Leonard Smalls

I did a gig a while ago where I split the signal from my bass, sent one lot to a Line 6 Helix and the other to my complicated pedalboard with 4 channels of fx arrayed round a mixer, then both board outputs went into a stereo rack DBX compressor and into 2 channels of a Crown power amp and 2 Markbass 4x10s. Sounded like the bastard lovechild of Bootsy, Lemmy and Bernie Worrell! Although once it had gone through the PA it was just an indistinct rumble, for so it is written in The Book Of Rock!

Still on a rock groove...

My band of 1987-1993 weren't at all like this, but we had the same van! Though ours was hand-painted matt black and owned by a hippy with a dog called Merlin... And there were no seats in the back, we'd just lie on top of the cabs.

I'd be far more entertained if these long running bands, whose parents probably weren't even born when the band first formed, evolved and tried new directions. Much like Spinal Tap and "Jazz Odyssey"!

This was one of the top bands for me at Rebellion this year... They kicked a$$! Currently touring UK.

It's far more fun than when the stag/hen parties or young farmers are in town!

Played at Rebellion Festival in Blackpool yesterday... It's a big old venue! We were in the Arena. Onstage sound wasn't particularly good - I had an Ampeg fridge which had no definition and was either too loud or too quiet , the volume knob just seemed to jump from one to the other! And there was also terrible FOH sound - the room was very echoey so the engineer presumably tried to compensate by turning everything up, which meant feedback from the bass drum mic and absolutely no defined bass, which is a shame as we're a two bass band! However, we played well, though our guitarist completely forgot what to play in one song... There was a reasonable crowd and nobody threw anything. Also had the pleasure of meeting @cheddatom and seeing his band, Headsticks, who were most excellent - in my top three of the day (with Splodgenessabounds and Culture Shock). Today, looking forward to Spizz Energi.

Cheers! I suspect I may be in a tiny minority using a phat Bootsy sound though...

Tomorrow I'll be using the Rebellion-supplied Ampeg 8x10 and SVT, but FOH will be getting an XLR output from my Helix. That way they'll be getting what I know, rather than trying to work out how to get the best sound out of an unknown amp/cab combo...

And don't forget the GoGo crew...

You'll need to know some Parliament/Funkadelic/Bootsy'sRubberBand!

They're still going!

All of the bands I've been in (bar one, which was hard rock from the outset) have been a "let's see what happens" sort of thing... One band had a jazz-funk drummer, punk mohican singer, blues keyboardist, heavy metal guitarist and me (into anything groovy and out-there); we produced a sort of James Chance and the Contortions meet Butthole Surfers noise... Current band has a hardcore punk singer, classic old-skool punk bass player, me as other bass player-come-widdle-fest-merchant, a guitarist into psychedelia and Hendrix and 70s rock inspired drummer. As a result we don't really sound like any of the other bands on the punk circuit; we have 6 minute songs based on an Ornette Coleman riff, 1 minute 50second punk bangers with slap bass solo, slow chuggy grunge numbers with a tango based chorus, phrygian jazzy middle 8 and double speed rockabilly ending... So I reckon that if you decide in advance exactly what you'll sound like, that's what you're likely to do but you're less likely to produce anything off-the-wall and ever so slightly crazed...

Crazy Djent/Jazz thing...

Next gig for us, Thursday 3rd August at Rebellion Fest in Blackpool. We'll be hoping to accompany the dancers on Strictly at the same venue at some point in the future...

There's quite a few! Vice Squad, Plasmatics, Amyl and the Sniffers, Ctl Drp, Ginjer, Choked (my band!) for a start. And Rolo Tomassi rock a bit!

If he'd listened in school rather than noodling away on his guitar all day he could... All he'd need would be some rust, a bit of aluminium powder and a sparkler.

Was a 2cv so no probs!

It was a great place to play, and the first time I'd even been to Birmingham...

I remember playing Edward's Number 8 back in the early 90s supporting Gaye Bykers, that was the furthest north Barf Roco ever got!

I was a proper man's man back in the day... There was also a little blue cocktail dress, a 50s swimming cozzie and a wedding dress.

And nearby, the Doors "The Lickey End"

And of course, The Lady in Redditch...

The Killing Joke classic "Turn to Redditch"