Number stations for the spy in a chip shop on a friday night

 

Thanks again to Justin Patrick Moore, this time for letting us know about this great track. Sounding like a send up of the Lincolnshire Poacher number station the wonderfully named Shropshire Number Stations brings you The Minsterley Tumbler and it’s good fun. We do hope that this doesn’t start a trend of happy sounding tunes sampling/parodying number stations as it’s all doom and gloom and the end of the world  on shortwave, ain’t it?

Here’s another track that isn’t getting all serious on us when it comes to sampling off shortwave. Ax Martz brings us the upbeat Mensaje en código (Coded message).

 

If you do some bass heavy tripped out ravey number stations vibes, this is a good one. RAVEDEATH1993 with Number Station Dub.

 

00000. End of message end of transmission. Enjoy your weekend (said in a monotone robotic voice of course).

You say zuchinni, we also say courgette

It’s going absolutely crazy in the vegetable patch at Justin Patrick Moore‘s back yard in Cincinnati. Our good friend from across the pond and author of the fine book The Radio Phonics Laboratory (out now from the Peckham based Velocity Press here) has sent us some pictures of his vegetable plot. Look at the monster zuchinni plants (above) and the present harvest (below).

And as for the green beans and the corn (and the current harvest in the fridge) look at the below. It’s funny as our zuchinni (AKA courgette or baby marrow over here) and green beans didn’t get past germination stage or if they did, the “no holds barred” Forest Hill slugs had them.

Usually with zuchinni/courgettes we have a glut and there’s only so much you can do with them. There are ways around that glut though, we’ve tried this chocolate courgette cake here and here’s a great idea from Justin’s wife Audrey.

An open sandwich called Yvonne.
Put sauteed mushrooms, tomatoes, zucchini, and spinach, black olives if you like them, seasoned with garlic, pepper, basil and melted swiss cheese on top that you ladle over toasted bread. Add a splash of soy sauce to your taste. Sounds great for those zuchinni gluts and your own gut too.

And (above) look at this for a self-seeding/volunteer zuchinni in his garden too! What went on with our seedlings I wonder and usually our normal plants don’t even get as big as this.

And as for a tune, Justin picked this one from Tim Curry funnily enough called The zucchini song. Cheers again for the pics and recipe idea Justin and here’s more on his great book here:

MC Hammer Price

Thanks to our good friend across the (big garden) pond Justin Patrick Moore for finding this brilliant game in a thrift store in Cincinnati this morning and mailing the picture over pronto. It’s very much in keeping with our last post about Antiques Roadshow and doesn’t the bloke putting in a bid put you in mind of Private Walker from Dad’s Army (below)?

We do love a thift store/second hand/charity shop here and we’re always up for seeing any charity shop finds from the best to the worst. Seen any overpriced Max Bygraves records at your local charity shop or some old net curtains that are more expensive than new ones? If so, take a snap and send us a picture. We will not name the shop and keep the location anonymous so they’ll be no comebacks. And going back to auctions, here’s a bit of fast chat business…

The Dream Academy

Big shout to our good radio friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore on his first book published by South London’s Velocity Press just a couple of miles away from Weeds HQ in Rye Lane, Peckham. 

The book is called The Radio Phonics Laboratory and as it says on Velocity Press’ website “explores the intersection of technology and creativity that shaped the sonic landscape of the 20th Century”. If you love Karlheinz Stockhausen, Daphne Oram, Delia Derbyshire, Robert Moog and the like, go and buy one from the Velocity website here.

By request of the author here’s a daft dream we had around the time said book went to print. We’ve no idea what relevance the dream has in the scheme of the universe and also what Freud would have said but we can only put it down to a couple of tabs of co-codamol before bedtime to stop toothache.

The dream was about a man who fixed vintage valve radio sets in an old factory in Coventry that also housed an exhibition about radio propagation, “Which is a very interesting subject” the man told us.

The factory was in a street off a back entry behind Cedars Avenue in Coventry where Delia Derbyshire was brought up. In the dream we imagined we woke up and were going to travel back to Coventry to find this non existent factory and the radio exhibition housed within it. Then we woke up!

It’s not much of an exciting “we won the lottery and now live on a luxury Richard Branson type island” dream and doesn’t make much sense, unlike the great book from Justin Patrick Moore. We promise we will never divulge our dreams again but the long and short of it is, if you love a bit of electronica, you’ll love this book!

Whistling three sheets to the Wind

Cheers to Justin Patrick Moore for sending us this great instrumental from Luna called Drunken Whistler and a lovely little number it is. For some reason it reminded us of something that may have been on Andrew Weatherall‘s excellent Live at Antenna Studios mix (below) which we have mentioned a good few times.

If you haven’t heard the mix before it’s well worth a listen, there’s a track from Manfred Mann of all people called Just for me (“And there, I saw trees reaching to the sky. And birds full of colour and flying high”) and Harpers Bizarre with Witchi Tai To. Excellent stuff of the eclectic kind! Cheers again Justin for sending us the track recommendation.

Music for snoozin’

Here’s the audio of yesterday’s Imaginary Stations show WZZZ, all about the art of sleep and dreaming. It was a horizontal themed show with music to drop off to and songs to dream to. 

 

There’s some great tunes throughout the hour from DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore (have a look at his great new book here) and at 1.52 mins in there’s One Deck Pete with a 15 min mix called “You may say I’m a dreamer”. Gerry Hectic‘s answer mix “You’re not the only one” is here if you want to complete the set!

Here’s a tracklisting:
Jah Wobble – Fading (Instrumental)
L. Pierre – Fan-dance
The Barbados Steel Orchestra – Barbados My Island of Dreams
Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons – The Night
Owen Gray – Midnight Track

Have a good day and if you fancy a lazy Monday snooze, drop off to WZZZ!

Off the map, off the radio

Cheers to DJ Frederick for letting us know about this great quaility half an hour recording of last week’s imaginary stations show WDWD – Off The Map Radio broadcast by Shortwave Gold. It was recorded in Belarus by Aleksandr Myadel (cheers Aleksandr for putting it up on youtube).

At 13 minutes in there’s One Deck Pete‘s “I’ll take the high road too” mix and here’s the tracklistings:
Stereognosis – Farewell
Outward Bound – First Cue
Tetsuo – Not taking the bus
Hidden Orchestra – East London Street
Tubby Isiah – Lost dub

If you want to hear more of the show, ten of the latest Imaginary Stations episodes are up online here at our Mixcloud. The show is also looking for some financial help to cover the production and transmission costs so we can continue to transmit on shortwave, more on that here:

Music like us

Yesterday our good radio friend in Cincinnati, Justin Patrick Moore tipped us off that Vicki Bennett from People like us was doing a show on WFMU. It’s now available via listen again here (The show named “February 14th, 2024: This Is Bardcore, This Is Barcode, This is the Pooless Flute”).

As you can imagine there were some crazy records played, bizzare mash ups and some “odd sausages” (as an old workmate used to say). Here’s two tunes that we’ve never heard before that caught our attention. The first is Polo & Pan with Nana (above) and it’s a bit of left-field pop on the catchy, happy tip. And we’ve just found out it’s sampled off this tune below from Os Tincoãs another band we have had to research. And an interesting band they were.

The second is Keezo Kane with Ga Ga Ga (James Brown Steppers Mix) which is great stuff. If you’re a lover of some real musical madness do check the show out. Cheers Justin for letting us know about it.

(Imaginary) Radio is a (Electro) magnetic thing

Imaginary Stations takes to the internet airwaves from his Monday on Electromagnic Radio. It looks a great station with lots of great shows here.

Times are Mondays at 2pm and on a Saturday at 7pm both UK time. Tune in and enjoy the first show which is Radio Lavalamp but that’s after exploring all the other musical possibilities that are on the site. Enjoy the diverse range of musical enjoyment on Electromagnetic Radio.

Oi mate, that’s my Egg Nog okay?

A Happy Boxing day to all! Here’s the audio of The imaginary Stations Winter Holiday Special which was broadcast via Shortwave Gold on Christmas Eve on those shortwaves. There’s a load of festive tunes throughout the hour plus “A holday Mix” from One Deck Pete at 40.38 minutes in. Here’s the tracklistings:

Forgotten employee – The Backroom Tapes
Snow Palms – Evening Rain Gardens (Excerpt)
Kohei Yoshi – Cold Ice Dub
Frost – Munch RIP (instrumental)
Bodyswitch – Gee Whiz it’s Christmas
Jacob Miller/Ray I – Deck The Halls
Kibble – Warm Fireplace (Excerpt)