Leonard Smalls

We done a gig last Satday in Hereford... I was a bit disappointed to see that we were headlining - simply because I was still dribbling from a cold, had been at work all day and had to go in for 0900 the following day as well. And we were due to go on at 2250, which meant after a hour's drive , home by 0100 and up at 0630... After we'd soundchecked I found a lovely leather sofa next to the fire in the pub's main bar, so I sat there with a Guinness 0 and read my book, which was rather nice. I was then able to recover sufficiently to watch the other bands; Hurricane Tapes - sort of Joy Division-ish with decently played Ricky bass, A Noise, who we'd played with quite a few times before, who dress in bizarre costumes (glitterball on bass player's head - he played a fine 5 string Warwick - drummer in yellow cheese-string-tube-thing, singer in multiple teletubbie/rabbit/bear/wtf outfits). They're huge fun and play sort of rave-punk bangers - recommended! And finally, MC16 who we also know - great Clash-inspired agit-punk with reggae overtones. Always excellent value. And it appeared that 10 minutes changeover between bands wasn't enough (I told him, I did!) - we finally came on at 2310. Luckily, despite not having rehearsed for a month we played well and even managed the tricky end-on-three of Knockout for possibly the first time ever! Folks jigged about, police weren't called, no punch-ups and no vomiting in my bass case, which was also rather nice. Managed a near record 42 minutes to get home for 0100, quick Woodford Reserve and kip ready for work. Kit was ACG bass into Helix (modified Aguilar tone with a touch of envelope filter and variable drive on the pedal), into BBE/Crown amps and DBX compression into Markbass 4x10. Boots were 12 hole Martin bike boots.

The Light Pours Out of Me - Magazine

Featuring our own @cheddatom on drums! They're always excellent value...

Some crazy stuff wot Iggy Pop was playing on 6Music...

Brand New Ski - Melanie

Bit worried about the Splintered Testicle chorus! And on fire!!! Do we have a wince emoji? 😧

I remember as a young punky teenager waiting with bated breath through Doctor Hook, Hot Chocolate and a whole host of other MoR pap for a glimpse of Proper Music (eye of the beholder of course!). And sometimes we'd be rewarded with some Siouxsie, or perhaps Ruts, or at a push, Sham 69... And sometimes even 2 or 3 in a programme! Though I got far more joy from the other music progs as they were live and often Proper - there's just no replacement for these (apart from lonely old Jools); instead it's a diet of fake reality shows and appalling game shows with the incredibly annoying Michael McIntyre.

Indeed... And while it's often formulaic in terms of acts and Jools always has to smear his boogie on anything he can, it's a shame that this is the only live (occasionally new) music show regularly on TV (that I know of, at least). This dearth most certainly doesn't help raise interest in any grass-roots live music...

You could never accuse my band of that!

If you ask my mother, there hasn't been any real music made for about 100years😁 She'd class any popular music as pop racket, whether it's Charlie xcx or Led Zeppelin or the Butthole Surfers! However, I'd like to see far more music on TV, whether it's modern rnb, dad rock, Japanese Noisecore, Bebop, Baroque, Modernist, goth, street punk, metal, whatever. After all, we used to have the Tube, OGWT, Rock Goes To College, TOTP and now we have virtually nowt apart from Glasto once a year, some nostalgia docs(which have far more talking than music) and occasional pop bands on things like Jonathan Ross Show. It's pretty dire!

It says to me that the majority of people don't really like music...

Recently I filled in the BBC "what do you want from the BBC" survey... One of the questions was "how do you feel about the amount of music on the BBC?". I answered "want more ", obvs. They sent the results out yesterday, and I was appalled to see that 22% wanted more, 50% said it was about right and 22% wanted less!

Wild Blue Yonder - Screaming Blue Messiahs

I most definitely see myself as an artist - in much the same way as my idol:

Rosegarden Funeral Of Sores - Bauhaus

For Choked: Blood Sport Buried Alive Two Can Play Blind Faith Inside My World Kiss This Conspiracy The Reaper Wired Knock Out Don't Dictate For Weeds: Hammer Tall Buildings Feed The Creature Turn To The Left Glorious Times Bedtime Mother Tongue Penny Arcade Angels 1-5 Any of 'em could be Xmas no.1! 😁

I can see your hat in the photo!

No, it's from a movie with Trevor Howard, iirc, about the Battle of Britain...

Bit from our gig last Saturday...

Cheers! Note how the two guitarmen are beautifully hidden...

Bit of vid here from Saturday in Chester featuring the only song written entirely by MeMyselfAndI! I've reduced video quality a bit to save on size...

Flash, Bang Wallop - Tommy Steele

I just edited the post having replaced the track with a remastered version containing Bassroom and Mixroom... Hopefully should work now!

I done a small one! This is a funky little groove about the voices telling you what to buy and how it will improve your entire being. Gear is Wal bass with old strings straight into focusrite and PC, double tracked with 2nd track adding some Raum reverb. Drums are programmed in EZ Drummer, guitar is a Strat, keys are from Isis sounds. All rolled in Neutron 3 and Ozone 9.

We (Weeds) played at a small and rather intimate venue in Chester (G21)... It was our first gig as a full band for nine years so we'd spent a couple of days at my house rehearsing and drinking tequila. We don't really rely on any guitar solos - guitar is mainly rhythmic noise - and our singer uses a vocal synth to make weirdness. After being fine in rehearsal it packed up, so some improvisation was called for. So first song was a false start due to laptop sequence mismanagement, but once we got going it seemed to work reasonably well - cock ups were mainly guitar based which was good as much of the set is drum, bass sequence and vox. And vox coped very well without vocal synth, all was generally groovy and I even managed slap bass plus improvised jazz funk solo. No cans were thrown so we could take down the chicken wire after the first song, and towards the back I could see our own @lurksalot pogoing about. It's possible we may be asked back in the spring to play in a larger venue... Gear was ACG-Helix-BBE& Crown amps- Markbass 4x10 with pedal distortion and autowah. Shoes were zebra creepers.