Back this week

After a few weeks break from groundcutting and edgebreaking netcasting (without any fish being hurt) I have been prompted to return to your Sunday morning ears by the saddest event.

On Thursday evening John Kings died - you don't know him but I do. He spent the last 30 years working to improve the lives of rural Africans, latterly through the organisation run by himself and Mary his wife in South Africa, www.tsogang.org - I was privileged to help that work for a few weeks in 2009 after leaving Culture Lab.

John was an amazing bloke and we shared a love of music some of which I would like to share with you on Sunday.

Steve Dales

Lawrence of Arabia

SGS 31st July 2011

Catch up.

Hi - just realised that my blogginess had somewhat diminshed recently. Oh thank God I hear you cry he's back at last our earsouls can receive sustenance...well that's what I thought you cried.

3rd July Show

Blue show (no speaks)

17th July Show

Sorry about that - another show happening tomorrow.

Night time is the right time

Sidney Grove Sleepytime

This link will take you to sleepytime heaven - or at least a sample thereof.

Tonight was to be the first show but Culture Lab servers are being difficult so we're postponing this until 10th July. The evening will alternate with the morning on a weekly basis and that will be followed by famine, drought and the occasional shower.

See (hear) what you think.

Exclusive Attenborough bong bong biggedy bong action

I pre-recorded this one because I had family commitments in London and Falmouth (it's in Cornwall and it's boring - although my son Tom likes it) - it's interesting that it took me a lot longer to record my speaking bits - when you do it live there's no second chance so if you say something stupid it's too late.

Anyway this session has some music from Iceland, Okinawa and other places too. There's four songs from African countries from different times; the most recent being a Malian singer called Fatoumata Diawara here's a link to her youtube video of 'Wilile' as featured on the last show:
Lovely Fatoumata being lovely

I recently discovered a blog that features a lot of old-time reggae so I was happy to include two songs from Desmond Dekker the second of which segues with a unique recording of Sir David Attenborough
which exclusively reveals the hitherto unknown smoking habits of this most revered gentleman. Wild life.

Sidney Grove Sunday 19th JUNE 2011 by Steve Dales on Mixcloud

I should have thought about this before I started writing but I didn't.

Completely forgot to write a blog for the last show - forgot to record it too so had to record a home-made version for mixcloud. So that's it really. I'm going to be away for the next one so I'm pre-recording it in advance so you'll think I'm there even though I'm not.

Sidney Grove Sunday 5th June 2011 by Steve Dales on Mixcloud

The famous peg metaphor as applied to radio.

This week I have chosen a row of multicoloured musical choices set off against the grey, blue, pink and green background of my mellifluous speaking voice. It's interesting how, working without notes, I always manage to say something I: (a) can't finish without 'umming' or 'erring' or wondering why I'm saying this because I don't know what it means, (b) didn't mean, (c) has a worryingly downmarket double-entendre (I'm all about classiness ordinarily) - this week, 'imitating farmyard animals with his organ' (shades of Captain Beefheart) or (d) all of the above.
 Despite a great deal of practise I manage to cut of a beautiful song before the end and then attempt to cover technical difficulties by speaking when we've already established that anything more advanced than breaking wind and breathing are problematic for me! I crave your indulgence.

Sidney Grove Sunday by Steve Dales on Mixcloud

Arigatou gozaimasu Skype-san

This Sunday's show features music choices of Dan & Mieko Dales the Japanese branch of the family.
Dan-san's verbals are recorded via the magic of skype whilst chatting with his otosan (that's me).
Usual mix of jazzy, singy, strummy, bangy.

Find the podcasty here:

SGS 8th May



Hope you like it.

How excited am I about this Sunday's show?

This much...

..coming up on Sunday 8th May at 11am. Hurray.

Easter Sunday Sidney Grove

Another eclectic mix or gathering of auralisations. It's Oestrus Sunday so I didn't need any egging on to include one song that's got Jesus in the title and two songs with the word 'cross' similarly placed.
It's been a beautiful day here in Tyne Toon and I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of you were a little conflicted about staying in or going out. So here's a podcast version for those of you disloyal pooheads who couldn't correctly resolve the conflict:

Easter Sunday Sidney Grove

Sidney Grove Easter Sunday 24th April 2011 by Steve Dales on Mixcloud

I really enjoy putting these shows together and there's so much wonderful music to share. Unfortunately I spend a lot of time preparing - although I don't make notes - and then forget all the previously practised witticisms, insights and observations. So it's usually a bit stutterful and stammerific but eventually I seem to get my point (well 'a' point anyway) across. This week I said Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was 'a bit Indian' and neglected to say the title of a piece of music by Brian Setzer. Oh bugger!

The Vietnamese film music is from 'Cyclo' - imdb.com - very beautiful.

I'm grateful to Culture Lab Radio's 'Mannequin Licker' for reminding me of Alice Coltrane's music.

Finally poor old John Spencer has been in the wars and so I'm sitting in for him this coming Tuesday 26th April at 8pm.

Finally finally here's a picture of what I was involved with yesterday:

The Tenth of April

Not the title of a folk song - although it could be.
The Tenth of April was a beautiful day so I celebrated, in music, the emergence from winter into spring. Imagining a sleigh pulled by polar bears over a frozen snowy landscape under the aurora, next to the Trans Arctic motorway and beside ourselves with nitherdom.......then a glorious sunrise blinding and coruscating but energising and uplifting at the same time carrying us on a pulsating cloud of scintilla.

OK sorry about that. Have a listen anyway..

The Tenth of April show

Ratiocination

What?
We have to ask.
Well they are both (?) words (yes yes keep reading) which cropped up in a film that Jill and I watched the other evening. We've had the DVD sitting around for a several months. But the weirdness begins like this - I've never heard the term ratiocination spoken out loud before but it's in the title of a song that's been sitting  in my playlist for at least a week before I watched the film. Spooky eh?

What's even spookier is that nobody knows what it means or if it's even truly a word at all - although we could construct a methodical and rational argument to prove its existence, if we were clever enough.

So only a few days to go before the next show and I've got my music sorted and arranged in a temporal relationship - one piece to another - although it's possible that I may indulge in a little tergiversation (see, there's two of them) before Sunday.

The film's called 'Wit'.

Well that seems like a lot of words so here's a picture:

Life before Culture Lab Radio

Why I chose a life in music and other very intense things

Well of course I didn't choose a life in music and just as well really as I would have starved a bit sharpish.
Having said that I should say that music has always been very important to me (and probably every other person in the whole wide world but we are actually talking about me, well I'm talking about me and it's my blog so shut up).

I thought I'd start a blog....

I also though I'd do a radio show....

Ok then moving right along. What's to say about the music choices I made for this latest show, well probably lots but most of it would be wikipedia entries and that's not what we're about here. No, indeed not.
Anyway there are 15 wonderful tunes in this show all hand picked and rubbed to a shine on my check shirt before being presented to you in my inimitably slick delivery. It's an eclectic mix of styles and genres and labels and dates and there are some amazing statistics too eg 9 of the tunes are less than 3 minutes. Eh? Eh?

There's one tune on here that is anonymous - don't know where it came from etc if anyone has a clue let me know.
http://www.mixcloud.com/stevedales/sidney-grove-sunday-27th-march-2011/?

So don't forget every fortnight, Sunday Morning at 11am - 12noon on Culture Lab Radio
Culture Lab Radio