually flourish.”

What is strange though is her oleander (above) is the only one in the whole region that isn’t flowering! We hope it’s a bit of a late starter and it surpises you Debby.

And Debby took some pictures of the other oleanders in her neighbourhood below.
Thanks again Debby for the great pictures and we’re always up for seeing other people’s gardens and around their locality.

Words in papers, words in books

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Big thanks to Gerry Hectic our man from the south coast for sending us his “Wise words or not” mix. It’s a great one as ever with lots of tunes that we’ve never heard before (Yvonne Baker being one of them, what a great track) and a mix to investigate. Here’s the tracks:
Moritz von Oswald Trio – Chapter One
Mike Leander And His Orchestra – The Letter
The Harvey Averne Dozen – The Word
Yvonne Baker – Didn’t Say A Word
The G.G. All Stars – (Same Folks) Dub Wise
Felipe Gordon – No Words (Byron the Aquarius Dub Mix)

Gerry’s mix was inspired by WORD on Imaginary Stations on Sunday which is now up online on the Imaginary Stations Mixcloud below. The show featured books, (Radio Phonic) laboratories, dictionary rock, abbreviations and ampersands and lots more from DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore.

The first track on the show from The Real Tuesday Weld called Last Words is how you use shortwave samples in a tune!

At 21.13 mins in there’s a mix from One Deck Pete called “A Word to the Wise” and the tracks are:
The Conet Project – Phonetic Alphabet NATO (excerpt)
The Medallions – The Letter
Giorgio (Moroder) – Stop
Capital Letters – Smoking My Ganja
Jourbert Singers – Stand on the word
The Conet Project – Phonetic Alphabet NATO (excerpt)

Cheers again to Gerry for sending us his mix and here’s more WORD related tunes.

International vibes yet again

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This Sunday 19th May 2024 at 0900/1300 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then at 2000 UTC on 6160 kHz and 3975 kHz Imaginary Stations bring you Skybird Radio International which will be beamed to Europe via Shortwave Gold.

SRI is a worldwide affair as you can imagine with tunes from around this globe of ours from DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore. There’s also a mix from One Deck Pete which will include tracks by Marlena Shaw, Manjeet Kondal, Tubotito & Rags, Adrian Sherwood and Esher Suarez.

Gerry Hectic (also a contributor to our Countryfile style calendar 2025) has produced an answer version to the One Deck Pete mix and here it is in its glory and what a mix it is. Thank you Gerry, it’s appreciated.

Gerry Hectic presents “A May themed answer” mix
One Deck Pete & Popular – Enrico (Hay-eer-yah’s Continual Harmonica Cut) BCR
Loretta Heywood – Satta Massagana (The 6/* Blues Mix) – Tangential Music
Marlena Shaw – Love Has Gone Away (Disco Version) – Blue Note 12”
Sababa 5 – Bezani – Batov Records
Natasha Kitty Katt ft. His Bitter Truth – Galactic Love – F*CLR Music

More lovable spikey tops

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If you remember recently, we had a post about cacti after our friend in Ukraine, Wlad (US7IGN) sent us some pictures of his cacti here. A big thanks to Debby H for passing on some great pictures from her friends in Arizona of some super examples of cacti out there.

The pictures she passed on include a couple from the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum near to Tucson which looks such a great place. See more about their cacti garden and the many interesting plants they have here and here.

Thanks again to Debby H for passing on the pictures and we’ll post up another couple later this week. All we can say cacti are great!