Big shout to Steve Barker for playing this tune above on On The Wire a long while ago, it’s by Andy’s All-Stars and it’s called Banjo Serenade, the B side to I Roy‘s Step Right Up. That record may be the only instance of said instrument used in reggae unless you know any more examples. Don’t Banjos sound great when dubbed up!
Oh dear looks like we may have opened that banjo can of beans as these can be sort of deemed dubwise. Know of any others?
Just researching a forthcoming shortwave mix and we’ve just found this great tune from a long time ago from Groove Corporation called Worst Dressed Chicken which is very nice and one to play loads when it’s sunny. A very clever title by the way.
Here’s a quick update to the last but one post featuring Jesse Yuen‘s parents garden in Perth, Western Australia. Cheers to Jesse for sending us an update of what he’s listening to on the Hi-Fi at the moment.
This mix from Aussie producer Cousin is a great eclectic mix up:
Also Paul St. Hilaire’s – Tikiman Vol.1 is on heavy rotation
And this local reissue of 90s dub/downtempo tunes is also getting frequent spins. This is some nice stuff by the way!
Cheers Jesse for sending us some nice recommendations that we’re going to explore further.
We just found this recent show out of the blue (no pun intended), it’s Ross Allen doing one of his foundation music specials on his Meltdown show on NTS. This time it features the great photographer, PIL logo/Metal Box designer, Urban Shakedown/Basement 5 founder and many other things Dennis Morris. It’s not just an interesting listen, it’s a must listen!
We were reminded that in one of Dennis Morris’s books there’s a great picture of the Sex Pistols on an old-school coach (nothing as grand as having a loo or those tables with fancy lamps on it that football teams used to travel on cup final days in the 1970’s) on the M6 travelling away from Coventry the morning after their gig at Mr George’s in December 1977. It was a completely different world then, it’s all double decker coaches now and they have loos and even sarnies and tea and coffee on offer now!
Whilst the radio show was playing and remembering that photograph a tale came to mind and apologies if we’ve mentioned it before. It was a story we heard in 1978 from a chap we went to college with whose older brother was a car mechanic. This bloke did talk a lot of rot and this story beats the lot. He told us just before Christmas 1977 his brother got a call at his garage in Coventry to go to the motorway to fix a coach which had broken down. When he got there he saw it was a band on tour and was told it was the Sex Pistols. What was really odd though after a while he saw that all of the band (and their staff) were all dressed in suits and flared trousers and all of the punk image was a big act just for publicity (so he told us). Probably one of the best punk stories we may have ever heard. How the band kept that fact hushed up for all these years we will never know. You heard it here first.
Going back to reality and the radio show, the first tune Black Skin Blue Eye Boys from The Equals featuring Eddy Grant (Dennis mentions a couple of great Eddy Grant stories by the way) that starts the proceedings took us back in time to an excellent reggae 12″ influenced by that great tune (below the original).
Talking of RTM FM, a big shout to Jesse Yuen of the excellent North of the River Swan radio show (which is on a break for the time being) for sending us this morning some excelllent pictures of his parents garden in Bassendean, Perth, Western Australia where he is at the moment. It’s a brilliant space and has some out there plants we could only dream about having here!
It looks a wonderful space and a lovely place for chilling out in! He’s sent us some close ups of flowers from the yard too. Great stuff!
And here’s the last North of The River Swan (until later this year hopefully) as Jesse (as it says on the mixcloud) “is taking some time off to recalibrate the compass and recharge the radio batteries”. Take it easy and we look forward to your return to the radio and to your shortwave debut. Cheer for the gardening pics, do send us more.
Here’s Sunday night’s WRMI Imaginary Station’s WEST show which features tunes of a West nature. At 2.40 minutes in is One Deck Pete’s “We’re going up West” mix. Here’s the tracklistings:
Phil Western – 5 6 7 8
Quantic (Ft Louis Towers) – Westbound Train
Ennio Morricone – Sixty Seconds to What
Western Standard Time Ska Orchestra – Tunnel Vision Dub
The Flaming Ember – Westbound #9
Go west and enjoy!
Cheers to our good mate Gerry Hectic for sending this deeply dubby recommendation (above). It’s from Aspartate and it’s called Apart (Version). All we know about it is produced by someone called Mark Bailey and it’s on the D.Construction label out of Germany and their Bandcamp is here.
And talking of chilled out dub, here’s another lovely example. It’s by Dub Addiction and it’s called Ecological Dub (Calm Down Remix). It will be featured on a lounging mix on the shortwaves very very soon.
Big shout to our very good friend The Rhythm Doctor (of The Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on IDA Radio – Tallinn on a Monday morning here) for telling us about this excellent collection on Bandcamp from Don Cavalli.
It’s called Don Cavalli chants down babylon and what an EP it is! There’s 4 top tracks including this above, his interpretation of The Wailers Fire Fire AKA Bunny Wailer’s Love Fire. We implore you to listen to this EP and make a purchase.
Tune in to Imaginary Stations this Sunday 26th March 2023 at 2200 UTC on WRMI on 9395 kHz for KZOO a show which is all about kazoo’s, kids piano’s, güiro, washboards and all sorts of home-made instruments which weren’t encouraged by the music teacher. Tune in and enjoy!
Big shout to our good mate Shane Quentin for this excellent mix for his Skylarking show on Tak Tent Radio. Some excellent tunes here!
And here’s the tracks:
Vernon Allen : Far I Come
The Viceroys : Sugar Spice
Ernest Ranglin Selected Group : Free Form
Black Velvet : Safari
The Skatalites : Collie Bud
Azie Lawrence : Pempelem
Raymond Harper : Autumn Leaves
Arena : Knot Up Head
Invaders : You Touch My Soul
Don Drummond & The Skatalites : Smiling
Tomorrow’s Children : Bang Bang Rock Steady
Al Senior Pone & Hippy Boys : Hold My Hand
The Termites : I Made a Mistake
Bonnie Gayle : I Can’t Change My Skin
Grey Brothers : Big Man
Jackie Mittoo & The Soul Vendors : Midnight Hour
Prince Buster : High Blood Pressure
Amiel Moodie : Ratchet Knife
Johnny & The Attractions : Call Of The Drums
The Kingstonians : Mother Miserable
Delroy Wilson : I Shall Not Remove
Henry III : I’ll Reach The End
Horace Andy : Goodnight My Love
Weeds up to me knees 