Leonard Smalls

It's actually a final chorus, after 3 verse and chorus combos before. It's a semi-respectable 1'54", so not really Napalm Death length!

Ta! It's only mobile phone footage but worked ok...

Here's a little blast of us being all punky at Rebellion recently...

Carwash -Rose Royce

Let's Start The Dance! -Hamilton Bohannon

Shut Up! - Black Eyed Peas

S'an instrumental piece of music. Or a song without words. Or simply, a ditty.

Some stuff I heard at Rebellion last week:

Mister Bojangles - Sammy Davis Jr.

Fkin A!

My other irrational hatred is when people call every single song a track. It's not, unless you're playing it off an album! Otherwise it's just a humble song, or in my case, a duff little ditty.

Wicki Wacky House Party - The Team

Not quite... "Pocket" can be described as a “sweet spot” where the music feels solid and unified without feeling overly rigid or stiff. It's sort of more "feeling the groove together" rather than rigidly playing to a metronome. It's like the difference between some heavily music-schooled jazz bands that, while exceptionally tight and right-on-time, just lack that syncopated groovy feel.

Turd Uncle - Bauhaus

I once shared a "cigarette" with him while we discussed P Funk at the Chillis aftershow party in the Astoria that I'd somehow blagged my way into. Seemed alright to me!

Der Mussolini - DAF

I remember seeing them at their 2nd ever UK gig - the Mean Fiddler in Harlesden. After 2 songs Hillel couldn't cope anymore wot with being off his face (he died not long after...) and left the stage. So the other 3 continued as they had no real choice. And Flea managed to fill the gap beautifully - did his own lines and threw in some of the guitar stuff too which most certainly isn't a sign that he "can barely play"! So unless he's somehow forgotten how to do the bass thing in the intervening 37-8 years, I suspect that he can still do it. And bear in mind, Stanley Clarke invited him onto the ultimate bassathon, Night School, so it would seem that the hatred is largely irrational - the low point of his career being that terrible StarSpangledGizmo he did at the Pooper Bowl...

Better photo from Rebellion...

Funnily enough, I was sound checking for a gig a couple of weeks ago and thought I'd give my funky envelope filter a go. After a quick wallop through Herbie's Chameleon the guitarist from the other band (serious hardcore punk, they were!) came running up and said how they wanted that sound in their band. I bumped into them again at Rebellion and once again they mentioned it! However, I'm not allowed to use it in Choked - everyone reckons it's "not punk enough".

Happy Talk - Captain Sensible

It was, at least in the acoustic stage! Couldn't see you because of the acres of black cloth on the sides of the stage! I found the Empress, Opera and Casbah all suffered from over loud kick swamping everything at the bottom. Insufficient gating, perhaps coupled with metalhead drum obsession?

After our Rebellion afternoon gig went and watched @cheddatom 's band Headsticks - they were, as usual properly excellent... So following some refuelling with pizza, tiramisu and double espressos we carted our gear 200m to the Washington pub which was surrounded by punks watching Year Zero (decent band!). We schlepped everything (actually, twas only Raph's bass amp, our instruments and cymbals) through the throng, set up and proceeded to play. And we made far fewer mistakes - slight speed errors here and there but starts, stops and changes were perfect. Good thing we'd had a rehearsal at Rebellion earlier 😁. All seemed to go down well, folks jigging about and no complaints when I did unnecessary slap'n'widdle solos. Which was nice! Gear and clothes exactly the same as earlier, apart from provided big Ashdown combo that sounded pretty awesome once I'd tamed the feedback. And the rest of the band went to watch Bad Manners in the Strictly Ballroom while I had a Glenfiddich 15yo in the hotel bar...

It's Raining Mendelssohn - Weather Girls

We've just done the first of two gigs today... We had the 1350-1420 slot at Rebellion Festival Arena. We played there two years ago and the sound was awful, boomy, feedback and generally horrible. So now they've put the stage facing across the room, and it's now the best sounding room at the Festival! For the first time in many years I went directly into the PA from my Helix. Our other bass player used the supplied AmpegSvt and Fridge. As a result, he was happy with trousers flapping indistinct mush, and I was very happy with a slightly slappier JJ Burnell-esque tone which suited my far too many notes style. We played ok, a number of mistakes due to nerves from our two new members and also a serious lack of rehearsal, but I shall eventually beat the songs into them good'n'hard. However, audience of 2-300 seemed happy (we were up against 4 other bands in the other Winter Gardens venues, plus the Typhoon and Red arrows flypast at Blackpool airshow. Afterwards we didn't get a kicking, and even sold some merch... Gear- Sandberg Basic, Helix, PA. Shoes - TUK zebra creepers. T-shirt - original UKSubs Another Kind of Blues from about 1978-9.

Funk, not Fight! - Bootsy Collins