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Leonard Smalls

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Posts posted by Leonard Smalls

    How was your gig last night?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    We did a fundraiser for Multiple Sclerosis at a large pub in Hereford yesterday...

    Turned out the pub's PA was knacked, so we took our own - which doesn't half add to the effort needed especially as we took a 24 channel desk, plus monitors, subs etc all for 3 mics and one on the bass drum! Still, it was good practice for setting up for larger gigs. But it was nice to be in charge of sound - we didn't overdo it and as a result everything was very clear.

    Anyway, support was Hereford boys The Deadbeats; they were excellent, did punk/new wave covers and got the reasonable crowd nicely lubricated for us...

    And we'd thought it might be a 2 bass/no guitar gig, but somehow he got his act together and we were a 5 piece. Not only that, but we played very well indeed - usual pink torpedo ups by drummer; one song has a bass intro which is straight 4:4, somehow he always has to do a fill when I'm 2 beats from the end of the intro, and that fill always lasts 4 beats and interrupts the flow. Next time I shall bring a baseball bat... We even did 2 covers - Rage's "Bullet to the Head" and Penetration's "Don't Dictate" (or own mashed up version with "Word Up"!), and had to do a song we hadn't played in a year after more encores were demanded.

    We managed to raise a few hundred notes for MS and got expenses paid (which we weren't expecting, we'd agreed a freebie for new pub music venture and good charitable cause), one bloke said we sounded like Faith No More (his favourite band!), and another staggered over and said we were like The Prodigy (!), then asked if we had any ketamine... (We didn't).

    Used my Sandberg for the first time in ages (and realised why I'd bought it), into Helix, BBE pre and DBX rack compressor, Crown bridged power amp and Markbass 4x10. As there was so little room on stage Helix sat on top of the amp case, which meant I couldn't do my squealy lead guitar octave stuff but probably nobody noticed.

     

     

    ChokedPlough28-10-23.jpg

    • Like 18

    Scott Devines new record

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Richard R said:

    It's like the Spanish Inquisition.

    Apart from, everybody expected the Spanish Inquisition... Firstly Pope Lucious 111 declared the first inquisition in 1184, nearly 300 years before the actual Spanish one started, so they had time to get ready. And if 300 years notice wasn't enough, the Inquisition actually gave thirty days' notice. This was a thirty-day grace period during which heretics could voluntarily confess and avoid serious punishment. And these "Edicts of Grace" were read publicly after Sunday mass, so everybody expected the Spanish Inquisition. However, with time, these edicts were phased out, anonymous denunciations became more common, and more people were detained without warning, in a more Python-esque manner. Of course, by that time, the Inquisition had become of the most powerful, infamous, and universally known forces in Spanish life, so I'm not sure it could truly be said to be unexpected then either. 

    But nobody expects the Death Metal Comparison!

    • Like 1
    • Haha 4

    Scott Devines new record

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    44 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

    I will gladly admit that screeching soprano is not 'easy on the ear',

    Indeed... As a kid I was dragged to the opera, and the ballet, and concerts of all sorts ranging from Peter Katin playing Beethoven, to Askenhazy playing Rachmaninov and the Vienna Boys Choir doing that annoying angelic thing. I was told that popular music was only for the great unwashed and was somehow far below "proper" music.

    As a result, when I was old enough to dare to use my own brain I rejected much of classical, though I rediscovered baroque music, and also discovered more challenging classical that we never went to see or heard at home, such as Varese and Shostakovich (though my ma now likes ol' Dmitri, admitting she should have given him a chance years ago).

    However, I still can't be doing with opera - perhaps all that soprano nails-on-a-blackboard stuff turned me off most sorts of accompanied singing (as opposed to singing which is essentially part of the music). 

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1

    Do you find your playing limited by your tastes?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    33 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

    rudimentary dross such as  'funk' 

    One man's pile of steaming pig ordure is another man's Jefferson Airplane!

    And as all broad churches vary, funk ranges from simple barely syncopated pop music (though I would argue that this doesn't really qualify for the lofty moniker of "Funk", as the Great George himself said "You can't fake The Funk!") via the joys of Parliament/Funkadelic to the complex grooves of 70s/80s Billy Cobham, Herbie Hancock and Stanley Clarke...

    Still, each to their own!

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1

    Scott Devines new record

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    16 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

    are they handed to him, pre-composed

    It's quite likely that John Zorn (on sax, for it is he and he alone) either wrote every note for everyone who played, or just as likely drew comedy phalluses in brown crayon and told his crew to go from that...

    As Frank Zappa said "Does humour (oops, humor) belong in music?". And both me and Mr Zorn think it probably ought to.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

    Scott Devines new record

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

    It's pretty much an avantgarde jazz all star band

    I've listened to that gig many times too when I'm in the mood for some easy listening dinner jazz. 😁

    Remember seeing Derek Bailey once with a dj and keyboardist which was pretty out there; I also used to play in an improvising band where the drummer and I would play funk grooves and former associates of Lol Coxhill would go all Brotzmann over it.

    But for ultimate fusion, try this - it's like a fusion of all the hells from all the religions crossed with punk and jazz...

     

    • Like 1
    • Haha 1

    How was Your rehearsal last morning or night ?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Jackroadkill said:

    the guitarists has got himself a new (well, old, but new to him) amp and it's just horrible. 

    We had a rehearsal yesterday to get ready for Hereford gig next Saturday and the guitarist didn't turn up! So no annoying noodling between songs, no unnecessary feedback drowning out the vocals, no poorly set up pedals making almost as much noise when there's no sound going through 'em... So it was just bass, bass, drums and 3xvocals, which was great! Everybody could hear everything, and excitingly, when we did a dead stop there was no extra bit of guitarnoise cos he hasn't worked out how to properly damp the strings. So we were tight as, and ready to gig without guitar if that happens!

    • Like 3

    Scott Devines new record

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    9 hours ago, peteb said:

    A pretty cool effort but nowhere near exceptional enough to transcend what is a very niche genre

    I've been listening to it, but agree with Pete!

    Good effort, but a bit fusion-by-numbers. The only slightly less formulaic bits are some of the guitar solos. Keys in particular are completely What Is Expected.

    I prefer a slightly more leftfield, creative approach:

     

     

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