Leonard Smalls

I can't cope with opera singers, specifically high pitched female ones. Like nails on a blackboard amplified to 140dB. And while we're at it, strummed acoustic guitar. In that round-the-camp-fire leavin'-on-a-jet-plane kumby-ah sort of way. Wetter than Le Pétomane after a Bangalore Phall!

Why not just get a really good pair of headphones?

Here's mine without the pedals.

Seems a bit odd to me that punters are very willing to pay £100 or so to see Metallica along with 5-10000 others, or even to pay £6 to see ABCD tribute band, but won't come and see an originals band playing for free. Fair enough, you know Metallica will be slick as will the covers band (hopefully!). But that doesn't mean the free originals band won't be as well! Perhaps there's less appetite for new live music, maybe they don't want to just take a punt? Or perhaps it was always so...

You won't say that when you've heard it! It started off as a solo bass musing having looked at the pic... Now my mate has put some semi random acoustic guitar chords over the top and I'm currently improvising some drums over the top. It's definitely a bit free-form, a bit funghi and a touch freaky. You might think Stinkhorn a better name

I've actually made a start... Working title is Free-Form Funghi Freakz.

While we're talking favourite jazz albums, let's stick in a few more in addition to the James Carter one that I mentioned earlier: Bill Laswell - Panthalassa (Bill's remixes of beaches Brew with bits of Agharta by Miles Davis) Jacques Loussier - Play Bach (all of them) Ron Carter - Blues Farm Ivan Boogaloo Jones - Black Whip Ornette Coleman - Of Human Feelings Jamaaladeen Tacuma - Dreamscape Hiromi's Sonic Bloom - Time Difference Headless Torsos - Amandala

Seminal bass albums? All the Bootsy's Rubber Band albums. And the one that this is off

2nd ever 16 CS gig, at the Doll's House, Abertillary... Discovered one band had pulled out due to it being past their bed-time or something similar. So we were on first; there were about 30 people in there, 25 of whom left 1/2 hour before we came on due to lots of parties in town. So we played - got a reasonably good reaction from the assembled throng (!), no major pink torpedo-ups, tight and no excessive speeding up. Which was nice! And the "headline" band made a right racket! But a long way to go (1hr50) for 5 punters, £20 travel money and 3 beers each. That's the joy of being a new originals band (not The New Originals, obvs:) ) with no demo. Still, it'll be mixed by the New Year when we should soon be headlining major venues like The Vaults at Bishop's Castle!

And not forgetting Bootsy's new album, World Wide Funk!

I've been enjoying my mate Trevor's "Chivo Funge" album, with Dudley Phillips on bass... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Energy-Chivo-Funge-Extensions/dp/B01KBNFKGO

Our first gig was such a success that we have to play many miles from home in order to escape the angry mobs... So we're doing a short-notice support with Tight Muff (!) at that rockin' venue - The Doll's House in Abertillery, Blaneau Gwent. Might even be free to get in, but don't quote me! http://www.facebook.com/pg/thedollshousewales

Good thing you couldn't see the pedal board as well! The Wal goes into the Yamaha FX770 fx unit, which is basically functioning as a pre-amp and tuner; this goes into one channel of the dbx, which feeds the active input of the Marshall amp. FX loop of that goes into other dbx channel - with much more compression and some level reduction into Wounded Paw V4 blender, which has a bass whammy and Darkglass distortion on 1 loop, 3 Leaf envelope filter on another and Boss bass synth and DOD envelope filter on another, then back into the Marshall. Speakers are the MarkBass 2x10, and the enormous one is a Yamaha reflex cab with a 1x15" Precision Devices driver (just reminding myself how it all works, though why it all is thus is a different matter entirely!) And the Markbass cab is by far the lightest of all of those things...

Dave and Tim are like fire and ice. I feel my role in the band is to be kind of in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water.,

I've thought on't and am sticking with my previous choices, only with video emphasis... Parliament - Mothership Connection James Carter - Layin' in the Cut Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains - Great Eyeball in the Sky

Why thank you! It would have showed up even more in tighter trousers

Today: Parliament - Mothership Connection James Carter - Layin' in the Cut Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains - The Big Eyeball in the Sky Tomorrow, who knows?

Went very well - played too fast (drummer's fault, we could tell that from the lo-kwality recording!) but tight and no other major pink torpedo-ups. A free-improv jazz drummer who happened to come along is interested in doing a "rock project" with us, which could be interesting! Whole album of pics here, courtesy of Tom Helme: https://www.flickr.com/photos/willowshoots/albums/72157690193763005/with/38656271532/

Debut gig for new funky rock band, 16 Choke Start, at Knighton Community Centre in Powys with Some Weird Sin on 1st, then us, then Hereford rockers Wolfcryer. Shame there was only 40 or so people there, but despite the drummer and guitarist being unable to hear much of the bass it went very well; we played a bit fast, but no major pinktorpedo-ups. And afterwards met a veteran free-jazz drummer (ex Evan Parker and the like) who was interested in doing a rock project with us - who knows what the rest of the band will think of that as an idea!

Two wildly different offerings from me...

But many of the more expensive Nordost cables are either made from, or plated (!skin effect still lives!) in silver... I've also got some Nordost silver cable inside my Leema speakers - they were re-wired by Nordost for a hifi show (before I bought them, I might add). And as the speaker maker himself said to me - "it was just a gimmick by Nordost to sell more of their monofilament cable". Transmission of a signal down a wire is wholly a function of the LCR values of that wire - what it's actually made of or what the dielectric or sheathing is is largely irrelevant. At the end of the day it's down to the impedance, capacitance and resistance of that cable. Those properties are affected by the material, obviously, but they are what counts... And I've measured those values for both the solid silver Nordost internal speaker wiring on my Xaviers, and for the 6mm Van Damme blue (at about £6/m) that supplies them. And you'll be pleased to hear that all 3 were lower in the Van Damme at all audible frequencies - meaning that there would be less signal loss in the Van Damme. Differences weren't huge - they would have translated as tiny fractions of a dB, i.e significantly lower than the threshold of the most golden of ears... However, if your expectation bias gives you more musical enjoyment with fancy cables in place, that's excellent - it is about the music after all!

For some reason I can't get into General...

EEK! The shame! When you get to my age etc...

Electrical quality will only make a difference if the kit that is being supplied has a poorly designed internal supply... Unfortunately some hifi kit does seem to be susceptible to the slightest variation of mains, even if that mains supply is within the spec of the supply regulations! However, I'd say that kit like that shouldn't exist as it doesn't comply with EU regs, or at least with the spirit of the regs (i.e. it should work optimally at any voltage between 216 and 253 volts, at frequencies between 49.5 and 50.5 ohms), and should be able to cope with mild DC offsets and small spikes and rf caused by motor switching etc. And even if it does exist, as it does, a sensible consumer shouldn't buy it! You can get better sound without the shenanigans! And any signal cable that is electrically sufficient, ie has low LCR will do basically nowt to sound quality; however, if you spend lots on, say Van Den Hul carbon cables or the like you're adding what is effectively an uncontrollable tone control! This will sound different because it basically removes some of the top end! And if you buy some of the seriously expensive cables, such as Transparent, Siltech etc the fact that you've spent a fortune on them will pre-dispose your ears to hear a difference where there isn't actually one - it's called expectation bias. At the end of the day it's down to enjoyment of the music - if you get more enjoyment and perceived better sound by lifting your £10k cables with cable lifters at £250 each, having Shakti Stones littered all over your kit, everything standing on 12 levels of Mana and a generous spattering of Machina Dynamica foo gracing your room that's excellent. But I want kit that just works - it's the music i want to enjoy rather than spending a ridiculous amount of time faffing around searching for some impossible-to-find audio nirvana! BTW, I was also a BBC sound engineer for 17 years before retraining as a sparky...