Category Archives: Tunes to cheer you up

A mad one for a Sunday

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An absolutely bonkers tune heard on this week’s On The Wire here originally from 2007 by Paul Rooney called Lucy from Lanchashire.

Fenny who played said tune, mentioned that Lucy is a spryte that was found in a pair of puma pumps that were hanging on a telegraph wire over a bus stop on the A666 also know as the Manchester Road, Bolton Road, or Blackburn Road.

Well worth listening to all 16 minutes of it. More on the release here and more on Paul Rooney here. We are ashamed that we never knew about this tune the first time around.

“The stories outline the role of dub music in thwarting a Satanic prophecy of world domination originating in the witches cauldrons of Lancashire, and involve the many correspondences between Lancashire and the Satanic: the Pendle witches, the A666 motorway, The Fall’s occult interests, and many more.”

Lucy Over Lancashire

The new wave of continuous wave

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This great track above was heard on this week’s Echo Chamber on KFAI (here) which is as you know, a great show from our Dub Gardening friend Dr Strangedub and DJ baby Swiss.

The track is from Jah Wobble and Youth called “Inspector out of Space” and it’s the Youth Inner Space Dub. There’s some morse featured a few times throughout the tune. Any CW people out there that can can decode it for us?

Talking of Samuel Morse:

 

 

 

Suggs went to Herne Bay Pier once (and it was news)

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Here’s a very chilled 6.04 minutes by High Skies called The Shipping Forecast off an LP called Fluidities by Jonathan Hughes with guests. An excellent ambient track with a nautical theme.

And talking about nautical themes, here’s a photograph of the sea from Herne Bay taken yesterday evening. Zoom in with a magnifying glass and you’ll see from left to right, a very tiny Red Sands Sea Fort, a container ship passing through the wind farm and next to that an even smaller Shivering Sands Sea Fort.

If you remember, Red Sands Sea Fort was where the classic Dangerman Not So Jolly Roger episode was filmed in 1996. Pictures from the show above and below, and the whole episode is up online here. The picture below features the very large (250 ft) Medium Wave antenna of Radio 390 that was still in operation on the fort.

And here’s a version of a important tune that featured in the show. For more on the actual tunes played on the show, have a look here.

Commuter stress in a Lake District style

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Cheers to Rich in the Lake District for sending us this the other day and wrote “This got me pondering the problems people encounter when trying to get to work on time.” He added “You get used to that sort of congestion up here. We even knew the shepherds!“ Brilliant Rich, we love the photograph!

Tell me why, tell me why, tell me why?

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Here’s a book we discovered again in the Weeds gardening bookcase (above). It’s a wonderful book, interviewing gardeners and asking them that one big question “Why do you garden?” All sorts of mad stuff in here from a man who mows grass for the council to commercial rhubarb growers in Yorkshire who grow it under candlelight (below).

We’re asking you the same question. “Why do you garden?” Answers on a postcard or to one deck pete (at) gee male dot com.

Tuesday night tune (before the bins go out)

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We’ve just found this excellent new tune on Bluesky from Cornershop Ft Bubbley Kaur called “Bounce & Salute” and what a great tune it is, with an great video featuring some Trojan singles being pressed and some sort of worker celebration. Wonderful stuff!

Returning to the north

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Great to hear from Debby H in north London yesterday, she’s just back from a break away and sent us pictures from her back garden. She said what with the heatwave “Thanks to our indoor and outdoor watering systems, our plants seem mostly ok” and that’s good to hear! Sadly, “The cosmos isn’t doing so well yet, but there’s still hope for later this summer. It’s the same with ours too, none of the seeds took or if they did, the slugs took them right in front of our noses. Her Zephyranthes Robusta are having another flush of flowers (above). More on the vibrant Argentine rain lily here.

“The big daisies seem very happy” (above) in the tidy bed above. They do seem healthy and so does the lawn, not like ours at Weeds HQ!

The phomium tenax flowers are now mostly turning into seed (above).

And finally, “The dwarf sunflowers are now in full bloom” and look how great they look! Cheers Debby for sending us the updates and do send us more!

Enjoying the heat with that wonky leg?

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We have a bit of a minor leg injury due to carrying heavy stuff about a week Sunday, so we took it very easy in the garden yesterday. After a very light “tip around with a pair of secateurs” we tuned into WAVE from Imaginary Stations on the ATS – 20+ shortwave radio we bought earlier this year. It’s a cheap and cheerful radio and it has some faults but overall, it isn’t bad for the cheap price.

We heard the great mix from our mate Kit G5KIT in Bristol live on air and quoting him a few days ago “I don’t know what it is, but both Dub and Eastern European music both seem to really suit short wave propagation, they just sound …right.” He’s so correct there! Tune in to the studio recording below and Kit’s mix is at 30 minutes in.

Here’s the track listings:
Deep Reggae Sound System – Midnight Dub Waves
Pat Flashman – Summer Dub
The Heptones – Sea of Dub
Groovy Waters – Rock the Casbah

And here’s a few from the Weeds garden including a very small baby sun rose we were given by a friend from work on Friday which was feeling sorry for itself when we put it in the Belfast sink later that evening but on Sunday we even had a flower!

The teasel is attracting all sorts of bugs and pollinators (above) and the cardoon (below) which we bought many years ago at Shannon’s (RIP) survived a blackfly attack after we sprayed some very diluted washing liquid water on it.

And the Globe Thistle is doing well too! Happy gardening everyone.

Barry Norman’s Film of the Week

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Here’s an excellent film from many years ago well worth watching. It features some historical stuff, Noel Dyer who hitch hiked from Peckham to Ethiopia, The Reverend Hillman, a chap with some great headwear at 39.30 in and some excellent tunes.

The first is one from the great Wilmoth Houdini (one of his well known tunes “Black but Sweet” here as sampled by the Sabres of Paradise) called Ethiopian War Drums.

Then the great Mighty Terror with Emperor of Africa.

 

And a cracking Prince Buster tune called The Prince of Peace only ever heard played out once upstairs at The Betsey Trotwood at an On-U sound related event on a Friday night many moons ago featuring Pete Holdsworth who told us he obtained said record from a charity shop for a sum of less than a quid, years previously.

And finally the Ethopian reggae sound of Tilahun Gessesse. All great stuff off a great film!

Around the garden while watering

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It’s going to be silly hot today (around 32 degrees C), so we did a bit of watering this morning before it goes too mad. The first (above) is from our Marvel of Peru (AKA Four o’clock plant) that we grew from seed and the first flowers are just forming. It’s a bit of a different kind of plant as in the flowers usually open from 4pm attracting all sorts of moths and pollinators. Supposedly the flowers have a great smell too! More on that here.

A new arrival to the Weeds garden (above) that we saw when we went to the Chelsea flower show. It’s a Lychnis flos-cuculi “Petit Henri” and giving us some clusters of great small white flowers and it’s a perennial too! More here.

We’re even getting some progress on the tomatoes (above) at the moment. Nothing ripening yet and still small, but there is fruit!

And meanwhile down the pond our Echeveria is kicking out some great plastic looking flowers! We do love this gardening lark!

We’ve also been checking out an interesting Jamaican gardening blog called Hopey’s Garden. It’s an interesting read if you want to try different type of vegetables and stuff. The article above is very interesting and has some nice tips contained on there so do give it a look over.