Leonard Smalls

Crosswords - Cream

Or even worse, when they're waiting for something to happen, the whole channel has programmes cancelled while a news anchor says "from our correspondent at... What's happening there?" and correspondent says "we're expecting that X or Y might happen, and here's the building it might happen in, and there may be some people in there who it will happen to or will do the happening". Then it's back to anchor who calls up an expert to do some vaguely informed speculating on whether the thing is going to happen. This is repeated until News can no longer justify taking over the channel for no good reason*. And meanwhile, we're all missing Bargain Hunt! *when I worked for Auntie Beeb, News were incredibly arrogant - they felt that all the other programmes were just filler between news. I'm sure that's true of all news organisations!

Be Stiff - Devo

Journalists seem to have Tourette's Syndrome... I was watching BBC Breakfast yesterday while doing my ever-lengthening stretching routine (it's got to be done!), and for some reason one of the presenters was in Downing Street (why? what will that accomplish?) when he said "we have here our political correspondent Ooglie (could be!) Zefferman", and sure enough, there he was. So they started with the usual wild speculation when in the background David Lammy could be seen sauntering towards No.10. Mr Zefferman was in the middle of a sentence to Presenter-Man when he broke off, shouted to Mr Lammy across the road "Mr Lammy, how long has Keir Starmer got left as Prime Mincer?" and immediately continued with his interview. Lammy, as one would expect, completely ignored him. Now this isn't just Zefferman, it's reporters in general of all stripes. They shout at their intended target as soon as they're in eye-shot, and never get an answer. It's a complete waste of time, and annoying for anyone who hasn't got this affliction.

Make Up (and wake love with me) - Ian Dury and the Blockheads

Never had a problem playing with my (very plain) wedding ring, but having seen horrific pix of de-gloving injuries, always took it off when going climbing... Where I managed to lose it! Now I have a slightly chunkier ring (not wedding, tis sliver with black Iona stone) on my little finger left hand as that's the only place it fits. Makes no difference to playing (I do fret with the little pinky!), but then I also wear a strap-on that hand * * for a previous case of trigger thumb... But it's black and punky.

This is wot I just made in my studio... For the upcoming Basscat CompoCompo!

Inspired by the pic of a majestic Zebra, I thought we needed some dub to celebrate the hole * of the plains Zebra... Bass = Wal Guitar = Squier Toronado Keys, drums = Ableton onboard sounds I had lots of fun doubling up piano and guitar stabs and mangling them with oodles of delay and phaser, with backwards bits and who knows what sort of devilish trickery. * edited to say my song isn't about Zebra's holes, but homes!

We've got a surprisingly exciting playlist in our shop!

Love 'em!

Our other bass player in the punk band uses an Elf - at rehearsal into my large Precision Devices 15" cab and for gigs into a 4x10 with Celestion speakers. * He uses a Sansamp as well, but we constantly have to tell him to turn down - and the rest of us are quite loud... And I use a 1200w Crown power amp into Markbass 2x10 and 4x10 for home practice. It goes loud as well as quiet! *both cabs have a sensitivity of around 100dB/W@1m. So that's 100dB of racket for 1W going in, 103dB for 2W, 106dB for 4W, 109dB for 8W, 112dB for 16W, 115dB for 32W, 118dB for 64W, 121dB for 128W.

You're not wrong - these guys make most bands, not just 2 pieces, look like rank amateurs! Triple post...

See whole concert on previous page!

Aye - it's rare that I'll watch all the way through a concert video without skipping or worrying about the other stuff I'm meant to be doing!

Some crazy Canadian mathtyperock...

Not sure bandmates will want to call it the "Don't e.p."! Or are you saying we should spare the world the pain of releasing an obviously disturbing racket into an already shattered world? Though that could also be a good title, in the spirit of Iain M Banks!

Beelzebubble Life - Squarepusher

In Glorious Times had been suggested - but liking the deletion of an unnecessary space!

My very long-running band (40 years, on and off!) are about to release our second ep... The first one was just named after one of the tracks (Feed The Creature), but we feel that we could have something a bit more descriptive of all the tracks, or at least summat witty. Currently the holding title is "Glorious Times" (after one of the tracks - other tracks are "Penny Arcade", "Tall Buildings" and "(I bit my) Mother Tongue"). Any thoughts? We're sort of EDM Funk Rock - Spotty link below to first ep. Suggestions have been "It's All Bollocks, Never Mind" (!), "Best Enjoyed In Retrospect?", "Pot Holes Present Challenge" (?) and "The Deva Sessions" (songs were written especially for a gig (rare!) in Chester...

Negativ Nein - Einstürzende Neubauten

White Lines - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

To be fair, not every Porky Prime Cut sounds good, I spose they did the best they could and scrawled their X on it! And most of the singles I've got from that period were Porky's so I thought he only did good stuff, ie what I liked. Seemed just about every decent punk and new wave record was a Porky!

It's the old "Garbage In, Garbage Out" ... If it's a poor recording and/or a poor pressing it's never going to sound good! Saying that, I occasionally have a singles night (!) where I flop out my 7 inchers from the late 70s/early 80s, and while not having the absolute fidelity of something like Al McDowell's Time Peace, or Nazaire's"Who's blues?", they don't sound bad at all, especially things like The Monochrome Set's "He's Frank" or DAF's "Kebabtraume"... They, however, have the immortal words scratched into the end groove - "a Porky Prime Cut". Always wanted to have a record of my own mastered by Porky!