Leonard Smalls

I've never been willing to play material I don't like. If I liked the music that's generally popular I'd no doubt be happy to play it in order to play to crowds of happy punters... However, I've always liked left-field music starting with the early no-wave scene, through free jazz, obscure funk, unheard of prog-fusion etc. We could attempt covers of some of this ephemera, and 90% of folks would think it our own (and probably hate it!). So covers for me are rare - this is also because I like to make my own music; I get far more enjoyment out of writing in collaboration with the band than working out someone else's song. I had a conversation a while ago with a well-known (in the scene, at least!) free-jazz drummer. He was the original drummer with Bon Jovi, and left because he wanted more music and less crowd-pleasing - he said (in his Brooklyn accent!) "the music's in me, man, it's just gotta come out! I don't care about what the audience want, I've just gotta play!". And strangely, I know exactly where he's coming from. It means that, even though he's the best drummer I've ever played with - by a long way - he'll never get rich doing it. He does occasional sessions for pop bands, even played drums for Chuck Berry once, teaches drumming in a local college, but all that's to pay the bills. He spends the majority of his time playing with obscure jazzers to a few chin-strokers in a back-room in Hebden Bridge. For just a few quid...

Had an afternoon free so I thought I'd be first in with a daft'n'funky little thing about a ridiculous climbers route in Llanberis slate quarries linking areas such as Dali's Hole, California, Lost World, Mordor by the use of rusty old ladders, enormous in situ chains and 50m abseils into deep holes...

It's singed me trousers... Still, the smell of burning has stopped them noticing that the slow break I've put in the middle of our new song (to be debuted in Leominster, 2nd March) is actually Death Disco...

I was a bit disappointed in my band today... We do 1 cover - "Don't Dictate", the punk classic by Penetration. So far I've managed to get the bass line from Cameo's "Word Up" into the intro, and to play the guitar line from Nirvana's "Come as you are" as the bass line during the verse. But when I tried to get the guys'n'gal to start it with the riff from "My Sharona" they said it was silly... It's a shame as next I was ready to shoe-horn Parliament's "Flashlight" in as a break.

Bit of Eddie Hazel...

Each to their own! But I find many lyrics to be so deep'n'meaningless that they'd be better in Swahili, then I wouldn't have to hear quite how cheesey they were... However, sometimes cheese in any language can be quite entertaining: And sometimes no specific language is worth a listen...

Clipping isn't a cut-out, it's distortion; as the Wikipedia section you quote says: The extra signal which is beyond the capability of the amplifier is simply cut off, resulting in a sine wave becoming a distorted square-wave-type waveform. In other words what you hear with clipping is your max level signal with the top cut off the wave-form, which, depending on the amp/speaker can either sound terrible, damage the speaker or, in the case of valves etc, can sound like overdrive... The square wave is effectively the sum of many harmonics of the original tone - all that extra high-frequency harmonic content is what causes the damage. Personally I prefer any overdrive to be produced by something that's designed to produce overdrive!

Not just German! This works well when it goes all furrin' at 3'25 And French? In rap? Surely not!

Sometimes! However, an English version can sometimes sound cheesey and a bit trite. Like this! And some songs just wouldn't sound right in translation...

I'm not going to post it, but he's also recently done gigs with The Wiggles in Oz, one song being "Play The Bass Guitar (Jamaaladeen you're a star)"

No mention was made of Derek Bailey and his use of feedback and distortion in the 50s... At least Hendrix acknowledged Bailey's impact despite the fact that not many folks outside of free improv jazz had heard of him.

For me, and I realise I'm in a muso-snob minority, it's the actual music that counts most... After all, I can go to many places at pub chucking-out time and see people jumping about stupidly. But I'd prefer to see Jonas Hellborg and his band concentrating their little heads off in an almost motionless way apart from the blur of fingers, hands and toes than to see some very average musician posturing using every rock cliché. However, Jonas would be even better if he had his foot on the monitor, leapt from the drum riser, did the devil's horns after every crazy bass-run, then bit the head off a bat...

This is full of chromatic bass runs! And lots of other stuff... Though I didn't realise he'd changed his name again to Jamaad-Len!

But if nobody went to see new bands there'd be no new music... Folks round here will cross the country to watch some blokes kick a football about. But a few years ago I booked Wilko Johnson to play at our village hall - it was barely 1/2 full. And conversely, I booked the Wurzels fir another gig - it sold out in 2 days! So maybe it's just rocknroll our Bordrs dont like!

The kids in Japan do metal as well as we do!

I think so long as the tune was something the punters knew, and wasn't being completely mangled, they wouldn't notice who was playing it! However, if it's world class musicians playing something unknown your average punter would just leave! In December I saw a notice at my local pub saying a Dutch band were playing there. So I went, and this band were playing, just in the tiny bar; they were most certainly world class musicians, but they were playing proggy originals: I was awe struck for the 1.5 hours they played. Sound was perfect, at a reasonable level - most certainly not too loud and most definitely a head-and-shoulders above what you'd normally hear in Knighton. Especially as it was free! However, a steady stream of locals walked in, ordered drinks, didn't even glance at the band, didn't even pause in their loud shouty conversations, and just left to go and have more shouty conversations just like they did every single other Friday and Saturday night. One even asked me what the band were like - I said they were excellent musicians and well worth listening too; he said "don't know the song" and promptly went outside. It just makes me think that the majority of folks don't actually like music as a thing, especially if there's any complexity. Don't know why - laziness perhaps? But judging by how music is treated in schools, and by our broadcasters - where music will only appear at prime time as X Factor, or in that weird stuff they do for Strictly where a tango has to be done to something by Madonna just in case folks feel a bit challenged - it's not surprising. However, it appals me that a majority of the population are missing out on so much creative endeavour cos they don't realise that the effort you put into properly listening is repaid in spades!

I think some English folks are rather too hung up on things being rubbish if they're not in English, cos foreigners are obviously stupid and need to be spoken to more loudly, and obviously patronised heavily...😉 However, there's a whole world out there that's not English - it'd be daft to just confine yourself to one bit of what's available! After all, it's the music that counts - singers have been conning us all for years that they're the most important!

Not necessarily! Some folks just want the joy of making music, without having to perform. I was listening to Desert Island Discs the other day, with Tracey Thorne; she said she sang for the 1st time with a band from inside a cupboard as she was so shy. As a result she doesn't appear live much at all, just does recording.

Indeed - though less so for bass players... I bought a very nice Parker bass there a few years ago, but they reckon bass players don't buy as much gear as guitarists. I pointed out that they do, if you've got stuff they want! Though they've currently got a very nice EBS 660 at about £200 off, plus cabs to match, and a few Phil Jones amps. And for those that like that sort of thing, a Bongo 6er! And I missed out on a lovely Thumb bass by dithering...

Just checked - it's a 200... https://www.knightonmusiccentre.com/product/hi-tech-pedals/guitar-fx/mooer/mooer-ge200-guitar-multi-effects-processor/ Could be a lot more tempted by a 300,what with synths and filters...

I put up a thread a few weeks back asking if anyone had tried the Mooer... It's £299 in my local music shop - when I have a spare moment I'll go and have a go. Not sure how well it'd work for me though; my current sound-of-choice has 3 mixed FX loops - 1. a 3Leaf envelope filter going into a Darkglass microtubes into a Digitech Bass Whammy, 2. a DOD envelope filter, 3 a Fwonk Beta envelope filter going into a Boss bass synth. I'd be surprised if I could get that same Bootsy-on-keyboards-that still-sounds-like-a-Wal sound out of any of 'em.

Choked - my new band have been rehearsing busily and managed to produce a set containing just 1 cover, which in true "can yer tell what it is yet?" style contains both a punk classic, a funk classic and a more deeply hidden grunge classic. And just like in all our originals, I play far too many notes. We're at: 2nd March - Reet Petite, Leominster with punks Alvin and the Angry Barrels and Terminal Rage 23rd March - Paradiddles, Worcester 10th April - Albert's Shed, Shrewsbury 26th April - Percy's, Whitchurch 26-28th July - Funk in the Forest - Berriew nr. Welshpool

My 1st gig was on keyboards with a hastily-put-together band at school 6th form in 1981. We were doing 60s/early 70s protest songs after a screening of that scary anti-nuclear weapons doc wot got banned... We weren't very good! 1st gig on bass was 3 months after I'd decided I was actually a bass player, and had worked out how to do it using an acoustic guitar. We'd had 2 rehearsals, written 6 songs, of about 10 minutes each (!) and Jez (later of the Utah Saints) lent me his Gibson short scale bass and IIRC, a Carlsboro combo. We played for around 2 hours (we did some stretching) at the Tartan Bar at Leeds Uni in 1983, and we didn't get booed off - which was rather surprising... After that we played many parties, where we'd start playing a song, any member could nip off, put a baked potato on, have a bath and we'd still be playing the same song when they came back.

RIP!

There does appear to be a lot of our members who do seem to actively hate it... And not just that unmusical dunkadunka thing often heard in said demos and music shops around the land, but the very idea of virtually any sort of bass virtuosity is instantly dismissed as showing off. For these folks Jack Bruce was about as far as anybody should go, and even he played a few too many notes! I say live and let live. If you want to slap, great. If you just want to play the root in 16ths, great. Just listen to, and more importantly, enjoy the music!