Leonard Smalls

Funnily enough, I've just finished an excellent novel about jazz in Nazi Germany - it was of course very popular in the "decadent" Weimar Republic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Blood_Blues#/media/File:Half-Blood_Blues_book_cover.jpg

I always use combined effects 😁 I normally have on a Future Impact bass synth (with 80s funk zeeeeeeooooow sound), two different envelope followers (one's a Bootsy fwapfwap sound, the other adds a sweep low end), plus basswhammy pedal which either adds one or two octaves (I emphasise some vocal lines by following them 2 octaves up), plus Darkglass tube distortion to thicken up and add grit. All except the distortion are on separate loops of a Wounded Paw blender, so I can control loop and blend levels with the Darkglass on the final output. Not sure how that helps with a Line 6... But I'd say play with it; it's taken me a couple of years to work out how all mine fitted together!

Another gig booked, this time at the Dementia benefit fest at The Dolls House - we're on right in the middle of Punk Easter Sunday! Edited to add: postponed....

Excellent! It'll give you the chance to see our new direction, with breathey vocals and Clannad style backing. 😁😁😁 Full Chester Massive or Lurksalone?

I read the book at age 13... Not as worrying as "Crash" that I read immediately after...

Currently working on a punkjazzfunk version of this with the band - we'd thought we'd give the singer (and audience!) a few minutes to quietly contemplate mounting chaos... May never happen but who knows - we played a convincing groove based on it yesterday!

Currently blowing the cobwebs out with this album filled with gentle ballads... Btw, it's the sweariest the ST Album...

Next gig announced, supporting our very own @cheddatom at Albert's in Nottingham, March 27th... https://www.facebook.com/events/564520891063970/ This one's been postponed until everyone's better....

Just edited a new band video...

You'd be surprised... That mic's only for show!

I've got Radio Bootsy on! https://streaming.radio.co/sead579150/listen?fbclid=IwAR1YU3jZ4bUMUZTYvJXs3gUh3r2MZFZehRNetmyXdUExGnlQVT7PVZliq00

A shouty one from Down on the Farm Festival back in August...

I did.. Though having done it once I knew that I'd have to remove assorted gubbins, I'd already altered the porch and I got a block and tackle attached to the ceiling joists, which were handily 8" ones. So it was relatively straight forward for 3 of us, especially as my mum was moving to a bungalow! Many years ago I was a removals man, so I've done my fair share of piano moves, but that Pfieffer was the heaviest by far; taking a baby grand up 5 flights of stairs was child's play in comparison! I remember moving house when I was 14, and my dad wouldn't get any help, or a tail-lift for the Luton he hired. So the 2 of us lowered it out using seatbelts with my 13 year old sister steadying it!

Not strictly a load-in, though I still remember the Edward's no.8 experience, but I had to get my mum's piano into the house she'd just moved to. So it was up 3 steps from the road - just about fitted through the door but the previous owner had built a little interior porch, which I had to dismantle. I'd wisely hired piano movers but there were only 2 of them - one my sort of size and the other was enormous, which was most helpful for what was to come. We got into the living room, when my mum said "it needs to go upstairs" (she's a piano teacher so wanted to give lessons in the spare bedroom). Now this was no ordinary piano, it was an oak Pfieffer overstrung with oversized cast iron frame and weighed close to 400kgs... And it didn't fit the staircase, though once I'd taken the stair-rail off it did, just. Luckily, I reasoned that it wouldn't go round the right angle at the top, even if tipped on its end so I took off the banisters just in case. I put a climbing rope underneath it, we lifted and the enormous bloke got under too, while me and the other chap heaved and pulled it onto the landing. Strangely, when my mum moved house again a few years later that piano moving firm no longer existed!

I know what you mean! We've had a couple of weird check-ins on our FB page from weird S&M bondage sites! Still - we're sticking with it as we've done the logo!

Screaming Blues!

Good stuff! We should do a double bill - we're Choked! E.P. being mixed at this moment...

It's called "Buried Alive", and from what I understand is about shopping in Bury Market. Though I'm notoriously bad at completely mis-hearing and/or mis-interpreting/making-up lyrics so it could be about the Roger Corman/Ray Milland film, or some phobia or someone's first pet for all I know!

😀😎 It's also one of my favourite albums 🤩 and you'll be appalled to hear that one of our best songs is based on the main 2 riffs from this! However ours is punkfunk, and it's only the bass bits I've, erm, referenced - the rest of the band wouldn't believe me if I told 'em where it came from...

It's just a sneaky way of introducing the kids to harmolodic jazz from an early age... Here's what Jamaaladeen normally does!

😁

Our first song starts with 24 bars of solo bass, which means I can freak the rest of the band out by varying the tempo up until the very last 2 notes... So far audiences have politely indulged us for starting with a bass solo - perhaps because (unusually for us!) it's almost got a hummable melody. Almost!

What this thread shows is: a) some good bands never make it big b) some very poor bands never make it big c) some good bands make it big d) some very poor bands make it big And that one man's good band is another's pile of steaming dog doo... Talking of which, I never understood why this band never made it:

I saw an ad for bassplayer wanted to join guitar and drums to form a funk-rock band - and they were both in my little "town" (1500 people...) So we did a few gigs,then the guitarist left due to too many arguments with the drummer. We then found a singer who'd been with a number of hardcore bands in the 90s, and a guitarist who liked Hendrix. Now we're a funk-punk band... We've just recorded our first 5 track EP and I'm editing a video which should hopefully get us some decent support slots in the new year.

Becoming?