Leonard Smalls

We had a long running issue with a "neighbour" (he was across the valley, 400m away!) complaining about our band practising. After many letters from the council and one visit from the police (he'd told them I was breaking covid rules, they were surprised to find me on my own, playing bass with EZ Drummer), plus recording equipment installed at his house, the EHO concluded that while you could hear it there it was by no means at any sort of nuisance level (quieter than the road), and that he was being unreasonable, as we only practised for a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon... Which was nice but still rather annoying.

I had to play much of our last gig sitting down due to the 1st bad back I've had in more than 10 years... I couldn't find a handy stool, but I discovered that my Marshall Jubilee amp on top of Markbass 2x10 worked perfectly.

The simple answer is to play jazz and/or funk... Alternatively, just hoik the strap and make like guitar matey from Idles. Cool is how you carry it off, not by copying

We played with them last year at Percy's in Whitchurch!

I'm enjoying my mashed up version of Penetration's "Don't Dictate" and Cameo's "Word Up"... And I'm working on a proper fun punkmetal version of Sylvester's "Do you wanna funk".

Sold the Revox years ago... But had to borrow a Dolby SR unit to listen to work stuff... Amazing my Ditton 66/2 and Lumley valve monoblocks speakers had a much more extension than BBC broadcast kit!

To be fair, at least you get a sheet! If you want real completely Batshyt crazy useless stuff, these folks take some beating... http://machinadynamica.com/machina47.htm

They've published a paper by messrs Oschmann and Chevalier - all the papers include a mix of those two with a Mr Brown and a Mr Chopra. There appears to be no independent verification or studies by anyone else, so who knows. But the nonsense about dirty electricity tells me it's a fad product with no real basis in anything but a bee in the bonnets of a few alleged scientists - I also note that Mr Chevalier is associated with the Quantum University of Integrative Medicine: Quantum University is the world’s largest institution of higher learning to provide online degrees and certification programs in holistic, alternative, natural, and integrative medicine based on the science of quantum physics. Didn't Doctor Gillian McKeith, previously the world's foremost TV poo-doctor, get her doctorate from a similar place? And anything that uses "Quantum" in their marketing and blurb is usually a purveyor of pseudo-science...

But there's a whole page on The Science!!! Though I note that most of the studies cited are by a Mr Geatan Chevalier and Mr J Oschmann. And that no further peer reviews seem to be available... Most excitingly, I see that while these grounding sleep mats are connected to The Ground via a mains cable, there's a 100000ohm resistor in line for "safety" which is likely to seriously inhibit the flow of all those lovely negative earth electrons (as opposed to yer common and garden ordinary electron) in to your body. And in a further rebuttal of their own "Science": A common misconception about Earthing technology is that when you ground yourself indoors by connecting to a mains plug socket, “dirty electricity” comes through the cord to the Earthing sheet, and through your body. However, this would be impossible as there can be no current on Earthing products connected to a plug socket because they are connected to one Earth point only, and not part of a closed circuit necessary for a current to flow. No “dirty electricity” can flow through the Earthing sheet, and then through the body because you are not part of a closed DC circuit. For a more detailed explanation, here is a useful resource from the Official Earthing Institute: http://www.earthinginstitute.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/beware-of-earthing-misinformation-2018.pdf As it says, no "dirty electricity" (snigger!) can flow through the chord. Though it's not very clear on how their lovely clean earthelectrons can flow, unless they've made use of a DirtyElectricityNoPass Filter... And if they can't flow from the ground, where are they coming from? I suspect punters with Machina Dynamica (look 'em up!) levels of gullibility are needed.

Once I hadn't been able to finish checking the final mix of a drama I'd been Post Production Manager on. It was needed the following day so I took it home and played the 1/4" on my Revox through my stereo. I discovered that throughout the post production process nobody had noticed that one particular location had a loud but very low frequency rumble - I guess it was a tube train as the location was in central London. The reason that no-one had noticed was because all editing was done on Rogers LS3/5a speakers, which are excellent but have virtually nowt below 75Hz, and track laying and dubbing had been done using Rogers LS5/8 speakers, which looked imposing but produced no bass below 45Hz! The Beeb soon commissioned new speakers for dubbing theatres after that (they bought big Harbeths)...

I remember seeing him doing a half'n'half back in the early 90s, Royal Festival Hall iirc, with an amazing supergroup featuring him, Omar Hakim on drums, Wayne Shorter on sax and Herbie Hancock on keys. Though I still prefer it when he gets those enormous fingers on that tiny Alembic...

Here's some energetic fusion from Mr Godin's band...

I'd buy 'em!

Not necessarily! Listen to some Christophe from the OP in Morglbl. Goes from nice jazz to screaming metal to face melting rock within one song... Similarly, David Fiucynzski of the Screaming Headless Torsos plays everything from crazed microtonal free jazz on a fretless guitar to ultimate shredding.

GoGo! That drummer is the Shizz!

For those who hadn't already spotted it, the video in the OP was a little bit tongue in cheek...

When I was a kid I had a pair of his shoes - they had a compass in the heel!

Of course they did! Joe Strummer was even the inventor, or at least early adopter of, one mode, the Punkian.

Yes! Frinstance, classical music 😁 And even the Clash wrote in the Phrygian mode - London Calling... And the intro to Riders on the Storm is in the Dorian Mode, as is Mad World by Tears for Fears... And even the rarest of all modes is used occasionally - like in the verse of Bjork's Army of Me.

I've been a bit obsessed with Mörglbl today... How come I'd never heard of 'em before? Anyway, here with something enormously complex featuring both slap bass and slap guitar!

Arf!

And what a groove, really gets going from 1'30ish

Some jazz rocky stuff.

I've spent much of the afternoon with an log-splitting maul and sledgehammer making logs for next winter from a Scots Pine that lost a huge branch a few months ago. I shall test 'em with my moisture gauge before burning...

Was it Mr Quigley's doing? He was attempting to sway our budding new-wavism towards 70s cheese!