We can’t control the weather but we can control the music

The above picture was the weather we had at the start of the week and by all accounts will return tomorrow. That’s all we need but the heating’s on at the moment and the stereo has been turned up high. The first tune of the night is Straight to Mad Professor’s head from the set Mad Professor meets Channel One: Round 2 by Mad Professor and Channel One. It is one subtle dub!

 

We heard a Hugh Mundell dubplate on this week’s excellent Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on IDA Radio (Tallinn). While we were looking for it we found a great Augustus Pablo Dub of Feeling Alright.

 

And the best “out there” tune of the night is from a LP called Folk and Pop Sounds of Sumatra Vol.1 on the excellent Sublime Frequencies label from out of Seattle. No idea who it’s from or what it’s called, all it says on the notes is that it’s in the Sumatran Dangdut style. It has a hook that sounds like an interval signal from a numbers station which we can’t place, that is sometimes played on a rasping bagpipe sounding keyboard. The LP has a wonderful cover too, what more do you want? Wonderful stuff which will worm its way into your brain as it’s so catchy.

Let’s temporarily forget the crap weather and dark times and listen to some decent tunes to soothe, inspire us and give us a break so to speak.

The 45th Parallel Déjà Vu

The above programme was supposed to be aired last Sunday but WRMI was down all evening last week on 9395kHz. Fingers crossed the Imaginary Stations 45th Parallel Midwinter Broadcast will now be on in a few hours time (Sunday 19th February 2023) on 9395 kHz at 2300 hrs UTC. At 20 minutes in One Deck Pete presents “A 45 mix” with tracks from Borealism, Boca 45, mndbd, Jah Wobble and Mad Professor. Tune in and get on that circle of lattitude and enjoy! If you haven’t a shortwave radio do tune in on this online SDR here on 9395kHz on AM mode.

What’s going on (in Lewisham)?

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!

Sole survivor

This morning while listening to this week’s Don Lett’s Culture Clash show we heard this tune from DJ Spooky – Alter Echo Dubtometry (Optometry Remix) which is well up our street. This evening we viewed a lone surviver of the heron attack in our fish pond. Respect to the lone fish!

Extra classic(s)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdSNeKbdwT4

Thanks to Dr Strangedub for including the dub to the above (Mad Professor – Fast Forward into Dub) on this week’s Echo Chamber on KFAI which made me post the original here. A lovely tune!

Also found the above on youtube the other day, a great bit of live mixing by the King (Jammy) himself. Two to perk up those dark winter nights!