Big shout to the Institute for Alien Research in Bath for letting us know that the Nocturnal Emmissions Tribute LP is now out and about. It features Madtone with the track To all of our friends across the pond and our good radio friend from across the pond Justin Patrick Moore with Transcranial Emulsions. Big shout to Cowboy Joe and all our friends in Leeds, England.
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.
Put on that silk dressing gown, plonk an imaginary cigarette into a long and stylish cigarette holder, mix yourself a cocktail of what’s available in the fridge and sit back and enjoy the studio version of last night’s Skybird Supper Club Imaginary Lounge programme on WRMI. There’s some great chilled lounge tunes and a nice relaxed vibe as they say.
At 11.55 in is One Deck Pete with his Lounging on the shortwaves mix and here’s the tracklisting:
Godspeed – Nightcrawling (Excerpt)
Monodrone – Solitary feeling
Dub Addiction – Ecological Dub (Calm Down Remix)
Gore – 06
Godspeed – Nightcrawling (Excerpt)
Enjoy the show!
We picked up another bag of Lldl’s best peat-free compost on Saturday and in between the rain and the suprisingly warm for the time of year sunshine we filled up an old washing up bowl (with some drainage holes in the bottom) and sowed some lettuce seeds. May not be classy but it works.
A good few years ago we did a great Saturday gardening course with our friend Scarlett Cannon and she us told of many ingenious ways of growing spuds including using carrier bags and such-like containers. An old shopping bag with holes in the bottom and a seed spud in it is now perched on a found in the street coat stand down the side of the garden. A bit unorthodox but why not?
And finally we had to put another layer of bricks below the old windowpane as those shallots are fast moving on! Keep your fingers crossed we get more sunshine that rain this week heading into May.
Big shout to Steve Barker for playing this tune above on On The Wire a long while ago, it’s by Andy’s All-Stars and it’s called Banjo Serenade, the B side to I Roy‘s Step Right Up. That record may be the only instance of said instrument used in reggae unless you know any more examples. Don’t Banjos sound great when dubbed up!
Oh dear looks like we may have opened that banjo can of beans as these can be sort of deemed dubwise. Know of any others?
Just researching a forthcoming shortwave mix and we’ve just found this great tune from a long time ago from Groove Corporation called Worst Dressed Chicken which is very nice and one to play loads when it’s sunny. A very clever title by the way.
A couple of weeks after we featured them in a post here we can see that those shallots are coming on well. As we said last time, we haven’t had much success with them in the past in the raised beds but it looks like starting them under cover and sticking some organic matter in may have done the trick. We’ll keep you posted.
In the top right of this pic above you can just about make out the giant garlic. We stuck the sides of the raised bed (without the polythene on top) back on them as a bit of added protection as the wind seemed to give them a bit of knock last week. We’ll start feeding the garlic and the shallots soon with some comfrey/nettle liquid as soon as we can get some started and on the go. Hopefully that combined with some good weather to come may help them on their way.
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.
We just found this recent show out of the blue (no pun intended), it’s Ross Allen doing one of his foundation music specials on his Meltdown show on NTS. This time it features the great photographer, PIL logo/Metal Box designer, Urban Shakedown/Basement 5 founder and many other things Dennis Morris. It’s not just an interesting listen, it’s a must listen!
We were reminded that in one of Dennis Morris’s books there’s a great picture of the Sex Pistols on an old-school coach (nothing as grand as having a loo or those tables with fancy lamps on it that football teams used to travel on cup final days in the 1970’s) on the M6 travelling away from Coventry the morning after their gig at Mr George’s in December 1977. It was a completely different world then, it’s all double decker coaches now and they have loos and even sarnies and tea and coffee on offer now!
Whilst the radio show was playing and remembering that photograph a tale came to mind and apologies if we’ve mentioned it before. It was a story we heard in 1978 from a chap we went to college with whose older brother was a car mechanic. This bloke did talk a lot of rot and this story beats the lot. He told us just before Christmas 1977 his brother got a call at his garage in Coventry to go to the motorway to fix a coach which had broken down. When he got there he saw it was a band on tour and was told it was the Sex Pistols. What was really odd though after a while he saw that all of the band (and their staff) were all dressed in suits and flared trousers and all of the punk image was a big act just for publicity (so he told us). Probably one of the best punk stories we may have ever heard. How the band kept that fact hushed up for all these years we will never know. You heard it here first.
Going back to reality and the radio show, the first tune Black Skin Blue Eye Boys from The Equals featuring Eddy Grant (Dennis mentions a couple of great Eddy Grant stories by the way) that starts the proceedings took us back in time to an excellent reggae 12″ influenced by that great tune (below the original).
Talking of RTM FM, a big shout to Jesse Yuen of the excellent North of the River Swan radio show (which is on a break for the time being) for sending us this morning some excelllent pictures of his parents garden in Bassendean, Perth, Western Australia where he is at the moment. It’s a brilliant space and has some out there plants we could only dream about having here!
It looks a wonderful space and a lovely place for chilling out in! He’s sent us some close ups of flowers from the yard too. Great stuff!
And here’s the last North of The River Swan (until later this year hopefully) as Jesse (as it says on the mixcloud) “is taking some time off to recalibrate the compass and recharge the radio batteries”. Take it easy and we look forward to your return to the radio and to your shortwave debut. Cheer for the gardening pics, do send us more.
Weeds up to me knees 