Leonard Smalls

We were playing at the Dark Horse in Moseley, Birmingham last night with 3 other bands... And we were very grateful for the cloudbursts and lightning because it meant that the organisers of the Mostly Funk and Soul Festival just up the road closed down early due to being scared of imminent deaths. So as the Dark Horse was the nearest pub, and the venue upstairs was free entry (donations gratefully received!) it was packed. First band on were doing Joy Division-ey post punk and were OK until they had a melt down (with tears!) over the lack of vocal monitoring (welcome to rock'n'roll in pub (and other!) venues...). Next band were pretty decent, with groovy bass and excellent drummer and slightly crazed ranting and guitar FX from dishevelled singer. I liked 'em! (Pulsar). We came on to a pretty full house, with folks actually moving about (I hear it's called "dancing"), lots of cheering and even folks seeking us out to give compliments, rather than the usual pitchforks and flaming torches. We even got paid (a bit!) and sold some tshirts and cds which was nice. And even better, my Super Mario Cart managed to smash the Google maps expected return travel time of 1 hour 45 by 25 minutes! Snippet (not sure why uploaded mp4 video comes out audio only?): KissThisDH8-7-23.avi

Too rock'n'roll for that... Choked on someone else's vomit!

Tonight, in Moseley, Birmingham!!! Relatively early start, 6pm doors. We're on at 8.30pm.

Back up generator!

But it's mains powered?

Didn't know there were modes! I just press the tuner button and up it pops, with note letter in the middle and arrows either side...

Helix tuner has a huge display and is excellent. And it comes free with the helix board, so a relative bargain. 😁

I think that if you're playing rock'n'roll you have to make sure you're both rocking and rolling... So I have two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.

I occasionally smoked and played... But felt much cooler smoking and climbing 😜 This was 30odd years ago.

Funnily enough I've never found a P bass I enjoy playing. And I only ever found an enjoyable jazz bass once, that was a serious custom shop jobby for about a grand more than a new ACG. As a result, I have no Fenders. To me they're like a Vauxhall Vectra, everyone's got one, even though they're just a bit rubbish and just trading on the Viva name

A bit exhilarating, but has a number of naughty words... A must-listen while driving

Personally I'm happiest if we've played well enough to a reasonable sized audience, none of whom ignored us, none of whom threw anything at us and at least one of whom came up and said "wow, fantastic bass playing, I'd like to offer you a deal where you get 50% of total take" and after all that, still get home for a nice wee dram by 2200.

One man's stinking pile of sloppy doggy do in the Middle Of The Road is another's piece of purest gold. And while I don't think Elton and The Bernster's muzak is a stinky old dog poo, I do find it just a touch bland and not to my taste. Though I quite like Pinball Wizard (but wasn't that Pete Townshend?)... Anyway, Chacun à son goût!

Unfortunately, I suspect others will still churn it out... 😁

Party on, bubba! And spot the serious playas!

Just watched Nova Twins. Everyone else should just give up. Rock'n'roll! Some bass player!!!!! In awe....

Just got back from the first Weeds gig in 8 years (but we have been in existence since 1984 with various members, some famous and some not (like me!))... It was actually at a big house party in Sheffield where the band was also staying. I took my full 2k PA to add to the drummer's monitors and we spent all of yesterday rehearsing - as our singer and rythm guitarist couldn't make it we'd prepared a backing and vocal track and we were going to use a click track for sync. Singer was replaced by a blow up Johnny Rotten. And a DJ was going to spin samples and run tracks for us. So the house was packed, maybe 80-100 people so more than I'm used to 😁. And most of 'em danced! Some even came up and said "Now then. That weren't too bad!" So now we're ready to take on the world, we may even finish our long unfinished recordings and do another gig! Here's a tiny snatch... VID-20230625-WA0011.mp4

I'm playing tonight in my other band who haven't played for 8 years. A few weeks ago we discovered that our singer wouldn't be able to make it, nor would rhythm guitarist. So we hastily assembled a rhythm backing, sent it to the singer who recorded his bits. So we've been rehearsing all day with click and backing/vox recording, which is going to be messed about with lots by a DJ as we play. And we've got a blow up Johnny Rotten as front man 😎 We're on at 2200!

Tonight, in Sheffield. Our singer and rhythm guitarist can't make it so they've been replaced by sample triggering DJ. And it's click track! We've got a cardboard cutout of the singer to front the band...

For rehearsals, I walk. That's the easiest way as we rehearse at my house... For gigs, we've got an in-progress feet-n-weed machine (i.e. Vauxhall Vivaro with diy seats in the back, and a soon-to-be-attempted window.).

Always wear something cool and memorable. You're The Band, not a bunch of scruffy punters! Though if you're rubbish standing out makes it easier for disgruntled audience members to find you...

Looks like I did a funky thang for that one too! Also featuring some beautiful vox by me... BTW, not this month's entry too...

I had piano lessons up to about age 17, got as far as grade 7 but never really enjoyed it. Then took up bass, sort of, at uni by twanging on the bottom four strings of a mate's acoustic guitar, then within a couple of months of playing along to Bootsy on this battered old thing I borrowed a mate's Gibson shortscale and I was in a band - which is still in existence (gig this Saturday!). I wanted to play funk, so I taught myself in the way I assumed it worked, never having seen a funk bass player close up... So I now have a very odd right hand technique involving thumb-strumming with a sort of slap, and three fingers doing a similar thing. Works for me!

From what I've seen over the years, any sort of music beyond the simplest boy/girl band stuff is a minority interest! The majority of people I know, as opposed to actual friends, don't seek music out; they quite like a tune that's easy to hum but if they find one they won't necessarily look for more by that artist, they'd be happier with a "Now That's What I Call Music" comp as they will often conjure for them a mood of the time. They don't really want to sit there listening to great playing, or to seek out what's "advancing" music - music is largely a background thing. As a result of this, the majority of mainstream music follows a simple formula and is musically inoffensive. All of which I think is a shame, and is probably the fault of a decline in music education in schools. Funnily enough though, if you go to the continent there's a large market for more challenging music; frinstance I was in the tiny town of Marciac in the south of France a couple of weeks ago. It's got a population of just 1200, but has a dedicated music venue - the night we were there was a "slam poetry" show, following night was a Colombian folk group and the next was an electronic noise duo. But more importantly, it has a world-renowned jazz festival which is hugely popular and has far more experimental out-there stuff than we'd get at Cheltenham of Birmingham's alleged jazz fests! Frinstance, last year had Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog playing; they also played in Germany, Holland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Norway, all to great acclaim, though London only got a night of Ribot solo. However, the previous 4 European dates had no UK dates... Similarly, Suicidal Tendencies haven't played the UK since 2018 with 1 date then and 1 in 2017. But on those same visits to Europe there were gigs all over France and Germany. And I don't think it's all to do with The B Word (!) as their last UK tour was 2016, but very little before that despite tons of European dates every year.