Leonard Smalls

I've been doodling a bit on my new fretless bass... And managed to sandwich a smidgeon of melody, a touch of groove and a central dollop of oddness into 3 minutes 18 seconds that'll make you wish for the sound of babies screaming... 🤪

Funnily enough,though I like all his 60s acoustical "straight ahead" type stuff,I much prefer his output from Silent Way on. And I absolutely love Man with the Horn with Marcus, and even Doo Bop!

This is my sort of prog; pompous, unapproachable,virtuoso,completely barking and a 4 minute vocal intro in some Gypsy language! And no goblins...

Funnily enough I prefer Dark Side as it was meant to be heard, in the original reggae. When Floyd covered it they sucked out much of the groove and all of the fun!

It seems odd that even though they've allegedly been producing laser tts since 1989 there's no magazine reviews or any idea at all about pricing... If it was that amazing there'd be more manufacturers and we wouldn't still be dragging a rock over our lps!

Either: a) You're not wrong b) it's all on a level far deeper than any of us can understand I tend toward a). especially having read the Derek Bailey autobiography. Though having read the Derek Bailey autobiography b) is also quite possible! And here's a Yes live performance before production and overdubs 😄😎

There must be at least 20 of us, worldwide! 😁 I remember seeing him years ago, at the Barbican, supporting Bill Laswell (who had Dave Lombardo on drums). There was some hilarious bemusement from large parts of the audience when Derek played - he did his trademark thang, with a DJ and keyboardist who did similar stuff. The bemusement continued as the obvious Slayer fans tried to reconcile Lombardo's double kick assault with Bill's crazed but groovy bass and the absolute racket that saxman John Zorn produced... It showed that many rock fans tend toward the conservative and catholic when it comes to owt really different! I'm not saying that's bad, just that the majority of folks don't like anything that too-out-of-their-comfort-zone. As my dad said "I like what I know and I know what I like!" (he was a skiffle man)

Thing with Derek was that he wasn't exactly looking for chart success... No Owner of a Lonely Heart for him! But as this thread shows, folks like all sorts of stuff; and while I don't like Yes I'd be much more likely to be able to play like them than like Derek, simply because, despite their obvious skill, it's not too difficult to see where they're coming from. With Derek it's just "WTF? " I got into him through his most accessible (probably) album; famously, when he walked into the recording session Jamaaladeen Tacuma greeted him saying "hey Derek, let's Funk!"...

To be fair, if you really want to you can dance to absolutely anything (*) *obviously not Yes 🙂

I can only listen to dance artists like Ornette Coleman, Derek Bailey, and The Decoding Society...

As you say, Yes is for people who don't dance. Or understand what it is to dance. Or what you would actually do if you wanted to dance; I remember 'em at school discos, with their pristine denim jackets their mum had sewed a Yes patch on, looking absolutely mortified if Sarah Jones came up and said "come 'ed'n'dance wiv us!". However, us young punkers would also be suitably appalled if said Sarah asked us - mainly because in those days, as a wannabe cool newpunkwaver with our homemade bumflaps, you didn't dance to Oops Upside Your Head because it was Deeply Uncool. But jumping up and down to "Saturday Night Under A Plastic Palm Tree" somehow was... (It wasn't really!)

Probably! Though I prefer Rush to Yes, despite Geddy's voice - simply because there's far less of The-Worst-Of-Fusion with them. At least in fusion you only have to sit through the annoying stop-start chords and keyboard flurries for a bit before it gets meaty and grooving, unlike Yes where you have to sit through what feels like hours of it, then to make matters worse there's that terrible wailing like a calf being castrated for another 3 eons before your 2 minutes of The Good Stuff. I mean, if they just did The Good Stuff without the filler and That Singing they'd be tolerable. Not groovy enough, but tolerable! In fact, thinking about it, perhaps it would have been better if he did sing about goblins a bit more - at least it'd be less po-faced!

I suspect that the only way for me is to avoid anything either before or after Relayer...

In that case I'm most certainly not part of the target market! Last thing I want to hear is somebody warbling about Dungeons and Dragons at a frequency only dogs and adolescent boys can hear 😎😁 Proper lyrics go something like this: Said, "I go by the name of Lois Lane And you could be my boyfriend, you surely can Just let me quit my boyfriend called Superman" I said, "He's a fairy, I do suppose Flyin' through the air in pantyhose He may be very sexy or even cute But he looks like a sucker in a blue and red suit" I said, "You need a man who's got finesse And his whole name across his chest He may be able to fly all through the night But can he rock a party 'til the early light? He can't satisfy you with his little worm But I can bust you out with my super sperm!" I gon' do it, I gon' do it, I gon' do it, do it, do it 🤩

No idea what he sings about - I'm just guessing based on the song titles and album covers 😁 I rarely listen to actual lyrics, and especially not when the sounds of the singer is like nails on a blackboard! However, to show my Philistine-ishness, I can't be doing with Genesis either (annoyingly pompous) or opera (especially sopranos, nails/blackboard). But strangely, I like Gently Giant and Magma (not po-faced, definitely crazed)...

Can't really be doing with any Yes I've heard (and I used to live with a yes fanatic)... There's far too much annoyingly pitched vocals about whoknowswhatnonsense, the keyboards are on the most annoyingly pompous sounds possible - plus they only play arpeggios and inversions. And the songs have far too much BIG CHORD {space} BIGGER CHORD A BIT UP THEN ANOTHER UP AGAIN {much longer space filled with cymbal widdle) BIG CHORD {space that's about 5.372 beats} HORRIFIC KEYBOARD FANFARE SOUNDING LIKE FOLKY TUNE. This continues for about 10 minutes, then Mr Anderson gives it some falsetto about goblins for another 5 minutes over gentle keyboard arpeggios and cymbals. Finally, 20 minutes into the song there's a good bit which is quickly spoiled by yet another keyboard fanfare and unnecessary stop-start stuff. Sure, it's skilful. But it DOES NOT GROOVE!

New Bootsy, featuring George Benson!

You won't say that when you've heard it!

Shan't need panpipes this month... I have members of the Borborygmus Eructation Ensemble camping in our garden so I shall record their beautiful dawn chorus. Through Future Impact and Fwonk Beta pedals it should sound identical to a fretless bass!

My ears are the £50 type... I use 2x5m Van Damme studio 6mm... Extremely low resistance and capacitance, so definitely electrically sufficient!

Don't even think of looking into Machina Dynamica... And anything that boasts a quantum mechanical explanation for why it actually makes a difference is ripe for sniggering at. Just ask James Randi! As for Cryo treatment 🤣

Funnily enough the only bits of Les I don't like are with Lennon... Sounds like a re-hash of Sergeant Peppers with a good bassplayer 😁 Here's some Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains, odd, whimsical and killer bass:

I'm currently using my studio set up more to make my own music, but I do have a hifi - here with the Leema Xavier speakers - also have some Ditton 66 series 2. Kit is Clearaudio Revolution/SME3009/AudioNote cart into EAR 834Pdeluxe phono, plus Advantage CD player, Denon dvd all into Bow Warlock Pre-amp and Bryston 14bsst power amp. Sounds alright!

Not strictly funk or soul... But still funky!