Leonard Smalls

It's funny that folks have problems syncing... In the Olden Days when I was at BBC Sound we used to have this amazing technical system involving a bit of flat wood hinged to another bit of flat wood. At the beginning of a take someone would bash these 2 bits of wood together, in shot. The resulting frame would be married to the corresponding spike in sound and sync was achieved! Occasionally somebody would forget this clever contraption, so they'd just make do with a handclap... And in these days of digital recording, speeds don't drift - unless you've put the sound into a DAW and autowarped it to the wrong bpm!

In that case, me, Bootsy and Flea watching Larry Graham with Graham Central Station,being supported by Big Tony Fisher and Trouble Funk. We'd need plenty of Bootsy Brewski as well....

Bassist Heaven for me isn't hanging round with other bass players... As it says in Highlander - there can be only one! I realise that others exist but if they're all pedantic misanthropes like me I wouldn't want to spend time with 'em. We'd all be looking down our noses at whoever's on stage and saying: "he's got the fingering wrong" "I wouldn't have played that" "She should be using a pick" "What a terrible tone" "They're playing far too many notes" "Can they only do root and fifth?" So Bassist Heaven is finding a drummer who is rock-solid, grooves and actually listens to the other players, plus guitar that's tight, right on time and doesn't smear sloppy notes everywhere. And we'd be playing in front of an audience who are knowledgeably and appreciative, who ply me with beer after (and during!) the show. I'd even tolerate some mild inappropriate touching!

To be fair Mezerg is always a bit funky...

Looks like a Bryston 14 amp? That would definitely help with bass - mine has a test certificate saying 968/967 w/ch @ 4ohms with around +-40A... And did you not want to make the cabinets just a bit bigger for more extension? I used to have some Kef 104/2s with isobaric-style twin bass units which nearly rivalled my Ditton 66/series2s for quantity of bass, though not for extension.

I'd be thinking 4x that, with about +/- 40amps current swing! Crowns will do that - perhaps not with the finesse of my Bryston but at <1/10 of the price! Saying that, those old Sansui amps put out quite decent grunt....

We've got another Punk 4 The Homeless benefit online on 19th December... Perfect time for us to roll out our new funk/reggae/mathrock direction!

When I was on stage crew at Leeds Uni we had Culture Club play at the Poly - it was not long after "Dus Tha Realy want t'hurt mi?". We all expected crowds of fainting teenage girls so they'd need help... However, turned out we weren't needed as they only played for 20 minutes. There were far more fainting girls when Kajagoogoo played later that year!

I tend to find lyrics of the "She Loves me/She Doesn't love me" type to be just that bit trite while pretending to be deep... I personally don't really care either way about some singer's love life! However, if you're going to have lyrics I'd prefer them to be either powerful, or witty... Here's powerful: You're a star-belly sneech You suck like a leech You want everyone to act like you Kiss donkey while you beach So you can get rich While your boss gets richer off you Well, you'll work harder With a gun in your back For a bowl of rice a day Slave for soldiers 'Til you starve Then your head is skewered on a stake Now you can go, where the people are one Now you can go where they get things done What you need, my son What you need, my son Is a Holiday in Cambodia Where people are dressed in black A Holiday in Cambodia Where you'll kiss donkey or crack Witty, or just downright daft: Now this is what I want you all to do: If you got faults, defects or shortcomings, You know, like arthritis, rheumatism or migraines, Whatever part of your body it is, I want you to lay it on your radio, let the vibes flow through. Funk not only moves, it can re-move, dig? The desired effect is what you get When you improve your Interplanetary Funksmanship. Sir Lollipop Man! Chocolate coated, freaky and and habit forming. Doin' it to you in 3-D, So groovy that I dig me. Once upon a time called Now! Somebody say, "Is there funk after death?" I say, "Is Seven Up?" Yeah, P-Funk!

Nice! I'd be tempted to give them the drive they deserve - something with some oomph... Perhaps an old Crown/Amcron power amp, though on a budget £3-400 will get you a surprisingly fine class D Crown which will make the most of its possible bass extension!

That reminds me, must do some practicing!

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 🤩