About the weather

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We’ve just found out that it’s supposedly going to be sunny and 16° this Saturday, how mad is that? And it was only a couple of weeks ago we had snow!

There’s also signs of life in the herb pots we started off (above: Basil) using the indoor house plant compost as we don’t want to invite those fungus gnats back into the house. We were told that the supermarket bought herb plants also have been known to house the critters. Fingers crossed we don’t get the small clouds of them this year as we’ve had in the past.

We popped into Shannon’s this week and got a few bags of compost for the raised beds in the back, more indoor houseplant compost for starting off some seeds (as we don’t want to take any chances!) and some seed potatoes which are presently chitting by the window in the back room. There’s the argument that chitting don’t do that much as they’ll grow anyway but we’ve done it for a few years now and they always seem to help the plants get a good start. We may also use the “cut ’em in half” technique to get twice as many potato plants to plant. More on the process of chitting here. Here’s to the start of the gardening season.

And here’s a nice and melllow tune from Sum Total called Bakery for a Thursday evening in lockdown.

DJ Daddy, The

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We at Weeds were very saddened to hear the news of the passing of the DJ Daddy, U Roy earlier today. Years and years ago we picked up a scratched copy of Jump For Joy/This is Another Festival on the Grounation label for 10p at John’s Second-hand shop in Hillfields, Coventry in 1978 and it went on from there…

Here’s a couple of our favourite clips of the great man that have cheered us up over the years. Some nice threads he’s wearing there too!

And here’s a piece of musical history, a recording of U Roy on King Tubby’s Hi-Fi in Kingston, Jamaica from 1975. Be warned the quaility makes some of our “3 out of 10” punk cassettes in the loft sound like sensurround sound! RIP the great U Roy!

KDUBBING is a must

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News just in of an hour’s dub special on the shortwaves in a few weeks time in the form of  KDUB. It’ll be broadcast on 9670 kHz at 1200 utc/uk on Sunday 7th March and repeated the same time a week later. There’s a mix from One Deck Pete called “In Dub for KDUB” alongside other surprises of a version kind.

Don’t worry if you don’t possess one of those shortwave radios you can always tune in here “at the allotted time” as they say on the radio. Tune in and dub out…

It’s too cold to germinate

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Big shout to our gardening friend from across the pond Justin Patrick Moore for sending us a picture of his garden in Cincinnati from the other day after some snow. We’ve had snow here in London but nothing like this. If you’d like to see his garden pre snow have a look here.

Justin mentioned he was enjoying the snow but was starting now to think about what kind of tomato seeds to start sprouting for spring. Hence the tune he sent with the pic, a dub of “Don’t touch my Tomato” by the great Phillis Dillon and Tommy McCook & The Supersonics.

Have you started thinking of seed to sow yet? We have some pots on the kitchen windowsill that are still dormant as it’s still so cold and a pot of germinated leggy coriander that is looking sorry for itself. Talking about coriander our good gardening friend Gerry Hectic mentioned Mexican coriander, culantro (more info here) the other day. Ever heard of it? It may be worth looking into.

Also this week we found a nice compilation from a few years ago compiled by Laut & Luise out of Cologne called Music Lovers Club #002. It’s worth a listen during these cold times!

20 years of radio fun

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More shortwave radio fun coming this weekend on the 75 Metre band courtesy of Channel 292. A transmission to mark the 20th anniversary of All Indie Radio (WAIR) will be broadcast this Sunday 7th February 2021 (and repeated on Sunday 14th February 2021) at 1700 UTC/UK on 3955 kHz. Tune in for some great music.

The programme features our good friends from across the pond DJ Frederick, Justin Patrick Moore and a mix from One Deck Pete called “Thank You John Peel” (more on the late great John Peel here) with tracks by Mogwai, McCarthy, Young Marble Giants, Stereolab and Orange Juice.

No shortwave radio? No bother, tune in here at the allotted time.

An alternative to lockdown lumbago

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Last week wasn’t the best this end what with sciatica raising its ugly head followed by a bit of lockdown depression combined with the cold weather. And the dahlia tubers are still in the ground (hopefully not rotting away), their frost-blackened foilage a constant reminder that they have to be dug up. But in this weather? We think not. It’s better to stay in listen to some music and think of what seeds we’re going to be buying very soon as spring is not that far away!

Because of the bad back we’re still catching up on a couple of episodes of the great This is a music show that goes out on the shortwaves. If you click here you’ll be treated to the 100th edition of the show featuring 2 hours of the best in thrift shop classics, across the board genre-wise and some great reggae. A big shout to Your Host for getting the show to the landmark number! Tune in and turn on. And check their new website here and if you fancy donating a few quid/dollars to pay for airtime there please do as it’s a wonderful show!

And still on the theme of shortwave, if you’ve visited a supermarket masked up a few times this lockdown here’s a broadcast (below) that might interest you called KMRT. Listen out at 27.45 for a mix by One Deck Pete called “Buy one get one free” featuring tunes by Tyler Newman, Allen Ginsberg, Anima Universalis, Japanese Sound Portrait, Beatz for Food, Lullatone, Cantoma (Phil Mison) and Z Lovecraft. So break open a big tube of Voltarol and work yourself up into a shopping frenzy. #Supermarketsarethenightnightclubs #shoppingconnectsusall

https://soundcloud.com/user-25048993/kmrt-one-stop-shortwave-shopping-experience-9395-khz-3112021

Dub gardeners of the world unite yet again

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Yesterday morning on Radio 4 was a lovely dubwise treat thanks to Don Letts with Dub Revolution: The Story of King Tubby (available on listen again here) a celebration of the dub organiser himself. Worth a listen if you love the world of dub like we do here.

And talking of the rebel dread you may remember that in 2013 that Don said about Weeds: “A Dub/Punk/Gardening blog….now’s there’s a combination I can relate to! Actually tailor made for The Don…..check my yard bredrin’….” and sent some pictures (one below) of his garden which we loved! More pictures of his garden here.

And by chance yesterday we found a link of Don and his wife Grace’s garden on Gardeners’ World which originally went out last year. Have a good butchers at the garden from 6.40 minutes in here. As Don himself says, it’s a real mix of styles! #dubgardenersoftheworldunite

There’ll be no venturing out tomorrow

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Above is the weather forecast predicting heavy snow for the SE23 area in the morning. And we were thinking of forking up those frost-bitten dahlias and bringing them indoors to be stored until the spring. Doubt if they’ll be much chance of us being out the back tomorrow.

There’s a couple of pots of coriander and basil seeds in some houseplant compost sitting on the kitchen windowsill with a freezer bag put over each to give them a mini-greenhouse effect in an economic style. Will they germinate is the question but it’s worth trying.

And here’s a just discovered nice tune in a downtempo style to make you forget of the crap weather to come by John Hobbs called Last Night in Barcelona on M-Sol a hypnotic tune you want to keep rewinding. Stay safe and stay warm!

Hear your garden through the speakers

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A big thanks to Justin Patrick Moore for selecting this gardening themed ambient LP from Virginia Astley called From Gardens Where We Feel Secure from 1983. Justin also mentioned a nice piece from Simon Reynolds about the album here that’s worth casting an eye over.

Our favourite is the piece with the church bells, birds singing and some backwards business called “When the Fields Were on Fire”. Great stuff.

Know any more gardening themes tunes or LPs? if so get in contact with us at Weeds by leaving a comment and we’ll get back to you. Cheers Justin for this one.

An odd sausage and the king of dub’s brother

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Last night we were searching through a pile of singles that we haven’t looked through for years for a forthcoming shortwave radio mix when we came across a very odd sausage indeed (above and below).

It’s a seven inch single from Macclesfield Chorus Of Mutes on the Lyntone record label (who used to mainly press flexidiscs and also ran a mastering service) and the number is LYN 0000/0. On the A is a track named Tacets (wrote by Marcelle Marceau and Ed. J. Routh they reckon on the label) which is one long test tone at the same frequency throughout and plays at thirty three and a quarter rpm. On the B side Rests is totally silent and supposedly cut at forty five and three quarters rpm. Bonkers!

This was found in a charity shop in Covent Garden a few years ago for 50 pence. We can’t find anything on it apart from it may be from the early 1970’s and possibly given away free with a Christmas issue of Private Eye from the info here and there’s a copy on ebay for £40 and that’s all. Any ideas?

Also last night we thought we found a cracker of a tune from 1974 (below) after recognising the name felt-tipped out on the label Genuine Way by Lloyd “Scunna” Ruddock (brother of King Tubby who provides the nice dub on the B side).

We only first heard this tune a couple of years ago on Steve Barker’s On the Wire and when we pulled it out of the pile we just couldn’t believe it! Turns out the title was felt-tipped out for a reason, it wasn’t the said tune. It was another Roy Cousins produced track which we didn’t recognise. To say we were disappointed is a understatement. You win some, you lose some.