Category Archives: Wildlife

The Bedworth musical connection

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The other week we had a bit of nostalgia for second-hand shops that smelt of damp and mould (Post here). Recently whilst going through records for a shortwave mix we found an ace LP called “Step Forward Youth” featuring Prince Jazzbo, I-Roy and The Aggrovators with a stamp from one of the shops we visited that day.

 

We checked on google to see what the shop is now and of course we weren’t expecting it to be Westminsters New and Used Furniture as we’re talking 1978/79. It was worth tapping it in though as what a nice suprise we had to see it now as Keith Richard’s Hairdressing. Great stuff, we love it!

Life is one big circle innit?

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And they’re off! It’s taken nearly three weeks for the Chillies to germinate in the propagator with the lid and the Lemon Drop (aka Lemon-flavoured Aji from Peru) are the first to show their faces. We’re now waiting for the Pretty in Purple and Albertus Rotoco to get going now. We started them early and know some chillies are hard to germinate due to some of the seed being dormant so even at this early stage we are chuffed.

And the Tomatoes which were started in an uncovered tray are slowly starting to grow. These above are the (first vertical row) San Marzano (second row) Florentino which we are sure we obtained from a Glengall Wharf Gardens SE15 seed swap from two or three years back and (third row) a Cherry Tomato called Cerise from those 6 in 1 vegetable pack from Ebay. Springtime we’re waiting for you to spring!

A nice dub for a once frosty Saturday

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What was funny, yesterday we were considering giving the lawn a cut after work as the weather was sunny and bright in the morning. Come 5pm the heavens opened, there was a flash hailstorm and then overnight there was a frost. The weather eh?

To take your mind off the cold here’s a nice dub from Mikey Dub which is the B side of the also great “Causeless shall not come” by Don Hartley. Cheers to Thomas at Explorations in dub for sending us this.

A ten inch mix for a Tuesday night

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Here’s A Ten Inch Mix from One Deck Pete which was recorded especially for the Imaginary Stations show WS10S, a celebration of the Ten inch single that was broadcast last December. Here’s the tracklistings:

Jasmine Ntoutoume & Madtone – What is man? – Blossoms Kitchen 10” Dubplate
Zap Pow – Broken Contract – Inbidimts/Trojan Records 10”
Ellis Island Sound – Republica Evescarra (played at 45rpm) – All City 10”
Les Kidnappeurs (Main Theme) (Revisited By Jackson) – Barclay 10”
Nicola Conte – Jazz Pour Dadine (The Dining Rooms Remix) – Schema 10”

Enjoy!

Off the map, off the radio

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Cheers to DJ Frederick for letting us know about this great quaility half an hour recording of last week’s imaginary stations show WDWD – Off The Map Radio broadcast by Shortwave Gold. It was recorded in Belarus by Aleksandr Myadel (cheers Aleksandr for putting it up on youtube).

At 13 minutes in there’s One Deck Pete‘s “I’ll take the high road too” mix and here’s the tracklistings:
Stereognosis – Farewell
Outward Bound – First Cue
Tetsuo – Not taking the bus
Hidden Orchestra – East London Street
Tubby Isiah – Lost dub

If you want to hear more of the show, ten of the latest Imaginary Stations episodes are up online here at our Mixcloud. The show is also looking for some financial help to cover the production and transmission costs so we can continue to transmit on shortwave, more on that here:

Nostalgia for dirty beer crates and rusty washing machines

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Here’s a couple of tunes for a Friday evening. First an Augustus Pablo classic called Melody Dub which is a B side to the tune Unfinished Melody. It’s a stripped down bass and drum instrumental with a crisp high end, whisps of double-tracked melodica floating back and forth into the mix interspersed with short piano and keyboard parts. Definitely a less is more tune.

And another example of said style is the B side Roman Stewart’s I was lonely called One Heavy Duba for obvious reasons. As far as we can remember, the (slightly pressed off-centre and very scratched) copy we own was bought on a second-hand shop crawl of Nuneaton in the late 1970’s. Distance memories of boxes of scratched seven inchers nestled in dirty beer crates between rusting fridges and old washing machines with the smell of mould and damp coming from them, ahh the good old days that we’ll never see again etc…

A seed swap with a few biscuits

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We’ve just found out about the Incredible Edible Lambeth Seed Swap of 2024 which takes place on Saturday 24th February 2024 at the Garden Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7LB from 1pm-3pm. Looks good! More details here.

Our favourite part of the flyer was “Tea /coffee and a few biscuits will be on offer.” Only a few biscuits? Has that line been put in to put off the free biscuit freeloaders? It looks like a brilliant event no matter how many biscuits available!

Sowing is sweet during lunchtimes

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As we’re working from home we do have a bit of an advantage that we can do a litle bit of gardening at lunchtime during good weather. Today as it was on the warmer side we decided to sow a few more seeds. The kitchen window has become a little crowded so we utilised some spare space in the raised beds under plastic out in the back.

The second covered raised bed is starting to fill up too. The celery cut from the base is starting to grow, those volunteer giant garlic bulbs are doing well and we have some parsnips in the middle so we decided to put some pots of sweet peas either side. Hope they like the heat under the plastic as we haven’t had decent sweet peas for a few years now. The below pic is going back a few years but it is inspiring us to have some sweet peas back in the garden again.

Music like us

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Yesterday our good radio friend in Cincinnati, Justin Patrick Moore tipped us off that Vicki Bennett from People like us was doing a show on WFMU. It’s now available via listen again here (The show named “February 14th, 2024: This Is Bardcore, This Is Barcode, This is the Pooless Flute”).

As you can imagine there were some crazy records played, bizzare mash ups and some “odd sausages” (as an old workmate used to say). Here’s two tunes that we’ve never heard before that caught our attention. The first is Polo & Pan with Nana (above) and it’s a bit of left-field pop on the catchy, happy tip. And we’ve just found out it’s sampled off this tune below from Os Tincoãs another band we have had to research. And an interesting band they were.

The second is Keezo Kane with Ga Ga Ga (James Brown Steppers Mix) which is great stuff. If you’re a lover of some real musical madness do check the show out. Cheers Justin for letting us know about it.

It’s time to sow (or is it?)

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In-between the rain and sunshine yesterday, we got out into the garden and sowed some seed in the raised bed at the side with some transparent plastic tacked over the top so to create a cheap mini greenhouse. Those pallet box collars we were given a few years ago have had a good life, the polythene on the top don’t last sadly and needs replacing every year but they do work. In these “poor people’s greenhouses” we sowed some beetroot, the Lldl lettuces we purchased last year and some parsnips. Parnsips are funny anyway and need fresh seed but these seeds were bought last week so touchwood should be okay if the soil gets warm enough in there. Fingers crossed we will get some germination out there.

And speaking of germination we have had some success on the kitchen window with two  cherry tomatoes showing their tiny seed leaves. Great stuff, all we need is the rest of the windowsill seeds to kick off now.