Category Archives: what will be will be

Calling the world, calling the world

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Here’s last night’s broadcast of Skybird Radio International which was beamed to Europe thanks to Shortwave Gold on 6160/3975 kHz at 9pm UK time.

There’s an hour of a mix up of music from around this globe of ours including a mix at 23.36 from One Deck Pete. Here’s the tracks which was played on the said mix:
Madtone – Diamonds in the sky (excerpt)
Unknown – Berceuse (off John Peel’s Archive Things LP)
Minyo Crusaders – Cumbia del Monte Fuji
Cyril Diaz & his orchestra – Taboo
Brno Radio Folk Orchestra – Cymbalom Dance (off John Peel’s Archive Things LP)
Sam Carty – Bird in hand

Enjoy!

It’s those little things

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Even though this growing year is far from over, every year is one of learning for us in the Weeds garden. Even if it’s the old “We won’t be growing that blimmin’ thing again” after a particulary bad crop, we’re always learning. We’ve been loving our trips to Lldl for the peat-free compost and the cheap seeds of theirs and learnt that peat-free compost needs a little helping hand with nutrients but it isn’t that bad for £1.99 and you can transport the bags easily on the bus.

This year we tried spuds in pots and bags which worked, even if they were small on the actual harvest, the chillies in pots are doing just fine (above) and the giant garlic turned out great too. We don’t usually have much sucess with garlic to be honest but we’re happy of the normal to larger garlic (instead of giant) which is now hanging up in the loft to cure (pictures to come). Most of them didn’t divide into seperate cloves so something else was learnt this week: “Garlic needs 30 nights at less than 10C over the winter for the cloves to develop properly. If this doesn’t happen, then you do just get one fat onion-like bulb” Alys Fowler mentioned that here.

And after trying a good few times it’s only this year that we are actually getting some oregano growing in pots. We imagine it’s not that hard to grow it’s just that we haven’t had much luck in the past and the time we went to Shannon’s to buy a plant they didn’t have any so we bought the marjoram instead. We’re well chuffed with the two straggly plants we grew from seed, it’s good being easily pleased.

COOL down the pace

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Last weekend’s transmission of Imaginary Stations (the show that features music you probably won’t hear elsewhere on shortwave) is now up on Mixcloud. This episode is the station COOL “Cool tunes for Summer moods” featuring some music that evokes sunshine even though London last weekend wasn’t experiencing much of that.

23 minutes into the broadcast in is a mix from One Deck Pete called a “Seven Inch Single Summer Special” featuring
Earl Brown – Get Together
Stereolab – Miss Modular
Freda Payne – Unhooked Generation
Anthony Johnson – Zuggi Zeng Version/Roots Radics Dedication To Flabba Holt 2 Martel Robinson – Follow you

So get out in the garden, perch yourself on a deckchair, stick some headphones on and blast the show for maximum pleasure. “Summertime and the living is easy” as Our ‘enry once sang.

JNHK3 this Sunday

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This Sunday 21st May 2023 at 2200 UTC on 9395 kHz on shortwave the Imaginary Stations crew will be bringing you JNHK 3 via the services of WRMI. This is the third in the Japanese influenced transmissions and will feature tunes and mixes from DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore. There will also be mix from One Deck Pete called Big in Japan 2 featuring tunes from Casino Versus Japan, Gore, Solid Bronze and this corker fromTwo Lone Swordsmen. Tune in and turn on as they say…

Also a big shout to Takuji Sahara a long time listener of Imaginary Stations from Tokyo  for his contribition to last week’s JNHK 2 show. If you like recordings of radio in Japan you’ll love the show below:

We’re pushing the (seed) envelope again

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The shoots are coming through from one of the chitted seed spuds we planted in a big pot in a Monty Don style. We’ll stick an old jam jar on the top as soon as we’ve covered it with some more soil as you never know it’s still frost season and it has been cold in the mornings here.

Talk about being keen, we’ve even stuck a tomato plant outside (talk about a gardening sin of sins) after a quick harden off (keeping it outside during the day and bringing it back in at night) over the last few days so it could get used to the weather outdoors rather than the warmth of the kitchen windowsill.

We covered it with a small plastic cloche that we found in the street years ago and then covered that with another larger plastic cloche. We’ve been influenced by the great Bob Flowerdew there as we reckon that’s the sort of thing he may do. Looks a bit mad but why not as they say. It may be too much for the poor plant but we’ll take either one or all of the protection off when we get a warm day. It’s all about giving it a go and getting one step ahead.

There is a land far far away (musical update)

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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.

Punk rock? That’s shallot

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As it was a glorious day yesterday we spent much of it tinkering about in the garden (above). Notice the hessian shopping bags (mid-centre left) hanging on the found-in-the-street tree-like coat stand. Those bags will be filled with Lidl’s best peat-free compost and contain potato plants in a few weeks time. Dada gardening at its best.

The shallots we put in a couple of weeks ago “under glass” (which is just an old window frame found in the street balanced on some house bricks) are off to a flying start. We’ve tried growing shallots before but they rotted even before they got this far so we must be doing something right this time.

We tided up the side bed by the Dad corner (below) and replanted a couple of penstemons we bought off QVC a year and a bit ago and also made some sort of bug hotel (there isn’t a roof on it so is that more of a bug campsite then?) Those giant garlic bulbs are now coming on a treat as well.

Also we cleared a little area by the pond (below) and added a mini veg bed. We stuck some large wire mesh (originally some shelves from our old mini-plastic green houses) over the top of it to deter the cats, putting in a line of old house bricks in helps visually section the area off too. It gets a bit of shade so we’re thinking the lettuce seeds we put should be okay as in full sun they tend to go to seed. Let’s see.

Hopefully we’ve another couple of days worth of gardening to do over Easter if this lovely weather holds out. Have a good Bank Holiday weekend!

Listening to last week’s On The Wire which has a deep dubby bias while we write this post. Well worth listening to as per. Big shout to Steve, Fenny and Jim.

This Easter go West

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This Easter Sunday 9th April Imaginary Stations will be going in a Westerly direction at 2200 UTC on 9395 kHz via WRMI. In one word they’ll be going WEST, there’ll be some Westbound trains, themes from Westerns and even some spoken word from Adam West. So get your compass out, tune in your shortwave radio and enjoy everything Westward Ho! from 2200 UTC on Easter Sunday.

At 2.42 into the show One Deck Pete will be presenting a 15 minute mini-mix called in true Pete “Alright treacle?” Beale style “We’re going up West”. Tune in for an Easter Western treat!

International Herb

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Suprise Chefs – Rosemary Hemphill – Big Crown Records

Thanks again to The Rhythm Doctor for pointing us in the right direction of another great tune, this time within a week of the last one! The Suprise Chefs bring us some bright vibes with a great track called Rosemary Hemphill which he played on his show (below) on IDA Radio (Tallinn) last Monday at 50 minutes in.

While the track was playing he decided to google Rosemary Hemphill and to his suprise what he found was another music/gardening connection (and as you know there’s a fair few of them about!)

Turns out Rosemary Hemphill is an “Australian writer of cooking and gardening books, who has long been recognised as one of Australia’s leading herb and spice experts.” She was born at “sunrise” on “April Fool’s Day” in 1922, in Broome, western Australia and in her childhood spent some time at her grandparents in Bromley, UK who had a big herb garden which was a big influence on her. More on the great lady here. She’ll be 101 tomorrow. Happy Birthday!

The big question is are the Suprise Chefs keen gardeners then?

Tune of a Thursday lunchtime

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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.