super al

Bit of brass on a Christmas song? Can't wait to hear it. Jonah Lewie's Stop the Cavalry is another fave of mine, that brass band refrain just reeks of Christmas ☃️

£30! @BigRedX ...bargain. Our singer was a cameraman in Germany for many years (our song Summer Jiving is a true story from that part of his life) so you'd think we'd be all over the visual side of things but no. Shame about your singer packing it in, I pretty much judge bands on the vocal sound and style...both songs have vocals that I enjoyed. The Wombles have come up a lot recently, I listen to Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt's Rockonteurs podcast. Apparently there was a lot of musical talent inside those Womble costumes on TOTPs.

December Snow is a proper earworm, that's going to be stuck in my head all day now! Cool video too (I wish we had the time to do a video).

Great cover of I Believe In Father Christmas @BigRedX , one of my favourite Christmas songs.

My band have had a pretty lean time this year. We've played 4 gigs, had 2 drummers and recorded 1 song...a Christmas song 🎅🏻 A little while ago a local radio DJ asked if any local bands had recorded a Christmas song, an original song or a cover, to play on his show in December. It kind of felt right to ask the lads to do this. Luckily our new drummer (the 4th I've played with since joining the band 2 1/2 yrs ago!) has his own studio of which we have been using for rehearsals. Jon the singer came up with some words and our two guitarists thrashed out some riffage for me to pedal along to 😁 Over two evenings we wrote and recorded this little beauty...ok, you can really tell it was knocked together in a few hours but I kinda love that low fi thing and you just can't help but feel all christmassy when you hear Chris' solo. Anyone else got something original in a Christmas vibe? Maybe we could do a BassChat Xmas compilation tape 😁 Even any Scrooges with an anti Christmas song are welcome!

It's a shame it wasn't vinyl, worth an absolute fortune 😊

I took a photo at the time, I think it's about 2ft in CDs. I had some FZ CDs from the early 90s and the sound quality in the 2012 versions is noticeably better 👍🏻

Grand Funk Railroad have never been on my radar for some reason but I'm listening to the Gail Ann Dorsey podcast from another basschatter here and she says the first bassist she listened to was the GFR bassist...thought I'd check em out and here they are with my favourite guitarist (bassists have favourites! 😲) Frank Zappa. My missus entered a competition to win the entire catalogue of FZ's 2012 remastered reissues and won! That was 2013, I'm still working my way through them 11 years later 😄

A rare outing for Felis Leo last night at the Avon Brewery, Salisbury. We were supporting another local lot, Punkture. First outing for our new drummer Darrell and my 6th gig since joining in April '22. It all went really well if not a little on the fast side at times. Managed to fit all our set in, I thought it would be a squeeze but maybe the faster pace shaded a few seconds here and there off the tunes 😆 Loads of great feedback, we might be getting somewhere now and gigs might be more forthcoming... might've picked up 2 from last night. A couple of Punkture's band used to play with Paul Di'anno so they paid tribute to him during their set. He lived round these parts for many a year. VID-20241027-WA0001.mp4 Gear. I plugged my Lakland 55-02 into my TC Electronic BH550 connected to the Ashdown 2x10 cab of Punkture's bassist (who I noticed had a Shuker black P bass, couldn't see the signature on it though, forgot me glasses🤓).

Mr Lego foot 😄

When I joined a soul band and realised Take Me To The River was in the set I was very happy. I'm a big Talking Heads fan but prefer Rev Al's version and got the tingles and 'wow' moments in rehearsals and the first few gigs (helps if you're playing alongside a great drummer too!). Don't think I'd had as much of an endorphin rush as I had with that song. I Wish and Superstition sounded great when playing with a cookin' horn section, I feel blessed to have bathed in the funky lake of Wonderland. I'm in an originals band now that dabbles with covers when required although recent consensus is that we avoid them altogether. That's a shame as this band have been my baptism into AC/DC and they only seem to play songs from Powerage! Riff Raff started off as a PITA but I've grown to love it. I think a couple of times we started the set with Rock n Roll Damnation and encore with Riff Raff! Another originals band I was in would encore with Del Shannon's Runaway which was just sublime and other times I've had the joy of playing obscure songs like Whiskey in my Whiskey or Hobo Heaven on an upright bass.

We begin another new chapter in Felis Leo's history in a couple of weeks time (it's our new drummer's first gig!). Weirdly we are playing the same venue as our last gig with the old drummer...but not that weird when you consider it's Salisbury and our options for original bands are very limited and we seem to be ignored by 2 venues so far. Maybe grey hair and receding hairlines are only for cover bands 😂 We're supporting one of Colin Holton's many bands, Punkture so we're the kids for a change. One rehearsal left to get Darrell bedded in behind the kit. Our next gig? Andover in March!!!

Video was too long, I admire your attention span 😂 I got as far as Cheap Sunglasses 😁 Did MS in a soul band as an encore...we never seemed to rehearse it 🤷🏻‍♂️ I think I went between several different versions of the bassline, sometimes mid song 😂 Loved it/hated it but if the crowd wanted more MS delivered it

But like vinyl it'll come back in fashion...people will have a hankering for green mineral, mark my words.

I've used the free version of the app for a few years for band stuff. Some of the templates are decent enough for a complete amateur graphic designer like me 😁 Quite like this one that looks like a folded and creased poster, suits our rockin' lion.

I do like my one10s, you can't beat how light and easy they are to lug about and I've had some heavy gear in my time! I'm usually up between our lead guitarist's Marshall cab pounding out the riffs and the drummer thumping away and these little buggers cut through all that! I took my one10s out of their cajon bags at their first rehearsal and the drummer said "where's the rest of your hi-fi?" Band members are usually amazed at the amount of air me and the lil' twins are pushing though😁 I'd make room for all of them, get rid of something else, furniture, telly, wife...anything but the cabs 😆

Is this going to cause a slight and sudden upturn in traffic to the classifieds section on Basschat...time to sell my Marlin Slammer I reckon 😂

I often think I'm must be an awful bass player as I don't think about the sound much. I'm mostly playing a Lakland 55-02 through a TC Electronic BH550 amp with 2 x one10s. I was in a soul band for 3 years so I played with just the bridge pickup and Mark King's Sweet Minger toneprint on one channel and I can't remember the other one but I rarely remembered to switch anyway. The closer I played fingerstyle to the bridge the better I sounded for the funkier tunes. The other bassist who was in the soul band before me and subsequently returned to bass duties after me tends to overplay I think, the singer always says there's more breathing space in the songs when I play (I keep my notes short and funky). After the soul band I joined a heavy metal band playing originals. This has been a tough lesson in finding my place in the band, the guitars tend to play low so sometimes I'm lost in the mix. I've managed to cut through by rolling off the bass on the amp and go more trebly. The lead guitarist is also the band's 'sound engineer' so he's been a great help. I guess I just don't want the faff of a load of pedals, etc. I remember supporting Toupe (local Southampton band with 2 x bass and a drummer) and watching them set up, it looked like one of them had a scaffold plank full of pedals... I thought "eff that for a game of soldiers, how does he find the time!". It's probably why I've only ever had one person ask me after a gig about my gear in 30 odd years of playing (it might be more, I just can't remember 😄)

As you mentioned jazzy I shall go with the Leo Smalls Quintet...and keep the audience guessing 🤔 Other than that, I'm in my garden so Moroccan Round Table

I've been a fan since Uplift Mofo but didn't get round to seeing them until 2003 for some reason. I was discussing the absolute hatred some folks have for them with a fellow bassist the other week and he couldn't quite believe it (he'd never come across it). Someone once told me why they're so crap live which was enlightening, they do elicit a strong reaction among 'musos' 😆. I kind of like that in a way, boring world if we all liked the same stuff! I don't get Rush 🤷🏻‍♂️😆 At the end of the day they've been surfing that BSSM and Under The Bridge wave for over 30 years, if that didn't happen I guess they would've faded into obscurity during the 90s. Still love em despite Stadium Arcadium (my kids played it to death, it was the only album I allowed due to lack of profanity 😁). Won't go to see them live unless some benevolent friend buys me a ticket but all my friends hate the Chilis so that's not happening ☹️

I've enjoyed the songs I've heard so far 👍🏻

I thought I'd posted these up here already! Here's me playing Salisbury Live this year, we were the opening band for the whole event...so the audience was rather thin (but there was a bloke in a wheelchair who kept spinning round so we did alright 👍🏻). I'm sporting a fetching Lakland 55-02 that I purchased here about 5 years ago. It's Felis Leo btw, the band that is 😄 Pics by Christopher Jungo

Oh dear... we're back to advertising for a new drummer ☹️ We found a great guy last year, helicopter pilot in the army and things have been trucking along nicely. Then he decided pretending to shoot targets with an Apache AH-64 was not for him and he's now off to Aberdeen to fly choppers to oil rigs. If anyone knows of a drummer looking for a rock band playing originals in the Salisbury area, get in touch 🙏🏻

Excellent idea @Tim Chapple Here's our latest EP...if I had to choose I'd probably go with the title track, Butterflies, for the playlist. Although it's not all myself playing bass (I feel like Bill Wyman sometimes 🤣) I'm particularly proud of Hundred Souls and someone on Facebook even commented on the bass line 😊. Looking forward to listening to all the songs here.