Leonard Smalls

The PC7 is a 7 year old Islay malt that's bottled at 61% cask strength. However, I've just looked and noticed that I have its smoother, older and slightly weaker brother, the PC10 which comes in at a deeply un-manly 50%. Nice drop, mind!

We (Choked) were at the Marrs Bar in Worcester last night supporting local band Phon's album launch. Twasn't very full, perhaps 40 peoples and they all sat round the outside like cool muso types (I usually do this too). As everything was a bit late - I hadn't been able to arrive till after 7pm so no sound check - we did our short'n'sharp 30 minute set (probably a blessing to all!). However, all went fine, drummist managed to finish on 3 in "Knockout", I did my bass solos with extra widdles'n'pops and all was generally groovy. As there was a fine PA (with obligatory overloud bass drum thwack) I just took the Markbass 2x10 to be powered by the Crown amp with DBX compressor and BBE pre, all front-ended by Helix and Parker bass. Shoes were zebra striped brothel creepers. Got home by 2230 to a nice dram of PC7 cask strength...

I think that my first time on stage in a musical setting was at Chester town hall in about 1978... My mum had entered a piano competition and was playing a Mozart sonata (IIRC). But she wasn't confident enough to play without music so she roped me in as page turner. Luckily I'd heard her practicing it so much I knew it pretty well. However, another performer had her page turner drop out and my mum volunteered me! And it was a piece I'd never heard, rather complex and perhaps by Shostakovich. The lady saw I was having a little trouble following so she muttered "now" every time we approached the end of the page. Unfortunately neither my mum or the lady won - perhaps because of my punky pink hair and home-made bondage trews

I've got a classical treat in store

Bang Bang - B A Robertson

Sandy - John Travolta

Planet Rock - Afrika Bambaata and the Soulsonic Force

Nice Legs, Shame About Her Face - The Monks

First gig on an actual bass was with Dredd and the Badass Weeds, as we were known then, must have been early 1985 at a party in Chestnut Avenue, Leeds... I borrowed a short scale Gibson off Jez Utah (I didn't own one, taught myself to play on an acoustic guitar!). We had 4 actual "songs" - a punk thing called "Thatcher's Britain", a bit of metalishness ("Loud and Proud" with the chorus Heavy Metal Music, Loud and Proud! Mysterious goblins, Dressed in shrouds), a funky ditty called "That ain't a thing (it's a thang)" and a reggae thing called "Sex Feeling" (it had inadvertently laugh-out-loud lyrics which I won't repeat 😄). But we played for probably 2.5 hours, having rehearsed at most twice and basically improvised some vaguely funky rocky and occasionally reggae stuff. And weirdly we got a gig at the University Tartan Bar a couple of weeks later, then at the Warehouse despite a lack of actual coherence and rehearsal. And in early spring next year, to celebrate 40 years we're releasing our first EP!

It is the FOH that counts, though there's not many PAs in small to medium venues that will accurately reproduce 30Hz at any volume. You'll get hints of it, but as Dan says you'll get far more in the way of overtones which just point at it. The problem is that PA systems are designed to be efficient so they go very loud, unlike some hifi systems which can be just the opposite. I've got 2 pairs of Hifi speakers that will produce 30Hz at volume - Leema Xaviers which have an F3 point of 28Hz and Ditton 66/series 2s which have an F6 of 18Hz. However, I need to use a Bryston power amp which produces 968w RMS/channel to do that. And both speakers are around 86dB/w efficient, so they soak up the power! However, if your 4x10 cab is a Mesa Subway 4x10 has an efficiency of 100.4dB/w, which of course means they have far less extension that my hifi speaks (but will go a lot louder!) - the actual F3 figure (i.e. where output is 3dB below the mid frequency level) is 59.4 Hz, with an F10 figure(which equates to being half as loud as F3) of 41.3Hz. So if you're lucky, the output at 30Hz is likely to be 1/4 as loud as the F3! So you're actually not going to be reproducing much at 30Hz either FOH or from speaker monitoring. Your IEMs may reproduce it, but that doesn't help the audience, and the electronics are largely irrelevant as most have at least a range of 20-20000Hz. If you want to get nearer to a magical 30Hz at volume, the Mesa Subway 2x15 will do F10 @ 37Hz... But a Trace 1818, if you've got the back for it, will give an F6 of 28Hz...

Don't make Me Wait! - Peech Boys

19th Nervous Breakdown - Shockabilly

It may have been Bob Dylan's "Hard Rain" in 1980... Mr. Quigley, an RE teacher at our school put together a sixth form band to play before a screening of the BBC's docudrama "The War Game". We did two other songs as well, that I have no memory at all of - probably CrosbyStillsNash or somesuch knowing Mr Q. I was on keys, and on bass was the brother of our own @lurksalot - I had a go on his rubber-stringed Hohner violin thing which possibly kindled my future musical direction (and it wasn't Dylan covers, or Hohner basses!).

I used to work with Doc Cox! Anyway: Still Smoking - Trouble Funk

Porn to be alive - Patrick Hernandez

Ich Tu Dir Weh - Rammstein

I often go lower than this with my 4 string not-bass (see, I'm using the new terminology, though not-bass is perhaps a touch clumsy; I shall contact Bootsy, Victor, Stanley and Jaco's ghost for suggestions). Octavers are ace, in moderation! Though most bass cabs have a quoted low end response of around 40Hz, and that's usually -6dB...

I do like a rap battle, so long as there's some humour (there usually is!). I often watch Rap Game too...

Whole Lada Love - Led Zepp

Mustang Sally!!!!!

Travolta - Mr Bungle

And the top bass argument which invariably leads to full on fisticuffs and world war: Slap?

Sir Nose d'Voidoffunk - Parliament

Personally, I spent about 1/2 an hour playing a five string, plus about the same again being harangued by the chap at Bass Direct saying that I had to buy a five string if I wanted to be a proper bass player. I decided I was happy with four and that I probably wasn't willing to practice for the thousands of hours it would take to master it to what was possible on that, never mind learning the extra stuff a fiver would entail. That way I saved myself £Loads which I spent a bit on doing the Gary Willis bass course, and the rest on hookers'n'coke.

There are some good 'uns! When RATM released "Killing in the name of" with it's iconic "F you I won't do what you tell me" refrain those wags at Suicidal HQ came up with this (though they were, as ever, just a bit tongue in cheek which sort of runs against the self-obsessed norm of some "talents"):