Sunday morning angle grinding musings

Posted on July 23, 2017 by onedeckpete

If plastic herons, owls and other decoys keep predators away in the garden then would fake plastic slugs (a bit larger in size than normal ones) deter other slugs do you think? Also there are fake crocodile heads on the market to put in your pond “to keep big birds away” but how would a heron from Lewisham even know what a crocodile was? Above: some of the quality decoys on sale at the moment. We here at weeds currently have a 99p ebay bid on the life-like heron on the large wooden stick (which looks like what would be on the end of a large “rocket” firework). Keep your fingers crossed we get it!

Ponds and pumps and the origin of dub

Posted on July 21, 2017 by onedeckpete

It’s been a busy couple of weeks at Weeds HQ; the builders are in doing some work and a fair bit of clearing up has been done in the back during a couple of days dedicated to just gardening. Also after years deliberating, a solar powered pump is now in action in the pond, all for the bargain price of 40 odd quid and what a difference it makes! The new load of fish bought from the Lewisham pet shop now with a net over them (to stop that pesky heron here from murdering this current batch) are looking well happy and so are the frogs and newts too! The bottom of the pond can now be seen, which is a first!The builders had some stuff delivered on a nice mini-pallet (above) which has now been utilised for the mini herb garden just outside the back door. Apart from a couple of leaves being nibbled in the night everything is doing fine. The first chilli is now showing (below).The weekly comfrey liquid feed around the garden is turning up trumps what with the giant tomato (below) that is nearly ripened. The comfrey liquid might pong a bit but it don’t half work wonders.This week the following radio show has been on constant replay. It’s Jah Life‘s excellent Backawall University from July 7th and this episode contains something very special indeed. It features dub plates from King Tubby’s younger brother Stagga (aka “Young Tubbs”) made in Brooklyn, New York in 1970 before King Tubby began his dub experiments in Kingston. There’s some great dubs on here: Phyllis Dillon’s “One life to live” (with the vocal just about audible), The Sensations “Everyday is just a holiday”, The Jamaicans “Baba boom” (retitled “Boom Baba”) and more. More on Stagga Ruddock here. Big shout to Dubby Doo for alerting us to this show which is musical history!

Tunes for a Summer’s evening

Posted on July 21, 2017 by onedeckpete

Two excellent tunes to play loud on this nice summer’s evening. The first as spun by the Rt. Hon. David Rodigan the other week is a chilled out version from Jane Macgizmo called Babylon Dub. Another great artist and tune out of the ZincFence stable.

The second is a heavy heavy bass piece from Saint Abdullah out of Brooklyn/Tehran called Martyrdub. Intense and powerful are a couple of words to describe this. Available on MP3, Cassette and Vinyl here. One to be heard LOUD! More on Saint Abdullah here.

Dubs to welcome the sun back

Posted on July 12, 2017 by onedeckpete

Here’s some of that new fangled dub stuff from Teflon & Zinc Fence a new set called Dub Policy to welcome back that yellow thing in the sky we’ve missed for a day and a bit. As Kirk Brandon once sang “Come back, come back. All is forgiven”.

Shout to Rt. Hon. David Rodigan for playing a track off the E.P. the other week thus letting us know about it. Pic above: A happy Sunflower from the Weeds HQ garden. Certainly not “Giant”as stated on the packet (the plant stands 3ft high) but not bad all the same.

My, how you’ve grown…

Posted on June 23, 2017 by onedeckpete

It’s only a few days after the summer solstice and boy the garden is growing well. It’s getting lots of sun and we’re trying to water it as regularly as we can so that’s a great combination.It’s funny how changes can revolutionise things, the Jasmine above (purchased from Shannon’s many years ago) never really did much. It slowly crept up the trellis on the back of the house and there wasn’t much of a scent when the flowers did bother to come out. Then the other month the Berlin wall type structure went up next door (post here), we thinned out the belfast sink it was in (there were others plants in it at the time) and since then kept it watered and fed with comfrey liquid and lo and behold look what’s happened (above). There’s a lovely fragrance from it in the evening too. TLC that all it needed!

In the bed at the bottom of the garden (below) the spuds are now flowering and on the purple flowering broad beans there’s a good few pods forming. Also in that bed there’s onions, beetroot and strawberries somewhere all busy competing with each other which isn’t ideal but we’ll be pulling up the spuds in a couple of weeks so there’ll be space soon.

The side bed (below) where once was a greenhouse is doing well too. It’s usually clayed up this time of year but earlier in the spring half a compost bin’s worth was dumped on it and around the plum tree the ash from a couple of barbecues were sprinkled around. Lots of watering and a regular bit of comfrey liquid helped too! My, look at those tomatoes…

To celebrate the summer growing season here’s a great tune on the Stone’sThrow label from Washed out called Get lost. A tune with a brill cut and paste video too. Happy growing my friends!

This post was written whilst listening to the excellent radio show The Garden of Earthly Delights (live every Friday 10pm til midnight GMT on CRMK here and on mixcloud here) Tune in!

Hold tight all belated solstice crew…

Posted on June 22, 2017 by onedeckpete

A happy belated Solstice to one and all for yesterday. There wasn’t much dancing around standing stones or frolicking with morris men around these parts as it was far too hot. It might have been the longest day but don’t worry as we’ve still got a good few weeks of sunshine (fingers crossed) and lots of balmy nights to enjoy!

Above: part of the Stonehenge free festival 1989 fanzine and a couple of bits from a general festival survival guide from the 80’s both gathering dust in the loft at Weeds HQ. “Breakfast in bed” at a festival, now that would be nice! More on the Stonehenge festival here too!

Lemon Verbena and a mug of dub

Posted on June 19, 2017 by onedeckpete

A lovely bit of dub for a hot, hot Monday evening here in London from Bukkha called Ethiopian Dub from Dub-Stuy records out of Brooklyn, New York. A tune to crank up loud while supping a mug of Lemon Verbena tea (big shout to Haji Mike out of Cyprus for originally telling us about Lemon Verbena).

Keep on the Grasso

Posted on June 12, 2017 by onedeckpete

Today at work a nice discovery was made after recommending the excellent “Last night a DJ saved my life” book by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton to a mate. The well influential DJ Francis Grasso came to mind when mentioning the said book so after a bit of googling a live recording of Francis Grasso in 1971 by Luis Mario was unearthed on soundcloud. The quality of the 20 minute recording is about as good as some of the punk bootlegs that are kept in the loft at Weeds HQ but come on it’s a well historic document to say the least!

From that Soundcloud mix an excellent tribute to Francis Grasso at The Sanctuary was found. It’s a mix of over an hour and a half by DJ Luis Mario (who recorded Francis Grasso at The Sanctuary) featuring tracks by Curtis Mayfield, Freda Payne, Booker T & the MG’s and Rufus Thomas and a lot lot more. Tunes for a Monday night when the (wood) chips are down…

In a Dub Front style

Posted on June 7, 2017 by onedeckpete

Big shout to Youri from the excellent Dub Front radio show for playing Jazzmin & Madtone’s Earth Citizen last week (6.26 minutes in the show below). The show also featured an hour of top tunes from artists including Audioart, Jah9 ft Chronnix (above) and Dubblestandart.

As Youri told us “The show’s been running since March 2005 every Wednesday at 11pm on BRUZZ out of Brussels. 52 shows a year digging into all things dub and roots. From chill to steppers, from roots to dub club, from world dub to outer space”. It’s a show well up our street so have a listen to the collection of Dub Font shows on Mixcloud here.

Purple broad beans meet The Supremes

Posted on May 26, 2017 by onedeckpete

We’ve had some cracking weather in London of late and combined with the rain last week things are coming on strong in the garden. The Crimson Flowered Broad Beans started to bloom at the weekend and they’re looking great! They’re a nice alternative to the black and white flowered ones (which we love as well) and there’s a interesting post about the variety on the Daughter of the Soil (“Adventures in experimental horticulture”) blog here. The blog is well worth having a look at if you love heritage vegetables, seed saving and experimental gardening.The bed at the bottom of the garden is bursting into life as well with the seed potatoes, onions and strawberries starting to reach upwards. It may be a tad early but we’ve already made use of our home-made comfrey liquid which will help them on their way. The bamboo canes that were used as a cat deterrent have now been commissioned elsewhere (helping some tomato plants) and the spuds have been earthed up even more.

Music accompaniment this week is firstly a couple of versions of the excellent pressure and slide rhythm by Hubert Lee then Sugar Minott. On the Rt Hon David Rodigan show last week he played a mini-history of the rhythm including a couple of choice cuts of it by the great Prince Buster here and here.

Also secondly a big shout to our mate Will who recommended the LeMellotron/Pierre Wax 30 mix below. It’s a right musical mixture and one to turn up loud so it can be heard while out in the back garden. The great 2 hr mix is a slice of audio goodness and includes I:Cube, The excellent Mothers “Faith (Yilwani Imfazwe”) with a nice Lee Perry sample and Dennis Coffey and a whole lot more. It also includes the breakbeat/falsetto vocal disco classic “Come into my life” from The Supremes. Roll on more tunes and more sunshine!

Weeds up to me knees

Madtone, gardening and life