Guy Fawkes loved the reggae, loved the reggae

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On this Guys Fawkes night, a big shout goes out to our good friend Marc B for sending us the musical recommendation above, an NTS show from Dan Jagger Ball on Mixcloud. There’s some wonderful stuff on it including the first tune from the great Roy Shirley with the wonderful Music is the key on the Amalgamated label here.

On hearing Roy Shirley, we remembered a TV show in the Aquarius series from 1976 about British reggae (below) which we taped thanks to Max Betamax when it was reshown in the mid 1980’s. The great Roy Shirley is in it (with Rico on trombone) alongside other reggae greats including Aswad, The Cimarrons, Sir Coxson, Matumbi, Tito Simon, Ijahman Levi with an stripped down version of Jah Heavy Load, Geoffrey Chung, a star jumper or two and also Nicky Thomas who gives a sterling performance of What love is at 20 mins in at Chalk Farm studios (next door to The Belmont that must have seen a few reggae artists having a pint there) and ends with a clip from Count Suckle‘s legendary Q club in Paddington.

It’s a show well worth watching if you love a bit of time travelling and good music. Reggae, you can’t beat it!

Seven seven inch singles selection

One of the good things in life is looking through a pile of seven inch singles and not thinking too much about the tunes and putting together a mix (in the old days it would be on one of those cassette tape things). Below is a quick one put together this evening after looking through a couple of piles of records that haven’t been played for a while.

We were influenced by a post by The Rhythm Doctor on Facebook about a recent mix of his from 7” singles for MOJO Estonia and Sugar B‘s “supermix” show on Charisma FM 87.8 Mhz where all sorts of reggae singles are played in any order.

Here’s the first Seven seven inch singles selection in the pot and here’s the tracklisting:
Jah Cure – Longing for version/drop leaf rhythm
Alton Ellis & The Flames – Ain’t that loving you
Ras Ibuna/Village Bunch – Diverse Doctrine Version
Pablove Black – Chaunting Dread
Anthony B – Stop Fight
Jah Woosh – Shine Eye Gal Version Part 2
Yabby You/King Tubby’s – Chant Down babylon Version

We welcome other mixes and don’t worry too much about the genres just put them on and if they sound good…

Before the 40 mph wind came

It’s been a while since we’ve been out in the garden so we spent a couple of hours yesterday and today tidying up little areas rather than tackle the whole thing (and then possibly feel defeated). We found a giant garlic bulb (below) which was sprouting so we took the cloves apart and replanted them, fingers crossed!

We also had a go at the bed at the bottom of the garden (which has the wild bit behind it which is looking a bit messy at the the moment) which has been overrun with nasturtiums and weeds (below). We’ll be putting some vegetables in again we reckon. The cardoon on the right hand side is still going as well.

We also tidied up the bed by the garage, making it look a lot more tidier. The handful of hours we spent today will hopefully saving us a bit of work when spring finally comes around.

We’re supposedly getting 40 odd miles an hour winds later so it’s doubtful we’ll be sitting around the firepit watching the New Year’s Eve fireworks at midnight.

And talking of the new year, happy 2025 to all our readers and friends worldwide from us here at Weeds.

Bobby Crush in dub?

The other week we were searching through some old singles for an instrumental mix and came across this 7″ that we don’t have much idea about. Both sides of the labels are majorly defaced and the matrix number is MA 011 – A1. We can’t even remember where it was bought from perhaps from a stall under the arches not far from Brixton Recreation Centre in the late 1980’s but who knows.

It’s an strange piano reggae instrumental which we jokingly dubbed at the time “Bobby Crush Special” and that’s meant with no disrepect to the pianist on this record. It just reminded us of the great Mr Crush tinkering the ivories in the 70’s.
Any idea what this tune is and put us out of our misery?

Morning all from Estonia

Big shout to our good mate The Rhythm Doctor for sending us a weather report out of the studio window of IDA Radio, Tallinn this morning. They’ve just had some snow out there and the top temperature in Tallinn for this forthcoming week is predicted to be -5 C. We’re certainly will not be complaining about the weather here!

If you want to listen to something great on a Monday morning tune in here for a two hour selection of Jazz, Reggae, Electronica and downbeat from 9am. It’s a show well worth tuning into!

Skylarking on the radio

Big shout to our good mate Shane Quentin for this excellent mix for his Skylarking show on Tak Tent Radio. Some excellent tunes here!

And here’s the tracks:
Vernon Allen : Far I Come
The Viceroys : Sugar Spice
Ernest Ranglin Selected Group : Free Form
Black Velvet : Safari
The Skatalites : Collie Bud
Azie Lawrence : Pempelem
Raymond Harper : Autumn Leaves
Arena : Knot Up Head
Invaders : You Touch My Soul
Don Drummond & The Skatalites : Smiling
Tomorrow’s Children : Bang Bang Rock Steady
Al Senior Pone & Hippy Boys : Hold My Hand
The Termites : I Made a Mistake
Bonnie Gayle : I Can’t Change My Skin
Grey Brothers : Big Man
Jackie Mittoo & The Soul Vendors : Midnight Hour
Prince Buster : High Blood Pressure
Amiel Moodie : Ratchet Knife
Johnny & The Attractions : Call Of The Drums
The Kingstonians : Mother Miserable
Delroy Wilson : I Shall Not Remove
Henry III : I’ll Reach The End
Horace Andy : Goodnight My Love

An alternative to Michael McIntyre and some morse dub

Here’s a couple of mad ones for a Saturday night. The first is a Intiche remix of a tune from lagartijeando out of Argentina called Antiguos Deuños De Las Flechas. To say it’s a bit out there is an understatement, great graphics too! We’ve just had a quick look into Intiche, originally from Argentina and now resident In Berlin who makes some mad chilled out tunes. Worth taking a look into too if you like the above type of gear.

And here’s Mad Professor with Psychic Vampire with some morse code in it for good measure! Dubbed out CW, we’re always up for that!

And if that isn’t enough, here’s another example from ECHO BEACH Lifefidelity. New genre alert?

(Good) Tune for a Tuesday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVWIzTHYS9k

Cheers to Your Host from This is a music show for playing the version of Show us the way from Hell & Fire on last week’s show, and what a tune! And one that made us think of the wonderful Joya Landis and John Holt duet from years ago.

And talking of the excellent This is a music show here’s said episode of the show for your listening pleasure!

Rock the musical (and gardening) atmosphere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ompd6BT3dZc

As heard on today’s Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on IDA Radio (Tallinn) (from 8am-11am UK time every Monday) here’s a well chilled and dubby classic from a few years ago and very much a favourite here!

Also a related tune from the great Lee Perry (RIP) also heard on the same show a few weeks previously. Tunes!

And while we’re there, let’s not forget this one…