Does dry January actually start today?

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Happy New Year and best wishes for 2023 to all from us at Weeds!

It wasn’t raining this morning for once so we did a little bit in the garden quite early on (in a sort of a mean as you go on for the rest of the year type thing). It seemed like an age since we were last out there and we did the old council trick of starting nearest the house and working towards the end of the garden. We only spent just over an hour but as you know we are from the “little and often” school, remember any time you spend out there now will save you bags of time in the spring.

We discovered things we’d forgotten about that like this brassica (below) that’s still going strong, the giant garlics we put in last month are starting to sprout and we even moved a couple of plants about. A question that was on our minds was why didn’t any of the dahlias we have in didn’t flower this year? Anyway may you all have a good 2023 and do get back out there if you get a chance!

And they’re not interested in Amateur Radio then?

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On the radio this evening is a transmission celebrating shortwave radio by the Imaginary Stations crew. It’s broadcast at 2300 UTC on 9395 kHz by WRMI and is called Kearsarge North Transmission Service (KNTS). Expect some ham radio/shortwave themed music, numbers stations and Ionosphere Jazz. Here’s more about the transmission tonight:

At 15.43 into the show there’s a shortwave inspired mix from One Deck Pete featuring tunes from Shortwave Sounds, Kwook, Jodey Kendrick, Yomakomba and a shortwave exclusive of a remix of Nocturnal Emissions by Madtone. After the transmission a recording of the show will be available on their mixcloud site here.

If you’re mad about shortwave radio tune in tonight and if you haven’t a shortwave radio tune into 9395 kHz in AM mode here.

CBRG is the place to be

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On Christmas Evening the Imaginary Stations series on WRMI on shortwave featured CBRG a tribute to the Seeburg Corporation. The show is now up online below for all to enjoy. Listen in if you want to get into a mall mood.

At 15.40 mins in One Deck Pete presents a mix for CBRG
Tracklistings
Alpha Centori – Enter the ghost mall
SJD – Shopping Malls
Minimatic – Easy is my name
Faint Waves – Island Fantasia (Cabana Edit)
Moxie – 95′ closing

It’ll be broadcast again to Europe via Channel 292 at 1200 UTC on Sunday 15th January 2023 if you fancy hearing it on 6070 kHz via the ionosphere.

Conifers in Coventry

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We were suprised, saddened and shocked to hear of the passing of Terry Hall earlier this week. We really don’t know what to say about it as like lots of people, himself alongside The Specials were a part of our musical lives.

Rather than getting all maudlin about it, let’s raise a smile at something daft we found in a Mojo interview with him from a while back:

“I get obsessed with stuff. In the late ’90s I was trying to perfect conifer height, I remember that. I planted about 30 conifers, and I wanted them to all grow at the same level. You buy them, and they’re all 18 inches, and you plant them all at the same depth, feed and water them all the same, and some died and some went brown. Why? It really did my head in…”

Life and Gardening, two things that can do your head in. RIP Terry Hall.

Banish stress with this and some left over pork pie

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Big shout to our good friend Shane Quentin AKA Head Gardener of The Garden of Earthly Delights radio show. He’s compiled a couple of hours “of mostly new, laid back and very chilled out grooves to help you through to 2023.” This is excellent mix and should be banged out on the stereo pronto. Cheers Shane!
Tracklistings:
Duval Timothy : Up
mu tate : Benz (with Santebela)
Burial : Strange Neighbourhood
J. Albert : Angles To Curve
Son Of Chi + Arthur Flink : Part Two
PlatzWave : Thinning of the Vale
Other Lands : April 14th – A Prayer For Peace
Jim Edgar Morgan : Seeing The World Differently
The Gaye Device : Who Goes Where – The Space Between
WMD : Yearn
Cucina Povera + Ben Vince : Siellä Näen Kaiken
Holmes + atten Ash : Lapetus
Kirby Perman : St John Church Bells
Katie English + Mark Kluzek : Clearing
Louise Le May : A Wintry Dream
Rob St. John Rose : Ferraby Half Life
Rudi Arapahoe : To Gather Flowers
Gardener : Listening to Tusk Stoned
Very Tired Astronaut : Car on a Staircase
Dylan Henner : I Hope I Will Be Remembered as a Good Person

The solstice in the comfort of your own slippers

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“This year Winter Solstice will be marked at Stonehenge on the morning of the 22nd December, not the 21st December.” English Heritage.

We nearly started up the (DJ) horsebox earlier this morning to make the trek down to the ‘henge and join Ken Barlow and the hundreds of others for the solstice festivities. Thank God we found out that English Heritage has changed the date before setting off. Let’s hope the many who go down by train know about the date change or they’ll find they will need to buy an open saver return instead of a day return or they will be travelling illegaly.

If you want to miss out on the train, the layers of mud and hours of waiting, technology has come to the rescue as English Heritage have a live stream going tomorrow morning with some ambient accompaniment (above). So put on your best slippers, have some tea and toast ready and watch the sunrise from the comfort of your armchair without breaking any laws. A Happy Solstice to you all, whenever or wherever you’ll be celebrating the solstice.

It’s cold outside

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Who’d have thought we’d have snow in London yesterday. It came down in the late afternoon and it is most forgiving when it comes to a garden that needs a bit of work doing on it. Even the shortwave radio longwire antenna is feeling the cold.

It’s been a while since we’ve been out there and there are lots of jobs to do but the jobs can wait as there isn’t a fat lot of things we can do at the present moment. With the solstice around the corner it won’t be too long before it’s spring (or are we just fooling ourselves?)

Here’s to the sunshine..

Anyone can make radio happen…

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In a couple of hours time the Imaginary Stations crew have a DIY related broadcast via WRMI on 9395 kHz at 2300 hrs UTC.

There will be toolshed related tunes, advice on repairing stuff around the home “without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts” and tips and tricks from various handymen and women from around the globe. So plug in that homebrew radio, tune it in and enjoy!

Come out from behind the Psyche-cle shed

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The first part of the Shortwave Garage Sale (The psyched out special) in The Imaginary Stations series which was transmitted last week on WRMI is now up on Mixcloud in all its studio glory but sadly missing all the fades and the remix by the ionosphere.

At 02.05 minutes in is the mix from One Deck Pete called Live from the Psyche-cle shed. Here’s the tracklistings to accompany the tripped out mix:

Kourosh Yaghmaei – Hajme Khali
The Dandelion Set – A Clean Sweep
Tim Maia – Over Again
Soul Vendors – Psychedelic Rock
Şatellites – Disko Arabesque

And whilst you’re there check this out!

And thanks to our good friend Zdenko Franjić for sending us the below. What a track!

R.I.P. Keith Levene

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Yesterday we were very saddened to hear about the death of the great Keith Levene. It’s a massive loss, what more can we say? Here’s a couple of his magical musical moments that touched us over the years.

In the bootleg below from a very early Clash gig at The Roundhouse in 1976 that’s got to be him at 25.30 with that Spanish style guitar riff he used to brilliant use in PIL’s Memories years later (The version of this we used to own on cassette contained much more hiss than music).

He mentions that riff in an excellent interview here from years ago which is one well worth taking the time to read “There’s this normal Spanish guitar thing that goes dun-da-da-dun da-da-dun (quickly, imitating matador music)… It’s one of the first things I learned to play on guitar – very simple. I was very fond of that.”

There was a lot more output than just The Clash and Public Image. We remember going to a Meltdown at Royal Festival Hall years ago and seeing Keith performing with The Bug (with Warrior Queen providing vocals over the top) and you couldn’t miss that trade mark guitar sound. Rest in Peace Keith Levene.