Category Archives: Reggae

Can we have a bit of freedom (blues) please?

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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:

Limited copies come with an extra “via the ionosphere” mix

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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.

Starting them early my friend

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It’s still only January but we’ve started some seeds already. Last year everything seemed to go wrong with the seed sowing as they germinated and then just stalled for a good few weeks and then died. We have no idea what it was, was it to do with the cheap compost we got at a supermarket? Was it those damn aphids who feasted on the basil plants on the kitchen windowsill later in the season? Was it some sort of delayed damping off?

 

Who knows but we weren’t best pleased as the batch contained some rare chilli and some choice tomato varieties. We ended up buying some chilli plants and a nice bushy tomato plant from B&Q in the end which all done well but it’s not the same.

We’ve now wiped the slate clean and put the memory of last year’s failings out of the way and started afresh with some proper seed and cutting compost in pots in a heated propagator we received as a present a few year ago (cheers Maz and Marc!)

Seeds sown this week: mint, dill, basil, chives, parsley, san marzano tomato, cerise tomato, chilli habanero, chilli Jalapino (the last 3 out of packs that say sow by 12.2023) and some seeds we dried off our chilli apache plant last year. We also sowed some catmint even though we were warned years ago that “you’ll have every cat in the neighbourhood in your back garden”.

In a few weeks every windowsill will be full with pots on saucers, jam jars and plastic freezer bags on top of plant pots as cheap alternative to greenhouses.

 

Anyone know any good tips for stopping those aphids? Someone the other week mentioned neem oil and we’ve just looked online and may try it. Anyone ever used it? Any tips to one deck pete at Gee mail dot com please.

Even council gardeners love a bit of ambient

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Here’s a long and lovely track from Irrelevant called Touches. This is the Ambient Council Worker Mix from Gordon Strange. Excellent stuff, glad to see that council employees get a namecheck! Are there any tunes specifically about council gardeners you reckon?

And we think it’s cold in London!

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Cheers to Rich R for sending us these great pictures from quite a cold Lake District at the moment. It may be cold but wonderful views though, cheers Rich! Do keep warm up there.
Thanks to Rich sending us this great record too Fish, Goat and Sufferah with Warm the Nation. Great stuff.

Professional frost protection. You reckon?

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We woke up this morning and it’s way below freezing (-3 C at the moment) and the forecasters are telling us it will be like this for the next few days, so it don’t look like there’ll be much gardening done this weekend. Yesterday we did pop out and put some protection over the camelia that has loads of flower buds on it (above). This great bit of fabric doesn’t cover all of the plant and there isn’t any space between the cloth and the shrub where air can circulate but it’s the best we could get our hands on at the time. It will keep all the cats from the neighbourhood away thinking it’s a levitating ghost and may suggest to the neighbours that we’ve finally lost it but the big question is, will it keep the cold weather out?

While out there we saw this (below) in the wild bit at the bottom of the garden that made us smile. It’s some fungi growing beside our “economy” wild pond. This could be another picture for our Alternative to the BBC Countryfile Calendar that we will put into production one day. The wild pond is an old dutch pot that has one handle missing which we sunk into the ground, filled up with rainwater and the odd thinning from plants from the garden pond are popped in there every now and again.  We salute any wildlife that enjoys our “budget-friendly” pond.

And here’s a note from our sponsors (Aldi, Lldl and Argos of course!): Please keep warm this weekend!

 

 

Turn up the heat

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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.

Oh to be by the sea!

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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.

More santa business

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And to continue the festive themed soundtrack here’s a clever little number by Bodyswitch from the Stocking Stuffers EP a nice dubbed up version of Carla Thomas’ Gee Whiz, it’s Christmas.

 

And a lovely dub from from R. Santa on Nou Art Records out of Barcelona called “Time Dub”

 

Has Gavin &  Stacey finished yet? And is it really the last one?

Reggae is outernational

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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!