Leonard Smalls

I'd recommend a Lightwave - they're extremely light (probably half my Wal!), sound great and don't have the Beatles overtones 😁

Here's a bit of poppy noisecore; audience are great! And here's some jazzier noisecore: And this is what happens when serious jazzers get involved All are hilariously entertaining!

Every time I saw Ian Dury and the Blockheads I was left open-mouthed, with just a dribble of drool emerging; they were just so tight,and so into it... Other worryingly awesome performances included Jonas Hellborg Trio at the Bassclef, back in his twin neck Wal days; this was remarkable for both the virtuosity of both bass players, but the fact they didn't come on till after 1am! Then there was Trouble Funk, who were probably the joint tightest band (with Ian Dury!), Kraftwerk (in 1981) - considering they barely moved they were amazing, The Cramps (none more rocknroll!), Butthole Surfers at the Mean Fiddler (did I say there was none more rocknroll than the Cramps? Well the Buttholes run 'em pretty darn close!), That Gig with Stanley Clarke, Omar Hakim, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock at the Festival Hall, and finally, James Blood Ulmer with Jamaaladeen on bass and Calvin Weston on drums - I'd never heard jazz played with so much cojones, groove and raw power...

Funnily enough, one of the 1st records (*) I bought was Feeding of the 5000 by Crass! * actually the 1st was Money Money Money by Abba 😮

Shouty punkfunk!

If anyone's wondering just what sort of old tosh you can produce in just over 2 hours, check this! It would be the perfect 3 minute pop song, if it was actually 3 minutes, a lot more poppy and a whole lot better... It may become a new song for the band though!

I've been busy mixing, grading and tarting up a half hour set for the band's online benefit... But I did get an hour yesterday to record something - including for the first time, guitar... Not sure how you play those things with the cheese wire for a top string. Perhaps next time I should try a pick? Anyway, should get chance to coat it in glitter tomorrow!

Personally, I don't like covers unless they're significantly different from the o0riginal! Awesome bass playing on this one!

Talking of which, always loved this!

To be fair, he's quite a nice guy! And I used to occasionally write gig reviews for Leeds Student and Leeds Other Paper. A friend of mine, who's now a famous write, once asked me to cover a gig he'd been assigned so he could go on a date with this lass he fancied... It was Sugar Minott, at some boozer in Chapeltown; I thought it a bit odd he was playing in this hitherto-unknown music venue so a m8 and I schlepped over there. And we were met with fluorescent lights, vinyl floor, old men sipping stout. It turned out that they'd hoped to put the gig on, publicised it (at least to Leeds Student gig reviews editor) then it had fallen through - probably because they didn't know how to put gigs on. However, they did a very nice pint of Guinness, so my mate and I wrote the most gushing review, making it sound like it was The Happening of The Year, possibly the century - all Dub-tastic R-squake bass and spirals of gangasmoke ascending heaven-ward to mingle with Sugar's angelic-host-like voice. We gave it to Mr X, who handed it in as his own... And it was published, followed by scores of letters complaining that it had never taken place. Mr X was severely chastised - don't think he wrote for 'em again!

Funnily enough, he liked us! Him and Ngaire reviewed us a number of times, all (broadly) favourable. That's probably why we never Made It Big!

I used to devour (not literally, obvs) Sounds, then Melody Maker and NME from the age of about 14... I discovered all sorts of bands I'd never get the chance of seeing (being in Chester) so I wrote them all over my school bag instead. So I was very happy indeed when we got some reviews - none of them bad, unfortunately... Here's one from 1991, it's not even flowery in its prose! http://www.pushstuff.co.uk/mmlives/barfroco110591.html

To be fair this was in 6th form... However, when I did have to wear a uniform I somehow got away with a green cotton army shirt, suede skinny Jim dark green tie, canvas drainpipes and 12 hole Docs instead of green acrylic pully and white shirt with horific nylon tie with a cross on it!

Just found a pic of me while still at school!

For me I tend to like stuff with an edge, or a really heavy,funky groove. Or even better stuff with a really heavy funky edge! I'm usually turned off by folkey strummers and breathey female vocals, though I like the Unthanks and the Roches... And I can usually (but not always) cope with Richard Thompson. I tend not to like American songbookey type stuff, or any soft rock. Wet, MoR weedy type stuff need not apply either! And I also don't like growley metal vocals, because thy often sound the same and it's just a bit silly. Saying that,I like Rolo Tomassi. And I'm usually put off by anything where it's all about the vocals; for me, the music has to be an equal to the singing, not just an added on backing to disguise the tedium and meaninglessness of the lyrics!

Aye... You can always add dirt, but can't take it away! If I'm not looking for the sound my pedalboard makes (i.e. Future Impact, Bass whammy, various envelope filters), just either clean or overdriven, I'll plug direct into the 2i2 (or 6i8) then into my DAW. Then I'll duplicate the track and put Bias FX and/or Animate (free versions of both) on that one so it can be blended with the clean.

Can do ,especially at lower bit rates... But I wouldn't record anything in MP3.

But luckily drift is quite minor... If you've got a set of 3 minute songs it's quite easy to slip the audio a few frames. I've recently done some 1/2 hour sets with my band for various online benefits - I made sure our singer either tapped the mic or said something beginning with P before launching into a new song. Then it's a question of either smearing with audience noise or in our case (no audience!) guitar amp buzz to cover the hole. It's nowhere near as much a problem as when a film camera and 1/4" recorder had wildly differing sync generators. We had to count how many frames it drifted by in a certain time, and vary the sync signal by that amount when transferring the audio rushes to 16mm...