super al

When The King Is Half Undressed came out I was listening to a lot of Indie music and metal so it was strange that I loved Bellybutton at the time. A lot of the pubs we frequented had video jukeboxes, The King... came on and it just chimed with me. Listening to Senses Working Overtime on my run, beautifully strange instrumentation but catchy hooks all over. I liked the song as a kid (10 years old at the time) but listening now you'd think the record company would say "single?, you sure Andy?" 😂

Weirdly I am totally besotted with Jellyfish's Bellybutton, it's my favourite album of all time! Surely another reason to get beyond Skylarking 😁

Thanks, I'll do that. After posting I was working on the house whilst listening to someone's XTC playlist on YouTube...first 7 or 8 tracks, not one from Skylarking 😄

The Dukes was my introduction to XTC, I was in a band and the BL/songwriter taped some stuff for me. Only many years later did I get Skylarking which I love. I'm going to listen to more of their albums but I'm worried that after Skylarking the rest might be disappointing. I used to know a Nigel who claimed to be from the same school as Colin but I'm sure any Nigel from that era of Swindon has laid claim to having that song written about them. There is a recent ish interview with Andy P on the Rockonteurs podcast, he goes through the whole Colin v Andy songwriting thing (he sounded a little bitter) Any suggestions as to what album to listen to after Skylarking will be much appreciated 😁

Last gig this year! 🙁 Booked back in May for a mate's 50th so a gig with a guaranteed crowd, two sets of mostly originals. Our few covers are from Tom Petty, Whitesnake, AC/DC (of course 😄), JJ Cale, Rory McLeod and T Rex. Chris, our guitarist, found the backdrop from the band's pre @super al era so I pinned it up on the pub window curtain rail 👍🏻 Could probably do with an iron. Great crowd, mostly people I've known for 20-30 years so there was definitely a good vibe. Great comments after, love the word to describe our sound from one mate - seventiesness 😂 (he was drunk). Airwalk trainers on my feet, they are wearing thin on the sole so may have to retire them and just go with the various colours of converse I have in the future. Have been using the ibanez 1205 lately but as this was an end of term gig I went with my PPI bass, the Lakland 55-02 (the swiss army knife of basses 😄). It's a shame there's no more gigs in the diary but we haven't recorded any new songs in almost a year so we'll use this time productively...I hope 🙂

Don't forget Al James from Felis Leo (who? 😂). And Jimmy James from My Morning Jacket. @Mykesbass did you know there was a soul band called Rufus Stone?

Next Saturday we'll be playing the Duck Inn, Duck Ln, Laverstock. A little out of town but a nice pub to play. It's a mate's 50th and his missus sorted it out with the pub...they don't usually have bands playing originals 😬. I've played there twice before with the soul band who seemed to know the local musicians, there was a quiet bloke who shook my hand after the first gig and apparently he was a bassist with the Troggs (so I was told! 🤷🏻‍♂️) and Titch from Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky Mick & Titch (try getting that right when you're drunk 😂) came along for the 2nd gig. We'll be lucky if anyone from any band turns up to watch us! Sorry for the poster quality, it's all I can post on here 😐

That's sad news, I love Danny's bass on those John Martyn records. I spoke to him briefly in the bar of the Winchester Theatre Royal after a sparsely attended gig there. I think at the start of the gig he acknowledged and spoke about the lack of an audience but the performance he and his band gave was excellent, that was around '92/'93 I reckon. The only other time I saw him live was with Martyn at Salisbury City Hall, I think he did Blue Monk. There was a fair bit of banter between them, probably the main draw for the tour 😄.

@Stub Mandrel when you say "the other guys were less lucky" don't you mean less fortunate son 😂 I'll get me coat 😐

I've been listening to a lot of reggae over the summer, it seems like my whole family agrees to like only one genre of music. There was one album that captured the rest of my family's imagination, Benjamin Zephaniah's 'Rasta' ('82/'83 ish). A fantastic album with some great instrumentation. Apparently the ol poet himself was fond of picking up the bass, I've seen pics of him holding one but I'm unsure if he played live or on his own recordings. Rasta was my introduction to Benjamin Zephaniah back in the early 90s, I taped it off a mate and wore that tape out in the car stereo, I've listened to subsequent albums of his and, although good, none match the impact of that first album. Anyway, can anyone shed any light on Benjamin's bass playing out there please?

YouCut_20250920_002834235.mp4 Bit of a late report but I can do that can't I? We played (Felis Leo) a gig in Southampton on Sunday afternoon. The band's first gig there and my first there in 11 years! I miss playing Southampton, I have fond memories of many, many venues there 😍😄 Ages ago a mate said try Music In The City, a weekend festival in various strange venues around Southampton. We got booked as the last act on in a place called St Michael's Vault. Turns out it's like an old wine cellar/jail/bomb shelter type place in the car park behind the Titanic pub! We got there early enough to watch a couple of the bands before us, turns out this festival is quite popular and well organised so we had a chilled time enjoying the bands. The sound in the place was terrible though and the volunteers were supplying free earplugs to punters 😂 When we got on stage we didn't have the crowd the other bands did but there was a few so we were happy. Those that weren't fam n friends actually were there for the duration, unbelievable with the noise we were making! Hopefully we'll get more gigs down that way, I've always enjoyed gigging in Southampton more than Salisbury (sorry Salisbury, you need to embrace your inner rocker self more 🤔). I wore me converse and the sound guy liked my ibanez sdgr 1205 bass.

That's it! Thank you @Russ We love quoting that Boba line in his NZ accent "he's no good to me dead!"

Why have a missed this thread, I love talking about my band 😁 I'm in an original rock band called Felis Leo, we're a bit old skool 70s and 80s influenced with a heavy dose of AC/DC in the DNA. The three original members started the band 40 years ago in school but went their separate ways and came back together in 2017 at the start of their mid life crisis (none of them can afford Porsches so a band is the next best thing). They recorded an album, Life By Misadventure and a 4 track EP, Porn At Work before I joined. I left a function band in the summer of '22 and was asked to join FL around November time. Loved the music but wasn't interested in getting back on the bass horse at that time. The 2nd time they asked was a few months later but this time there was a caveat, they were playing a mutual friend's wedding and they were desperate 😄 When I started rehearsing they had lost their drummer too! This has become a running theme, since I joined there have been 4.5 drummers 😂 (and we used to rehearse near the full size Stonehenge). My first gig was the wedding. Driving away from the gig on a hot August night I stopped as something caught my eye, I wound down the window and watched two UFOs fly silently above me. I followed them for a while on my home and thought "you don't see this in covers bands". We do about half a dozen gigs a year and we've just played our first gig in Southampton. Since I joined I've been allowed to join in with the recording process as the previous bassist didn't 🤷🏻‍♂️. Since '23 we've only released the Butterflies EP and a Christmas single, Cold Turkey. There's a couple of new tunes that require recording, one of them is about Lydia Shears who was a local witch and great, great, great Auntie to our guitarist Paul. He hasn't inherited any of her shapeshifting qualities. Here's the last EP

In one of the early scenes in Aquaman there's a bass guitar, I think it's supposed to be his screen dad's bass...the guy who plays Boba Fett , can't remember his name. Anyway, not a lotta people know that.

I've seen a drummer in Salisbury who wears a Spiderman outfit whilst playing, somehow just a drummer busking seems crazy but wearing that outfit too! Inca pipers here as well. We have a bluesy guitarist with a skeleton on drums...the skeleton was talking to the audience last time out. My guitarist mate used to busk with a fiddle player, they now play pubs, parties, weddings and festivals...sometimes all on the same day! 😂