Leonard Smalls

My only bass purchase this year was a Lightwave Saber (!) fretless bass in black... It's lovely!

Love Bbotsy's Christmas album... And this!

This normally means wanting to hear what you want to hear. Anything different is political bias (or as Herr Trump would say, "Fake News"). The way I see it, the beeb is accused of political bias by both left and right wing folks; this probably means they're doing something right! Perhaps if every news story was followed by a bit of comment in the style of the Telegraph (or The Sun if it's TV news 😄) that would give it more of an air of "telling it like it is". Though every time I've heard someone being congratulated for "telling it like it is" it's following something deeply offensive said by the likes of Our Honourable M.E.P For Not Turning Up To Fisheries Meetings... As for whining right-on left wing comedy, would you prefer a bit of Jim Davidson, or Big Bernard Manning? Not sure if it's down to political bias by media organisations, but you don't seem to hear much right wing comedy, or right wing music? Could it be that Right-On Whining types are that little bit more creative? 😁

It is poor... But as I said, it wasn't The BBC who dropped the musicians - it was the producers of Strictly who are probably freelance anyway! The whole broadcast industry has an unfortunate culture of dangling the carrot of "gaining experience" in return for usually younger folk desperate to get into the business having to work long hours for free as runners... The BBC took no part in any of that sort of thing when I was there (till2002), though pressures on the licence fee no doubt have squeezed budgets...

I suspect that some grief will be had by those responsible, as The Powers That Be don't really like too much bad publicity. But as with all news stories it's only the original headline that sticks - you rarely find out what happens in the end or what action has been taken unless it is in itself deemed "newsworthy". Funnily enough, the area of the beeb (and i suspect other media organisations) that rarely if ever got grief and really didn't care if it did was news - they were largely a law unto themselves because they felt that their (usually highly selective) reporting was much more important than anybody else. In Post Production, we had the saying that if the technical quality of something wasn't very good that it was "good enough for sport", and if it was really, really bad "good enough for news"...

Indeed... It's not The BBC as a big monolith who refused to pay the band, it's either the Producer or the Associate Producer. There's at least one, and sometimes many more, on each programme. And in common with every other profession, there's scum sucking pigs, there's lovely people and everything in between. I've worked with ones from both ends of the spectrum - strangely there seems to be a correlation between the more scum sucking ones, tight budgets and poor organisation. These type spend more of their time buttering up "The Talent" - ie actors, presenters, directors - and build no sensible relations with the folks who actually do the work that makes The Talent look good. This would include unknown bands! Many's the time I had ridiculous requests from a poorly organised producer (or director) for re-edits or re-dubs on the day before transmission simply because actor a had said a line just a tiny bit out of character, or a scene looked a bit too green on the Producer's vhs copy! Luckily, as these things often came from my budget I could politely give them the 3 little words unless it was something to actually worry about! And funnily enough, because I was at the poor relation end of TV (Post Production) I was paid considerably less than them...

I'd recommend a Lightwave - they're extremely light (probably half my Wal!), sound great and don't have the Beatles overtones 😁

Here's a bit of poppy noisecore; audience are great! And here's some jazzier noisecore: And this is what happens when serious jazzers get involved All are hilariously entertaining!

Every time I saw Ian Dury and the Blockheads I was left open-mouthed, with just a dribble of drool emerging; they were just so tight,and so into it... Other worryingly awesome performances included Jonas Hellborg Trio at the Bassclef, back in his twin neck Wal days; this was remarkable for both the virtuosity of both bass players, but the fact they didn't come on till after 1am! Then there was Trouble Funk, who were probably the joint tightest band (with Ian Dury!), Kraftwerk (in 1981) - considering they barely moved they were amazing, The Cramps (none more rocknroll!), Butthole Surfers at the Mean Fiddler (did I say there was none more rocknroll than the Cramps? Well the Buttholes run 'em pretty darn close!), That Gig with Stanley Clarke, Omar Hakim, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock at the Festival Hall, and finally, James Blood Ulmer with Jamaaladeen on bass and Calvin Weston on drums - I'd never heard jazz played with so much cojones, groove and raw power...

Funnily enough, one of the 1st records (*) I bought was Feeding of the 5000 by Crass! * actually the 1st was Money Money Money by Abba 😮

Shouty punkfunk!

If anyone's wondering just what sort of old tosh you can produce in just over 2 hours, check this! It would be the perfect 3 minute pop song, if it was actually 3 minutes, a lot more poppy and a whole lot better... It may become a new song for the band though!

I've been busy mixing, grading and tarting up a half hour set for the band's online benefit... But I did get an hour yesterday to record something - including for the first time, guitar... Not sure how you play those things with the cheese wire for a top string. Perhaps next time I should try a pick? Anyway, should get chance to coat it in glitter tomorrow!

Personally, I don't like covers unless they're significantly different from the o0riginal! Awesome bass playing on this one!

Talking of which, always loved this!

To be fair, he's quite a nice guy! And I used to occasionally write gig reviews for Leeds Student and Leeds Other Paper. A friend of mine, who's now a famous write, once asked me to cover a gig he'd been assigned so he could go on a date with this lass he fancied... It was Sugar Minott, at some boozer in Chapeltown; I thought it a bit odd he was playing in this hitherto-unknown music venue so a m8 and I schlepped over there. And we were met with fluorescent lights, vinyl floor, old men sipping stout. It turned out that they'd hoped to put the gig on, publicised it (at least to Leeds Student gig reviews editor) then it had fallen through - probably because they didn't know how to put gigs on. However, they did a very nice pint of Guinness, so my mate and I wrote the most gushing review, making it sound like it was The Happening of The Year, possibly the century - all Dub-tastic R-squake bass and spirals of gangasmoke ascending heaven-ward to mingle with Sugar's angelic-host-like voice. We gave it to Mr X, who handed it in as his own... And it was published, followed by scores of letters complaining that it had never taken place. Mr X was severely chastised - don't think he wrote for 'em again!

Funnily enough, he liked us! Him and Ngaire reviewed us a number of times, all (broadly) favourable. That's probably why we never Made It Big!

I used to devour (not literally, obvs) Sounds, then Melody Maker and NME from the age of about 14... I discovered all sorts of bands I'd never get the chance of seeing (being in Chester) so I wrote them all over my school bag instead. So I was very happy indeed when we got some reviews - none of them bad, unfortunately... Here's one from 1991, it's not even flowery in its prose! http://www.pushstuff.co.uk/mmlives/barfroco110591.html

To be fair this was in 6th form... However, when I did have to wear a uniform I somehow got away with a green cotton army shirt, suede skinny Jim dark green tie, canvas drainpipes and 12 hole Docs instead of green acrylic pully and white shirt with horific nylon tie with a cross on it!