Tomorrow never knows

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Thanks to @hincmariana for letting us know about the great free event tomorrow at The Garden Museum. We’ve left it a bit late but it’s an event worth going to if you like a seed swap like we do.

Incredible Edible Seed Swap
Sat 27 January 2017
1.00-3.00pm (no booking required).
The Garden Museum
5 Lambeth Palace Road
London SE1 7LB

And accompanying news of the seed swap here’s a couple of lovely tunes heard on this week’s Ross Allen Show on NTS which has been on rotation here at Weeds HQ. The first is by The Officials called Distant Drums on a very limited Soul Jazz/Studio 1 release.

The next is a previous unknown Four Tops track called Don’t bring back memories (we don’t think this was the actual mix Ross played but it is a tune!) Best of luck to all who are going to the seed swap tomorrow!

It’s that time of year again

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Happy New Year and a big shout to everyone who’s survived the festive period without a cold, the flu or a chest infection! Sadly we’ve been out the game for a couple of weeks due to illness but we’re back on track now. A date we’re looking forward to is Sunday 11th February when there’s a Seed Potato and Vegetable Seed Shop at Roots and Shoots, Walnut Tree Walk, London SE11 6DN. It runs from 11am until 2pm and looks like it’ll be a good morning out. More details here.

And for no reason at all apart from hearing it on BBC Radio 6 this evening, a odd sausage of a tune by Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot called Bonnie and Clyde from the grand old year of 1968. The big question is, is it a Cuíca or a human voice making the strange sound?

An alternative to Dad’s Army

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A few nice tunes as an alternative to the quality programming on telly this evening. The first “Surrealiste Skank” from Von D off the Wicked Scam EP on the great Dub Stuy label out the U.S. starts with Bunny “Striker” Lee put through some mad bandpass filter which gives the flavour of what’s to come on the track. It features what sounds like King Tubby’s famous “squawky” sound messed up to the max. A tough, tough tune to say the least!

And the next a nice catchy dubby sausage from The Maghreban off the Pots and Pans 12″ called Elka on Zoot Records. Funky, drummy and dubby! One for the xmas evening Turkey white bread sarnie crew.

And the final one, a DJ version from Trinity called The Book of Roots over a mighty dub of Delroy Wilson’s Have Some Mercy. May you all have a good Christmas night from here at Weeds and do remember, Val Doonican is on the telly at 10.15pm tonight. #wewon’tbewatchingdadsarmyheretonight

Tis the season (for sprouts)

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When it comes to growing brussels sprouts we never usually have much luck. Over the years there’s been many attempts with results ranging from the sprouts being “blown” to a horrible incident from a few years ago we’d like to forget about. A week before Christmas a fox rubbed his rear-end against the one of the only brussel sprout plant leaving a nasty brown deposit on the stalk. Even after the plant had a good hosing down and it was clean as a whistle, it scarred us psychologically (possibly for life) and no way could our sprouts be served at the Christmas dinner table. We had to procure another “leg” of them from the local supermarket even though we’d been growing them for the best part of a year. That don’t make sense does it?This year it has been better, there hasn’t been any incidents nor any sprouts blowing out. We grew a couple of plants from seed (they were tiny in April here) and even though one of the plants are at a 45 degree to the ground (picture above) there are a decent amount of sprouts on it (close up of it below). 

The other plant has kept straight and has a fair few sprouts on it so you can say we’ve had some sort of success this year!Talking of sprouts and all things festive we here at Weeds wish all our readers a Great Christmas and a Happy New Year! We probably posted this tune up before but what the heck, it’s a festive one! Big shout out to a long gone second-hand shop in Coventry called John’s in the late 1970’s for having this Coxsone Dodd white label blank in its record boxes (which were just beside the owner’s snarling German shepherd). So have a great festive season and may the Bailey’s/Tia Maria (and non-alcoholic cocktails for the non-drinkers out there) be with you!

https://soundcloud.com/weedsuptomeknees/jingle-bells-unknown

A Sunday night odd sausage

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It’s been another weekend of non-gardening as the weather’s been of the “something to be desired” variety but never mind, here’s a lovely tune from Monster Rally called Sunny Sloth that’ll make you smile! It’s off their new LP The Flowering Jungle released just last week. If you like nice exotic sunny type loops over lazy beats and catchy melodies that’ll stick in your mind, this set is for you. For further investigation have a look at their bandcamp page here. 

Those dahlias that have turned black due to frost damage that should’ve been pulled up over the weekend and dried off for winter storage will soon be forgotten about after listening to Monster Rally! #musicforgardenerswholovesunshine

A potato state of mind

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This is bit previous but some news has just come in of Roots and Shoots’ second Potato Day. We sadly missed last year’s one but will go to this if all goes well. Not sure if there’s a seed swap there too but they’ll be more info nearer the time at http://www.roots&shoots.org

Sunday 11th February 2018 11.00am-2.00pm
Roots & Shoots Potato Day
Walnut Tree Walk
Lambeth, London SE11 6DN
FREE ADMISSION

The potato show continues a couple of days later on the Tuesday and Wednesday 13th and 14th February 2018 at the RHS Spring Sale at RHS Lindley Hall, London but they’ll be a charge for that one. More on the national potato day network here if you don’t reside in London town and would like your seed spud fix. If you’re part of a potato day or you know about any seed swaps do let us know and we’ll get the info out there. #potatoday #seedswap

Never mind the angle grinders

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The builders next door have been at it since just after 8am this morning (and it’s a Saturday as well!) To drown them out this afternoon we’ve been listening to October’s edition of The Rhythm Doctor‘s Estonian Raadio 2 radio show loud (available here). The show includes a load of musical gems as per including this excellent tune from MAMA called Unmask Me remixed by one Ashley Beedle which is a winner. The version is nice too!

Don’t give ‘em to the council*

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*Sung to “Go tell it on the mountain”.This morning we braved the cold and did about an hour’s worth of work in the front which ain’t bad considering we haven’t done much gardening of late. It was mainly raking the fallen leaves which we put in the gardening refuse wheelie bin for Lewisham Council to dispose of. Then we had a brainwave, why let the council gain from the ingredients of some potential leaf mould when our garden could benefit from the stuff when it’s ready.

It’ll take a while and ideally we should have made a chicken wire cage for the leaves where the air and rain could get to them but we remembered we had a darlek type compost bin in the garage with no top going to waste so we made use of that. It’s not ideal but it’ll do and probably make a good home for an overwintering hedgehog or two if we’re lucky. More on the benefits of leaf mould and how to make it here.

And guess what turned up amongst the leaves in the front garden this morning, the Theatre of Hate stone (above). This natural punk oddity was originally found on the beach at Camber Sands a few years ago and has been resident by the garden pond in the back for a long while. How it “chicken danced” its way to the front garden I don’t know. Next time Kirk Brandon is doing one of his gigs we’ll present it to him, we’re sure he’d love that!

Tunes for the chilled in us

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Three picks on an easy tip. The first heard on this month’s episode of the Rhythm Doctor’s Estonian Raadio 2 show (available here and well worth listening to every month!) taken from their 1977 LP Seven Deadly Sins, Rinder & Lewis with Lust and an excellent tune it is too.

The second a very nice downbeat tune called Snowdrifts from the excellently named Bonnie & Klein from Greece. Drift away and dream about being back out in the garden in the spring. Lovely stuff!

And finally a very chilled dancehall tune from Red Fox & Screechy Dan called Real Yard Man on the Rum & Boom riddim (instrumental available here) as heard on David Rodigan’s show the other week. Nice!

Three tunes to play while considering a possible day it isn’t raining this week to pull up those Dahlia tubers to dry out and keep under the stairs over the winter months. #tunesforthechilledinus

A night out, out of the ring

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We’ve always had a soft spot for “The Wrestling” here over the years (above) and the other night joined about 120 or so other grapple fans to watch the excellent 1992 Arena special “Masters of The Canvas” (available to watch here) and the after show Q&A featuring the masked wrestler/mystic Kendo Nagasaki and artist Sir Peter Blake at the Regent Street Cinema, an event put on by Heavenly Films.

Before the film commenced Kendo Nagasaki came out to great applause, raised some sort of ceremonial stick in our direction and threw salt on the stage like Sumo wrestlers do before a match to purify the ring. A nice touch! Never seeing the film before it was a real treat to watch and featured amongst other things the masked Kendo riding on horseback in the countryside (which looked like something out of an episode of Midsomer Murders), a subtitled interview with the masked man in the back of his limo with no sound (apart from barely audible mumblings picked up from a mike on the other side of the soundproof screen) and some very gruesome footage from a 1991 “grudge match” at Croydon Fairfield Halls against Giant Haystacks (much more atmospheric than the youtube version here).

Straight after the film Kendo Nagasaki, (his spiritual advisor) Atlantis Chronos Goth, Sir Peter Blake and Mary Dickinson (the director of the film) took to the stage for about 40 minutes of interesting conversation. True to his reputation Kendo didn’t say a word but sat motionless in his mask and cape holding his stick throughout while Atlantis answered all questions aimed at him. Out of these came some interesting stuff previous unknown to us here; mentions of Billy Riley‘s notoriously tough wrestling school in Wigan called The Snake Pit (to quote wikipedia: “luxuries such as a toilet were not provided at the Snake Pit”) and the great wrestler (and one Kendo had feuded with in the past and mentioned that he still holds in high esteem) Billy Robinson. Needless to say the talk didn’t go on for long enough for us!

On leaving the auditorium walking through the foyer, the queue for autographs of Sir Peter Blake and Kendo Nagasaki were so long we had to pass on that one. The last thing we saw on leaving was a glimpse of the side of great wrestler’s masked head lowered in mid-autograph and that was good enough for us and it will stick in our mind for a long while. An end to a good evening! More on the great wrestler and his present day work here. #KendoNagasaki #mastersofthecanvas

A couple of wresting related things to end on. We once read that Dickie Davies the presenter of World of Sport and the man who introduced “The Wrestling” on a Saturday afternoon supposedly hated the actual sport. Kendo Nagasaki and the late “Gorgeous” George Gillette went into music management in the late 70’s with one of the ventures being the band Cuddly Toys. The Dulwich Destroyer himself Mick “not the ears, not the ears” MacManus may even have co-wrote Hawkwind’s Silver Machine (see here). Who said music and wrestling don’t mix? #nottheearsnottheears