It’s been four years since the passing of the great Andrew Weatherall can you believe. We saw on Facebook a link to this great mix from Outlaw Yacht Club, Leeds 2013 (from a great night presented by our good mate Chris Madden) and we just had to share it. The mix starts off with Big Youth, Ari Up, Dr Who in dub then goes into rockabilly and much more and you know what? It’s downloadable. RIP Andrew Weatherall.
Thanks to our good friend John F who sent us this great version of The Abyssinians – Satta Massagana by Los Miticos Del Ritmo called Satta Massa Cumbia from a few years ago. We’ve never heard this before. Great stuff John!
And thanks also to our mate Gerry Hectic for this horticultural related number. It’s from Fug and it’s called From Little Seeds We Grow (4Hero Folk Soul Remix) and it’s a lovely number with a brilliant Instrumental too.
All these tunes above are perfect for a chilled out weekend in the heat. Keep hydrated!
If you love Big Youth you’ll love this! Two and a half hours of Manley Augustus Buchanan as put together by Steve Barker and On The Wire. Tune in below:
Waking up here in South London this morning there’s been a right mixture of weather. We’ve had lashing rain and now a lovely bit of sunshine and it looks like this cycle will be continuing for the next few days (until we get the predicted heatwave, yeah right!)
Well this weather is no good if you’ve got to get the washing out but it’s good for the garden. Hopefully there will be more of the nice spells later as there’s a few more inches to fill on the garden refuse bin and you have to get your money’s worth don’t you?
Well here’s a couple of tunes to hopefully cheer us all up.The first is a chilled tube train inspired number by Commodore 98 called Mind the Gap.
And another travel inspired one by the wonderful Big Youth and Dennis Brown called Ride on, ride on/Wild goose chase. Let’s hope this weather clears up and we all can enjoy actually going outside.
We harvested the first bit of rhubarb this afternoon that we “forced” underneath the thrown out crockpot (below). It’s weird, as we were going to chuck out that slow cooker pot but then we had a eureka moment and thought “that’s an ideal forcing receptacle” or words to that effect.
Forcing prevents any light getting to the rhubarb crowns at the same time keeping them that little bit warmer during the winter months. What’s good about it is the lack of light produces those pale stalks (and yellow leaves you chuck away anyway) which are well tender and tastier than the stringy stuff you get in the early summer. Why chuck an old crockpot away when you could be eating sweet rhubarb in March!
Also Monday mornings have been a lot sweeter since we’ve discovered the Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on the Tallinn stream of IDA radio here. Here’s today’s show from 8am-11am UK time featuring some great across the board tunes. Click (here) and collect some great music on a Monday morning!
A big thanks to Jesse Yuen for letting us know about some dub happenings from 22nd – 28th February 2021 on RTM.FM Thamesmead here. It’s a week long celebration of soundsystem culture under the name of Original Selector!
Tonight at 8pm UK/UTC will be Jesse’s North of the River Swan show with a Jungle special. Tune in via the website, go to the top left hand corner and click “Live” and you’ll be treated to all sorts of subsonic bass frequencies! Looks like it’s going to be a great week!
Also we were very chuffed to be asked to select an LP (which would be played in its entirety on air) that sums up “soundsystem” for us. For us it had to be classic Dreadlocks Dread from Big Youth.
Tune in to RTM.FM this week for some serious sound system business!
Here’s some great footage of 1970’s Jamaica alongside the excellent track “Train to Rhodesia”.
Here’s some great footage of 2017’s Lewisham alongside the great Youth himself!
We may just be paranoid or going mad in these lockdown times but it’s going to be cold one tonight here in London, three degrees according to some weather forecasts. We don’t want to be losing anything so the last of the black membrane and also some old christmas tree/florist buckets (taken from outside the local florists on bin night a few years ago) were put over the potato plants that are some size now. The dahlias are sprouting so we’ve covered them too. Fingers crossed tonight’s weather isn’t that bad. #nofrostinlockdown #don’ttrusttheweather
Two events in the distant future that are well worth sticking in the diary or on that wallchart thingy:
Annual plant sale at The South London Botanical Institute, 323 Norwood Road SE24 9AQ. Saturday 12th May 11am – 1pm. Wide range of unusual, locally grown and reasonably priced plants and advice on how to grow them. Free entry. More info here.
Spring Plant Fair at Telegraph Hill Centre, Kitto Road, New Cross, London, SE14 5TY. Saturday 19th May 2018. 1pm until 2pm. Admission £2. More info here.
And for no other reason that finding this single on youtube at work this afternoon here is the excellent Big Youth with Gregory (Isaacs) with My Time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtYpqLqOQiA
And Bob Andy’s original from years gone by. Tunes to stick on loud this weekend while keeping warm indoors if the weather forecast is to be believed! Roll on spring!
A big thanks to all at Thompson & Morgan’s gardening blog for including Weeds in its post called Nine notable seed bloggers (here). Ta for the kind words! All the other blogs featured in the piece all are well worth looking at especially Modern Veg Plot and The Sunday Gardener. The Thompson & Morgan blog is worth exploring too with all sorts of features and useful gardening related information. Make a start here and take it from there. #adahliastateofmind
To keep sane at work we listened to Earl Gateshead’s excellent Big Youth mix on rotation today. It brought back memories of seeing one of our favourite Reggae artists earlier this year in a pub in Lewisham. A “must listen to” mix! Shouts to Earl Gateshead for the great mix! #bigyouthfox&firkin #bigyouthlewisham
It’s not every week you witness a reggae legend playing in a local pub but the Thursday just gone we saw Big Youth at the Fox and Firkin in Lewisham. And what a night! Just after 10pm a trim looking Jah Youth bounded onstage (as his band Dub Natty Sessions from Venezuela were playing the “Satta Massanga” rhythm) and was treated to a heroes welcome from the crowd of 150 or so.
For about an hour he performed a shedload of his classics mostly delivered in an improvised style (songs would morph into something else midway then return to the original later) with Big Youth ad-libbing throughout the set, telling the band to “take it down low” many times as he’d change song lyrics and connect with his audience big time. We later learnt that the band had only rehearsed once with the legend earlier that day, so there must have been some sort of reggae telepathy going on between all as it was bang on musically!
We were treated to some excellent versions of Hit the road Jack, Touch me in the morning and What’s going on? amongst many more whilst Big Youth jumped about with boundless energy, took his hat off and shook his locks a couple of times (to massive cheers and whoops!) and chatted to the audience throughout. At one point while he was halfway through a version of Natty dread no jester he handed the mike to someone in the crowd who started doing an impromptu toast over the end of the song which won the chap a round of applause from the audience and the great man himself. A night to remember and one that brought out the autographed hunter in us (pic above)! Big up Big Youth!
Weeds up to me knees 