Big thanks to Mick Matthews of The Cambridge Self-sufficiency Group for letting us know about their 9th Potato Day and Seed Swap on Saturday 10th February. A nice touch is that they charge for the seed spuds by the kilo so visitors can buy as few or as many as they like. We love that idea here! If you are around those parts give their Potato Day a visit.
Cambridgeshire Self Sufficiency Group
9th Annual Potato Day
Saturday 10th February 2018 11am-2pm
All Saints Church,
Market Square,
Huntingdon PE29 3NR
Doors open to CSSG members at 10-30am and to the public at 11-00am
Also a big shout to Dr Strangedub for playing Earth Citizen by Jazzmin Tutum & Madtone on the other week’s Echo Chamber on KFAI. The show which also features The Green, Sly & Robbie, Talisman, Zion Train, Lee Perry and Coldcut X On-U Sound airs the unreleased as yet track from Weeds’ very own Madtone at 1.43.35 here. #jazzminmadtone #earthcitizen
We’ve been away for a week in southern Turkey for a well needed break and here’s some nice examples of what was about in the gardens of the village we stayed at. If only we had a little more heat over here in Forest Hill and we could grow a bit of what was on offer there including (above) a lovely selection of flowers and (below) one of the many prickly pear cactus and pomegranate trees in the village. The fruit was used by the local cocktail bar for their classic Pomegranate Martini, now that was a fine tipple!
While we were away it was very sad to hear that Holger Czukay the madcap bassist of Can, Jah Wobble collaborator and musical pioneer passed away aged 79. He was the creator of some classic shortwave radio sampling tunes that influenced the weeds related music project Madtone. When we first heard those tunes many moons ago they blew us away! Here’s some of our favourites. RIP Holger Czukay!
A massive thanks to the DJ and dread gardener Don Letts for playing Jazzmin Tutum & (Weeds up to me knees’ very own) Madtone’s – I once saw the revolutionary in you as part of his “Best of 2016” special in January on BBC Radio 6. The show features Damian Marley, C Duncan and The Frightnrs and a whole lot more! The Jazzmin & Madtone tune is at 1.02.42. Big thanks Don!
https://soundcloud.com/weedsuptomeknees/jazzmin-madtone-women-in-warzones
A big shout to our musical collaborator Jazzmin Tutum (dub poet and vocalist of Zion Train) out of Germany. Here’s a quick taster from the forthcoming collection of dub poetry called “Africa Don’t” from Jazzmin & Madtone.
Women in War Zones
She surfaces.
A memory.
News needs
paper clipping
sticking,
swelling,
forming the
word.
Here are the Women
in time parallels…
Past. Future.
Nothing in between
just the micro seconds
knotting the rubber bands
that dry rot and wear away
Thread-bare are the tapestries of life
A woman in a war zone
will crack the silence
because the leaking sickness
she watches trails from her own
open fruit body
And she will never forget
the sharp weapons to be found in
door-less places…
but now it is the night
searching
roundness
in the air
moistness
time watching.
Silence expected
A big thanks to Steve Barker, Fenny and Jim from the excellent On The Wire on BBC Radio Lancashire for including the track A Dahlia state of mind by Madtone on their 6th August show. It’s the final track at 1hr 57mins in.
As ever the show is a quality two hours including tunes by Twilight Circus with Big Youth, King Tubby, Dub Dynasty, The Frightnrs, Noura Mint Seym-Ali, Prince Buster and a whole lot more. It’s on every Saturday at Midnight available live here or on play again here. One well worth tuning into!
By the way there’s a great RA exchange interview (here) with Stevie B that’s well interesting and was a bit of pre-holiday listening here at Weeds HQ the other week.
Gardening has taken a bit of a back seat for the last week or so due to some DIY jobs at Weeds HQ and we’ve also been working on a 16 minute rework of Madtone‘s “Radio is my friend” for the dub poetess Jazz’min Tutum (Thanks to Dr Strangedub of the great Echo Chamber on KFAI for the initial link-up!) Results of the project will appear soon.
Things that are appearing at the moment though are the great flowers of the Dahlia, a tuber that we at Weeds love. In celebration of the glorious flower, here is an exclusive tune (downloadable for nowt) for Weeds from Madtone called “A Dahlia state of mind” a special dub of “Radio is my friend” (originally recorded for a session on The garden of earthly delights radio show.) One for all tuber fans everywhere!
A big thanks to Rob Da Bank for playing the latest tune from Jazzmin & Madtone called “Earth Citizen” 5 minutes into this imaginary soundtrack mix for Bestival Weekly on Soho Radio this week. The mix also includes Tim Hecker, The Kramford Look, Kidkanevil, Solar Bears, Ohal and Loose Meat and it’s great stuff!
If all goes to plan the tune will be released on a compilation on the Swedish label The Sublunar Society later this year. Crank it up!
It’s only taken us ten years but we’ve now started a CD Baby page for the musical output of Madtone. The first single Dark Dread/Emerald is up there in a digital stylee for the bargain price of 99 cents. Have a butchers here. Perhaps in the next ten years we’ll have the rest of the tunes up there!
A big thanks to our good friend (and musical collaborator) Paul Greenstein, formally of these parts now based in Melbourne, Australia for sending us some pics of his great garden taken last week. Just look at the healthy looking sweetcorn above!
I’m finding it hard not to be too jealous as it’s well dormant in our garden here and at the present moment it’s freezing and the rain is tipping it down! Paul was saying the other week it hit over 40 degrees and was leaving the garden looking a bit bedraggled. It looks good to us Paul!
On the great looking globe artichokes above he told us, “We left them a bit too late, so they’ve opened up, but we already ate a few and they were delicious. Apparently the second year is when you get a better crop, although they did pretty well for the first year. It’s been really hot, which tends to make the flower heads open more quickly.”
We love the aubergine above as well, “We’ve got about five plants, but so far only one aubergine! Well at least it’s a big one” he told us, great stuff!
Below’s a kent aka jap pumpkin. “No actual pumpkins as yet, and it’s taking over the garden. We also have a load of tomatoes and courgettes just ripening up, so we’re planning to do a load of tomato sauce and various pickles.” Brilliant!
And finally a photo of a very hot looking cat!
Great stuff Paul, we’re loving your gardening pics.They’ve now whet my appetite and I can’t wait until the spring!
Have a listen to some good tuneage at his Soundcloud page here. Here’s a collaboration from a few years ago with myself (as Madtone) and Paul under his Audiovert guise.
Just to let you know Weeds’ music arm 
Weeds up to me knees 