Leonard Smalls

It's on our shop playlist! This is currently playing:

Talk Talk... Not the band, but the dreadful telecommunications company. We were without phone and internet while with them for 6 weeks. I phoned them virtually daily, having hiked to the top of our hill where there was mobile signal and heard nowt but excuses for why it wasn't fixed. Then they cancelled the fault ticket, twice, so I had to start all over again. And the fault turned out to be exactly what I'd told them it was - whoever had laid the cable had done it very shallowly over the corner of a field, and that had been ploughed. The same as it had the year before when our phone line had gone down the first time. But their general incompetence was unbelievable - we're talking worse than British Gas! Though SSE, who I'm trying to deal with at the moment are approaching those levels of rubbishness too!

More Chokery-Pokery, in Hereford this time with an excellent line up - there's crazed South-Walesians ANoise, Agit-punkers MC16, us and Hereford's finest dub-rap-punx, Last Tree Squad.

Can too!

Indeed! However, folks seem to be barely buying cds anymore - we've sold about 100 from our run of 250, but had shedloads more plays on streaming platforms (which has netted us about £8, though quite a bit more from Bandcamp downloads). I spose the argument might be - will you sell more vinyl meaning that in the long run you'll make more? As for test pressings, I have a vinyl system that is serious enough to evaluate them and where even end-of-side tracks sound excellent. Though whether any buyers will listen to it themselves is a different matter!

Never! 😁 No thread where the word "record" is used will be complete without Big Red saying it's an inferior format!! 😆 That Roy Castle didn't like 'em either.

We had a pretty good one in Malvern last night supporting old skool punx The Samples. Decent sized crowd (room was almost full for us) and sound was pretty good - as the PA was vocals only and I had the biggest amp I could actually hear myself. I'd also put in simple tube compressor/noisegate combo in my Helix for a clean (for me!) bass sound. Gear was Parker bass through Helix into BBE pre and DBX rack compressor, Crown pwer amp and Markbass 4x10. Icing on the cake was that everybody hated us and nobody gave any compliments about anything we did until we left the stage and there was a collective shout of "Thank fck for that!" Anyway, here's a bit... (edited to add cleaned up audio and colours vid)

That ain't a thing - Dredd and the Badass Weeds

Lingerie - Lizzo

bit of Psycho

Music lessons in my schools (70s-early 80s) were largely a waste of time... There was nothing in primary, just a bit of singing at assembly. And in secondary we had music in years 1-3, 1 lesson a week. They consisted of Mr Bird playing some music (usually Young Person's Guide, or The Planets, or for a contemporary feel (!), Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Yawn). Then folks would say if they liked it or not, though because he wasn't particularly good at discipline this usually meant him shouting above a general cacophony of rude comments. And then we'd do some very rudimentary theory. This theory would be tested at annual exam time. However, they discovered I had private piano lessons after I got 100% in the first exam (my mum's a piano teacher) so from then on I got different exams from everybody else - though this was usually about grade 1 theory when I'd already done grade 5... So music wasn't really a thing for us at school. Though in 6th form, Mr. Q had the bright idea of forming a one-off band to play before a viewing of that banned anti-nuke film (wot I can't remember the name of). I played keys, Cossack played guitar and Mouse played his violin bass - someone rattled a tambourine in the background while we did a couple of BarclaysBankHarvest and Dylan songs. I was so fascinated by Mouse's bass that I took it up when I got to Uni - and strangely it turned out that the Hofner bass belonged to Mouse's brother, our very own @lurksalot!

Wake me up before you go-go -Wham DOH! Too slow!

Nice and Sleazy - Stranglers

No fcn problem - Suicidal Tendencies

I don't like Fender basses - probably because they're far too common! But the only one I really hate is the Hofner violin bass, especially with rubber strings. Completely lacking in heft!

no woman no crime - Bob Marley (*) * my favourite misheard lyric...

Supporting Old Skool punks, The Samples, in Malvern Saturday 20th:

Here's mine! A new Future Impact patch wot I made inspired this Mutant Disco Ditty... Features the Trusty Wal through Future Impact and Darkglass microtubes pedals... Plus 3 vocal samples I found and heavily autotuned, some Rhodes and other keyboard VSTs and a Fender Start through Bias FX. Drums programmed using standard Ableton Pack sounds. All mixed in Doblys and rolled in Ozone 9, with a light sprinking of Raum, Dubstation 2 and Objeq delay on vox.

Strangely, I quite like it... And I like Prince Fatty's dub version even more!

Pablo Picasso - Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers

Boys Boys Boys - Sabrina

The catalyst -Linkin Park

Seize the Rainbow - Sonny Sharrock